Analyzing the role of knowledge organization in scholarly communication: An inquiry into the intellectual foundation of knowledge organization

In this dissertation I analyze the relationship between social organization and knowledge organization. This analysis is carried out on two levels. The first level consists of three chapters each examining particular perspectives of the relationship. First, in terms of an examination of how communication technologies have shaped forms of social organization, I argue how knowledge organization is constituted by social organization. Second, I further situate knowledge organization in light of Jürgen Habermas’ theory of the public sphere and argue that this theory can be viewed as a fundamental model of knowledge organization. Third, by drawing on various theories of genre and activity systems, I underpin the connection between social organization and knowledge organization further by seeking to integrate these with knowledge organization. The second level examines the role of knowledge organization in scholarly communication by means of how indexing reflects and responds to the rhetorical activities of scholarly articles. I consider this as how knowledge organization can ascribe cognitive authority to documents. The texts are considered to constitute the mediating link between social organization and knowledge organization. I conclude that this relationship between social organization and knowledge organization must be understood and examined in order to fully account for the role knowledge organization in human activities based on document production and use such as scholarly communication.