Peer Review of Online (Media Theory) Journals

To write in an academic style takes time. We format citations. We substantiate arguments. Even the formatting of a paper is very regulated. It's about organization, discipline, and endurance. The idea is that we compete for people's attention, their time. Adherence to scholarly guidelines is supposed to signal quality and authority. Academia is much about how colleagues perceive you. People may have good writing skills and much at stake without feeling the need of pushing their material into the academic corset. Audience is a key question. Whom do we want to address? Is it a core group of fellow scholars or are we in for a multitude of readers?

This issue comes up with open access, online journals. Such sites have to establish themselves. For people to perceive them as an inspiring source in a particular area they need to distinguish themselves from a zine or a casual blog. But that can misfire. Freshness and readability can be lost in translation into academic formats. I am not arguing against academic or scholarly writing in general. I have benefited myself from such writing style but was always more fond of wilder incarnations of the same text. Scholarly writing has its place and it is not in danger of extinction. But there must be a legitimate place for untamed, experimental writing of media theory.

When thinking through the mechanics of online journals we also encounter the big academic legitimizer: (blind=anonymous) peer-review. Studies have shown that anonymity did not change the criticism. Peer review is controversial also in science circles. So, how then to evaluate the quality of theory? Peer review possibly only re-inscribes the same old academic rituals and ideas. Peer reviewers of established journals are more often than not an older band of brothers. Peer review often takes a very long time while texts may need to go out fast. Wikipedia states "In addition, some sociologists of science argue that peer review makes the ability to publish susceptible to control by elites and to personal jealousy. The peer review process may suppress dissent against "mainstream'" theories. Reviewers tend to be especially critical of conclusions that contradict their own views, and lenient towards those that accord with them.... ideas that harmonize with the elite's are more likely to see print and to appear in premier journals than are iconoclastic or revolutionary ones..."

Those who researched, the article points out, are unclear about the value of peer-review. They do argue that reality shows that there is no paper too flawed not to be published in print. Other articles argue along similar lines that only orthodoxy is enforced, not quality. So, forget about peer review in the way it is exercised right now. But what comes next?

Are frequently rotating reviewers a valid response to the pretended neutrality of blind peer-review? How do you facilitate quality media theory journals online? What is high quality media theory? William Arms looks at Amazon.com's book reviews and their 6-star system. Also measured could be the number of people who recommend an essay to others.