Open Access vs. The Prestige Machine

• In Event: 50660 - Section on Marxist Sociology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 3: Power and Stratification

Abstract

When the libertarian ethos of California met the Internet, the unofficial motto of the Internet became “information wants to be free.” This motto still circulates in the popular press and academia. And it feels like information should be at our fingertips. But the reality is far from free information. Because of the advent of paywalls, it turns out “information costs money.” This is true for academic publishing, but scholarly journals present a further level of gatekeeping through what I call the “prestige machine.” In this chapter, I define both open access and the prestige machine as they relate to scholarly journals. I argue that while open access online-only journals provide easy access to researchers and the public, the emphasis on the old way of publishing and citing top journals reifies the power structure in academia. This will take a Frankfurt School approach that draws out the contradictions in academic publishing online.

Authors

• David Michael Arditi, University of Texas-Arlington

• Jennifer Miller, Independent Scholar