SOCIAL REPRESENTATION AND THE CHANNELS OF SCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATION: the case of national scientific journals in the area of dentistry

Abstract

The general objective of this work was to understand the process of hierarchization of the scientific journals of the dentistry area. It was adopted as theoretical perspective the Moscovic´s (1981, 1984) studies about social representations. In methodological terms, a qualitative approach was adopted. The population was constituted starting from the researchers with productivity in the CNPq´s system. The collect instruments were questionnaires with open questions and the curricula vitae of the focused population. The data analysis pointed out that the Dentistry scientific community's conception on the scientific journals involves quality and prestige criteria of objectives (structures materialized in the journals) and subjective (norms, faiths, values). The criteria and values are created and maintained by the own community through the communication, interaction and influence of its members. Once awake, those start to make part of concrete structures maintained through the community's behavior that looks for to publish your best goods in the international scientific journals and the secondary goods in the national scientific newspapers of quality.