Let Go of My Throat: The Academic Journal Grip of Death
July 30, 2024
There are several problems with the current system of academic publishing, like fake research and citation feedback loops. Then there is the nasty structure of the system itself. Publishers hold the very institutions that produce good research over a financial barrel when it comes to accessing and furthering that research. Some academics insist it is high time to ditch the exploitative (and science-squelching) model. The Guardian vows, “Academic Journals Are a Lucrative Scam—and We’re Determined to Change That.” Writer and political science professor Arash Abizadeh explains:
“The commercial stranglehold on academic publishing is doing considerable damage to our intellectual and scientific culture. As disinformation and propaganda spread freely online, genuine research and scholarship remains gated and prohibitively expensive. For the past couple of years, I worked as an editor of Philosophy & Public Affairs, one of the leading journals in political philosophy. It was founded in 1972, and it has published research from renowned philosophers such as John Rawls, Judith Jarvis Thomson and Peter Singer. Many of the most influential ideas in our field, on topics from abortion and democracy to famine and colonialism, started out in the pages of this journal. But earlier this year, my co-editors and I and our editorial board decided we’d had enough, and resigned en masse. We were sick of the academic publishing racket and had decided to try something different. We wanted to launch a journal that would be truly open access, ensuring anyone could read our articles. This will be published by the Open Library of Humanities, a not-for-profit publisher funded by a consortium of libraries and other institutions.”
Abizadeh explores how academic publishing got to the point where opening up access amounts to a rebellion of sorts. See the write-up for more details, but basically: Publishers snapped up university-press journals, hiked prices, and forced libraries to buy in unwanted bundles. But what about those free, “open-access” articles? Most are not free so much as prepaid—by the authors themselves. Or, more often, their universities. True, or “diamond,” open access is the goal of Abizadeh and his colleagues. Free to write, free to read, and funded by universities, libraries, and other organizations. Will more editors join the effort to wriggle out of academic journals’ stranglehold? And how will publishing behemoths fight back?
Cynthia Murrell, July 30, 2024
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