Funding open access in media studies: The case of mediastudies.press

"This case study recounts the brief history of the open access publisher mediastudies.press, with the aim to draw broader lessons about #openaccess in film, media, and communication studies. The press, which I established in 2018, is scholar-led, nonprofit, and fee-free. It publishes books and a diamond OA journal, History of Media Studies (2020-). Mediastudies.press was founded as a self-conscious experiment, with three overlapping motivations: (1) to demonstrate the viability of a collective funding, fee-free approach to OA publishing; (2) to provide a home for book projects underserved by the commercial publishing ecosystem; and (3) to furnish a platform for multimedia and versioned projects particularly appropriate to the kinetic and formally inventive media studies fields. A fourth motivation was more personal. I had begun writing about open access issues in the mid2010s with gathering interest.[1] My sense was that I ought to learn more about the scholarly publishing landscape if I was to make informed critiques of, and proposals around, the prevailing system. Diving in head first with a small press struck me as a viable – if over-ambitious – means to that end. Thus mediastudies.press was born...."