[Air-l] journals and conferences

[Ted M Coopman]

All,

First a take on abstracts vs. full papers.

Abstracts are (IMO) much more humane and realistic for conference submissions. In my experience, the quality is no higher at conferences and conventions that require a full paper (I'm sure some will disagree here). I am pretty picky about spending my time in sessions and am usually impressed with the range of topics, approaches, and level of discussion at AoIR. Something that may be vexing some AoiR attendees is that we are so multi-disciplinary that it is hard to judge the quality of research in other fields. For example, I once had a conversation with a sociologist (whose name escapes me) and he remarked that he had heard a really interesting presentation, but was perplexed that there didn't seem to be any data...

An issue for social scientists, maybe not so much for rhetoricians and critical theorists.

I think that we could make the abstract submissions better by providing more concrete guidelines. Writing an attractive abstract for AoIR is a particular skill. Maybe we should have an additional form with some questions that would help the reviewers analysis? I think that it might also provide some guidance for submitters.

As for the journal discussion, I do think there is an arms race for publishing that is probably not a healthy development. This in the sense of the quality of submissions and reviews. I'm sure many of us have WTF experience on both ends.

It appears to me that journal status is self-reinforcing. The better the reputation, the more submissions, the lower the acceptance rate, which makes it more prestigious, which attracts higher profile ERB members and more submissions and so on. This keeps top journals on top. At least in COM, there is a definite hierarchy.

Obviously a complex issue. There is the stated purpose of the process (the long conversation and sharing of knowledge) and then the practical application (getting jobs, getting promoted)on top of it. As a media scholar, the gatekeeping function is pretty obvious in both positive and negative ways.

The system is unlikely to change, but I think the real possibility is to develop a  parallel system that allows us to share our work and disseminate it beyond the very limited confines of most journal circulations. Many folks on this list have reported on and work on such projects.

One step might be for authors to retain more copyright power. How that would be balanced with the business aspect of journals is something to discuss.

-TED



Ted M. Coopman
Department of Communication
University of Washington