ABSTRACT
Legitimations of the social order are present in virtually all forms of communication in society. Thomas Kuhn's studies of the impact of communication upon the scientific community led him to propose that the scientific community produces its knowledge and its world view simultaneously through what he calls paradigm creation. Communities, the sociologist Gerald Suttles says, are dialogic representations. Scientific communities are maintained in paradigm articulation, through training programs in universities, textbooks, the circulation of work through journals, all of which helps to orient the tasks and perspectives of its members. Epistemic communities, such as scientific communities, military or medical communities, religious communities, or ideological movements, are characterized by an interlinking of roles, loyalties, and perspectives. The sociologist Burkart Holzner believes a social role is defined by two factors, by its institutional sphere and by its particular loyalties. Institutional spheres provide conventional frames of reference and knowledge.
