Comments on: What Did Happen With Political Theory?

By: Fr.

Fr. — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:53:54 +0000

Sage seems quite proud that “[they] publish well over 500 journals”, notwithstanding the decreasing returns and Gulliver effects associated with the management of so many titles. (Is there anyone who really stumbles on a journal they do not know and think, “this is edited by Wiley–therefore it must be quite good”?) In my ideal world of academic publishing, editors would never handle that many titles. Beyond some critical-mass point, some of the journals will necessarily be mediocre, or will get stricken with pointless editorial conflicts generated by “misunderstandings”.

By: Steve LaBonne

Steve LaBonne — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:10:42 +0000

Why did Murdoch buy the WSJ for a squillion dollars?

Vanity.

By: Phillip Hallam-Baker

Phillip Hallam-Baker — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 01:30:39 +0000

Buggy whip business models can go on for decades before they collapse, that is not a mystery.

What is a mystery is the willingness to buy out the companies at huge premiums after the buggy whip status is clear. Why did Murdoch buy the WSJ for a squillion dollars?

By: StevenAttewell

StevenAttewell — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:52:52 +0000

Zamfir:

Academic politics represent the Platonic ideal of the observation that, when it comes to politics, the lower the stakes, the nastier it gets.

Philip:

I agree, they don’t make sense. Especially in the era of digital publication, it doesn’t seem to make sense to have quarterly or yearly paper publications be the acme of advancement. I’m of the opinion that in ten years, ownership/membership/participation in top-flight academic blogs will replace journal publication on c.v’s.

By: Steve LaBonne

Steve LaBonne — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:53:58 +0000

The logic that Phillip points out was already plainly visible when I left academia nearly a decade and a half ago. It’s a constant surprise to me that all this time later, the academic-publishing dinosaurs STILL walk the earth. I suppose that’s a tribute to the conservatism-bordering-on-inertia of academic mores.

By: Phillip Hallam-Baker

Phillip Hallam-Baker — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:50:52 +0000

I find these arguments over who publishes the journals a fascinating distraction from the question of whether there will be any role whatsoever for commercial publishers in academic journals in future.

Sage appears to be engaged in the type of mad acquisition frenzy that many a newspaper conglomerate went on a few years back. Like the newspaper proprietors, Sage might well discover that the whole industry has gone buggy-whip on them.

The economics of academic publishing make no sense. The academics are not paid for writing the articles or for editing them. The only value they get from the process is tenure advancement. In the computer science field this is quite literally true, the only reason for reading the journals is to work out what sort of articles they publish. We read preprints from the Web, not the journal versions. If your article is only available in a journal it is available to only 10% of the field, and the least influential 10% at that.

Such economic peculiarities can persist for some time, but they don’t last forever. It does seem rather eccentric to bet on them continuing.

By: Zamfir

Zamfir — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:15:36 +0000

Are these kinds of power struggles not just a hobby for sociologists, like computer people who like to change their operating system when they are bored?