Opening the black box of citations: a qualitative analysis on the basis of the taxonomy of Erikson and Erlandson

Abstract

Over the past few years, citation practice has become progressively more pertinent to academic production, with important consequences. The aim of this paper is to contribute to communication theory through a critical analysis of literature on Communication, Development and Social Change (CDSC) published in Spain. This analysis was performed on the basis of the citation categories suggested by Erikson and Erlandson (2014). The conclusions of this paper point to the dominance of citations that, in many cases, reveal a disturbing disregard for the cited works and a general lack of scholarly debate between authors and conflicting paradigms.