On Feb 9, 2008, at 10:32 AM, Caroline Haythornthwaite wrote:
This one has prompted me to respond! ... This is such an odd view of "powerful academics". It is precisely the "powerful academics", aka tenured and/or full Professors, who can afford to go to these new venues.
See my response to a recent post about scholars wanting to extend their reputations into the future.
Moreover, if work is not getting full play in journals -- because of the invisibility and inaccessibilty of print journals or fee- based online journals -- then why wouldn't we all flock to online publishing to gain the 'power' of widespread access.
Because online publication isn't worth the trouble unless the big dogs publish there as well.
So, why don't we? -- because, believe it or not, many of us actually have put time and energy into journals -- setting them up, reviewing papers, considering the standards of good research, argumentation and knowledge, and wanting to make it worth someone taking the time to open up a journal, and for those outside our discipline to take us seriously as a discipline.
Ever notice that no one outside the field of communication regards it as something to take seriously. Administrators clearly perceive it as a dumping ground for students who can't make it in other departments (the faculty-student ration in most large communication departments far exceeds that of other departments. And I'd be rich if I had a nickle for every time someone in another discipline asked me what I was doing in such a backwater as communication. I'd say there's nothing to lose in trying something new. And what proof is there that any of my suggestions of how we should open our journals to more editorial voices lower standards? CNET.com, a commercial enterprise whose very survival depends on readers perceptions of the worth of its content, not only provides readers with their editors' judgments about the items they review, but also aggregates the opinions of their readers about those items and even lets them right long form reviews, many of which I have found more informative than those provided by the editors. How can more eyeballs focused on an item, and the free ability to debate an items merit, LOWER standards. That doesn't make any sense. Your argument that those presently possessing editorial power are the only one's capable of keeping up standards is the same argument that old school, short-sighted, MSM journalists say when they reject blogers' claims to being journalists as well. The old school folks support their argument by pointing to the inaccuracies that can be found in the blogosphere, But this is short-sighted because it not only ignores examples like Jason Blair or the failure of nearly the entire MSM journalism community to accurately report on Iraq's (completely lack of) WMDs and relations with Al Qaeda, but also ignores the fact that the blogosphere is self-correcting while MSM journalism is decidedly not. This is also the argument that all those old-school, short-sighted academics make about Wikipedia. They disallow their students from citing Wikipedia, and promulgate the claim that it is untrustworthy, because of the few instances where someone has manipulated a Wikipedia entry, without recognizing that Wikipedia is self-correcting, and fraud is easily detected by simply clicking on the "History" tab of each entry, while editorially locked- down encyclopedia's are not self-correcting and provide no such history file.
Yes, it is a gatekeeper role, and I'm proud to be part of it as should be all others who strive for quality in their work and *their* journals.
Wow. That says it all right there. I thought scientific discourse was supposed to be about the open exchange of ideas. How does gate- keeping square with that? Sure, my suggested reforms of the system change would increase the number of articles published and number of editorial voices hear. But there are plenty of successful models already in place on the Internet for filtering through the flood of information on the Internet. C'mon, doesn't anyone on this list believe in the open exchange of ideas and the ability of Internet tools and models like Wikipedia to help people find the truth. Not even the founder of Wikipedia. Gee Whiz. Christian Nelson