On Feb 7, 2008, at 7:33 PM, Heidelberg, Chris wrote:
There are many great research projects that are not seeing the light of day because of the media monolopoly and it is time for the dispossed to create their own online journals.
Publishers have no reason to squelch great research. Their only interest is in increasing their revenue, which would actually be improved if the journals they published had a wider representation of thought. But they're hamstrung by the dynamics of academia I mentioned earlier. This is clear, because they're more than happy to create new journals that represent new theoretical or methodological viewpoints when the readership for those viewpoints becomes big enough to sustain a journal.
I have worked in the media for 20 years and I arrived at that conclusion long ago, and so must academic otherwise it is engaging in self-censorship rather than spreading knowledge which we are all required to do.
Academia is not a sentient being that can perform intentional actions. But individual academics are such beings and can perform such actions. Further, whether consciously or not they follow what they perceive are their self-interests, which logically lead to the current situation, as I indicated before. The only way to change the situation is to change academics' self-interests and their perception of how those self-interests must or can be fulfilled. Anyone got any ideas? Christian Nelson