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Discourse and ideology are interrelated concepts in social sciences and the humanities and are even occasionally employed interchangeably. This paper sheds light on their relationship in academic discourse and examines the role of sociology as a scientific field in its conceptualization. Using bibliometric analysis, we examined 15,716 academic publications mentioning "discourse" or "ideology" in their title and written in English by American and British scholars between 1966 and 2015. The investigation focused on the two terms' conceptual environment, areas of usage, journals, and the organizations to which the authors were affiliated. First, we conclude that although some sociology researchers have attempted to create a sociological definition for the concept of discourse, sociologists are not its most active users. The same is true for ideology. These concepts have established niches in other disciplines (political science and history for "ideology," and educational science and linguistics for "discourse"). Second, throughout the years, the field of discourse studies has become more diversified and fragmented than that of ideology. Third, the leading organizations in both fields are prestigious American and British universities, which indicates that discourse and ideology are elements of the intellectual elites' language. Fourth, the concept of discourse was more frequently applied than that of ideology in the years 2010–2015, and we expect that it will remain popular among scholars in the next decade. As for ideology, we believe that new social challenges could foster the rediscovery of this concept in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Max Weber (1864-1920) is considered one of the canonical founders of sociology, while W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963), author of The Philadelphia Negro (1899), The Souls of Black Folk (1903), and Black Reconstruction (1935), has only recently been included in the sociological canon. We provide a historical review of what we know of their relationship in order to first ask, what did Du Bois say about Weber, and second, what did Weber say about Du Bois? We then analyze the extant scholarly discourse of published English-language academic journal articles that substantively mention both Weber and Du Bois in order to address a third question: what did other scholars say about their relationship? We provide an analysis of the variation of scholars’ perceptions on the relationship between Du Bois and Weber to illumine the dominant assumptions about founding figures and the origin story of American sociology writ large. We argue that three mechanisms of white group interests configured the marginalization of Du Bois from both mainstream and sub-disciplinary sociological theory: (1) reduction or “knowing that we do no know and not caring to know” (when knowledge is perceived as irrelevant to white group interests), (2) deportation or “not wanting to know” (when knowledge is systematically exiled), and (3) appropriation or “not knowing that we do not know”) (when dominant knowledge usurps or assimilates challenges to that knowledge). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]