The Politics of Journal Publishing (music education edition)

“I’ve been sharing with friends and colleagues a wonderful article from cultural studies by Ted Striphas, ‘Acknowledged Goods: Cultural Studies and the Politics of Academic Journal Publishing.’ I’ve gotten enough feedback, including a great discussion in our doctoral seminar at Illinois, that I thought I’d mention it here (if you’re within an institution that subscribes to T&F journals, you might have access here, otherwise, there’s a free version here). And a tip of the hat to Super Bon!, where I learned of the Striphas piece. I wanted to see if some of the points he made held true for music education. Google scholar now creates journal ranks, and here are the top five for music education ... [Use the link above to access the chart provided by the blogger] Now, let’s look at some of the points Striphas makes about journals in cultural studies and see if they hold true for these journals. This isn’t a complete examination, but enough to get the conversation started... Of course, JRME and the rest of the MENC publications are now handled by Sage and R&L. IJME also moved to Sage, likely for the reasons Striphas outlines. In other words, ten years ago 80% of these journals were published by non-profits, now 40% are. Striphas’ claim seems to have merit, even with just a quick look at one list of top journals... The average subscription price (print + electronic) for the for-profit journals is $517.33 per year, whereas for the non-profit the average is $203.00 per year. So, the for-profit journals charge just over 250% the cost of the non-profit, and I suppose there’s warrant for the assertion that they do so because they can. You may also, like me, be shocked at the high prices for institutions to subscribe to some of these journals—or that an issue of IJME costs 6.5 times more than an issue of BCRME—which is one indication of the degree to which scholars are insulated from many of the costs of the higher education system... On the personal side, I’ve experienced some of the alienation described (mostly, losing rights when you publish, often without much sense of the rights being signed away). On the upside, I’ve had some good experiences attaching the CIC Author’s Addendum to contracts for several publications.Conversations about the politics of journal publishing are worth having with graduate students, and Striphas’ piece is a great place to start the conversation off with some of the big issues laid out sensibly. It also relates to issues of intellectual property generally.”