Measuring Vogue in American Sociology (2011-2020)

Abstract: This study investigates the social dynamics of knowledge production in American sociology. Departing from traditional approaches focused on citations, co-authorship, and faculty hiring, we introduce a method capturing the dynamics of networks inferred from text to explore which ideas gain traction (a.k.a vogue). Drawing on sociology doctoral dissertations and journal abstracts, we trace the movement of word pairs between peripheral and core semantic networks to uncover dominant themes and methodological trajectories. Our findings demonstrate that regional location and institutional prestige play critical roles in shaping the production and adoption of research trends across 114 sociology PhD-granting institutions in the United States. We show that applied research topics, such as crime and health, despite being perceived as less prestigious than theoretically oriented subjects, serve as the primary driving force behind the emergence and diffusion of trends within the discipline. This work sheds light on the institutional mechanisms that govern knowledge production, demonstrating that sociology's intellectual landscape is not dictated by simple top-down diffusion from elite institutions but is instead structured by the contextual and institutional factors that facilitate specialization and segmentation.