Why Journals are the Dinosaurs of Academia » Cyborgology

“Answer: They wield enormous (and terrifying) power, yet  they are ill-adapted to function in a changing environment... Anyone familiar with academic careers knows that conventional (read print) journal publications are the be-all end-all criterion in evaluating potential hires... In the age of the printing press, journals were, by far, the most efficient and enduring form of communication... In fact, it is nearly impossible to imagine the emergence of Modern science without existence of this medium. Thus, in the beginning, journals become symbolically and ritually important because they were functionally necessary... Today, academia finds itself in a state of hysteresis (à la Bourdieu); that is say, our habits have become maladapted to the field or environment in which they are performed. In the proceeding two decades, however, the practical justifications for the production of print journals or conference proceedings has evaporated in light of the Internet’s emergence.  These vestigial organs of the academy should have slowly withered away, becoming fossilized in archives. Yet, print media remain firmly entrenched, retaining all their symbolic significance, while lacking any of their earlier practical import.  Our cult-like worship of print media is far from benign; the privileging of the print over the digital, in fact, has the opposite effect than was originally intended.  Instead of facilitating the rapid dissemination of ideas, it hinders it.  Print is a solid, heavy medium (as Bauman explains); it travels slowly and is expensive to reproduce.  Digital information is liquid and light; it travels instantaneously and is free to reproduce... There ought to be a debate within the academy that seriously considers whether the article optimally utilizes the potential of digital platforms...  De facto, academics in every discipline are utilizing blogs, Twitter, video, and other ‘new media’ to communicate their ideas (and, incidentally, to communicate them to much wider—read interdisciplinary and lay—audiences). De jure, however, we still valorize the article, particularly, the print article.  Who/what suffers? Young academics, socially-active academics, the quality of conversation within the academy, and any layperson or lay-community who stands benefit from the fruits of academic knowledge.  Who benefits? Those entrenched in the old system, whose habits are better suited to yesteryear and who still have sufficient power to resist within the academy to resist any change in the standards of evaluation.  What can we do?  It’s time for the a younger generation and those on the outside to fight our way on to hiring committees.  It’s time for us to establish a unified agenda that involves developing more expansive and inclusive criteria for evaluation.  It’s time (as Patricia Hill Collins once said) to leverage our power as ‘outsiders within’—to learn to function, even thrive, within the system as we systematically work to reform it.”