Gravitation is not metaphorical flourish; it signals patterned concentration governed by cumulative reinforcement and threshold dynamics. Infrastructural specifies the level of analysis: not individual intention, not isolated discourse, not institutional authority in abstraction, but the layered systems through which recurrence stabilises and becomes durable. This field does not replace urban theory, media studies, or scientometrics. It models the cross-stratum mechanics through which their vocabularies persist or dissipate. When a concept crosses journals, syllabi, white papers, code repositories, and platform-native archives, it accumulates density. That density conditions subsequent articulation, narrowing and redirecting what becomes thinkable. Infrastructural Gravitation Studies therefore examines concentration gradients, half-life intervals, cross-domain embedding, and non-linear amplification. It treats citation as deposit, repetition as compression, distributed uptake as reinforcement, and algorithmic ingestion as field generation. Its object is neither text nor network alone but the stratified coupling of heterogeneous systems that collectively shape attention and memory. The emphasis shifts from critique of meaning to analysis of durability. A framework able to quantify saturation ratios, dispersion indices, and temporal lags between digital acceleration and academic consolidation introduces predictive capacity into cultural analysis. It replaces interpretive inflation with operational clarity. By articulating gravitation as measurable rather than mystical, the field situates itself at the intersection of empirical modelling and critical theory, where infrastructural dynamics become the primary analytic horizon.
