I recently met with a representative from an international publishing house that has taken the responsibility for producing a journal with which I am associated. He was assuring the editorial team that our days of putting together the journal in-house were over. “The most important thing to remember”, he told us emphatically, “is to get the copy to us on or before the deadline”. Sounds like commercial publishing to me. As any professional editor will attest, academics are notoriously inept when it comes to deadlines.
So when the editor of The Media asked me to reflect on academic research and publication, making the deadline was the most difficult part of the assignment.
Across both universities and erstwhile technikons – now technical universities -academic research into the areas of media and communication is diverse and eclectic, reflecting a broad range of interests, subject matter, paradigm approaches. In part, this spread is a result of historical patterns, reflecting the way in which various departments were set up, and what their original purposes were. In part, it reflects the changing needs of both the work place and the students, as these are interpreted by universities. Finally, it reflects the resources available to universities at a time of significant restructuring and changing agendas within the higher education sector. Frequently, there are major time lags between a felt-need and the work done in that area, with both the professional world and the academic world claiming that other side does not understand the nature of what they do, what they need and how to forge really useful partnerships.
So what do academics in the area of media and communications research do, and how different is this from the kind of work done by research practitioners working in the industry? In order to begin to answer this question, I thought it would be useful to consider the range of academic journals in the field, and the rationales and rhythms of the work they do.
Peer review
Publishing an academic journal entails sending out a call for papers – an announcement of an upcoming theme that will be the subject of a forthcoming edition; receiving the submitted articles; sending them out to reviewers; collating the reviews; and, if necessary sending the articles back to the authors for revision and changes. Only then can the process of editing the journal begin. Needless to say, each step of the way is time consuming, so academic publishing works with far longer lead times than commercial publishing.
Crucially, published academic research differs from professional or commercial research in two substantial ways: in terms of the readership they reach, and in terms of the processes through which it is produced and disseminated. Readers are made up of other academics, researchers and teachers – who use the articles either to support their own research efforts, or simply to keep up with the field.
More distinctively, academic, or scientific publications, undergo a set of rigorous evaluations to ensure that the material is reliable and credible. Peer review is the primary mechanism ensuring that articles published by scholarly journals meet a minimum required standard.
The quality of the journal is dependent largely on the quality of the reviewers. To this end, journals attempt to attract associate editors and editorial consultants of the highest caliber and standing within their community, since these editorial boards are among the most important markers of the excellence for a journal.
There are a number of rigorous and generally accepted rules about the peer review process. A basic precept of peer review is that the reviewer should be an expert, or at least very knowledgeable, about the subject under review. Secondly, they need to be of the same standing – or higher – than those under review.
Well, that is what peer means – someone who is your equal. Inexperienced reviewers have to start somewhere, but mentorship and practice must be tempered with clarity of judgment. Thirdly, for the process to be deemed as fair, unbiased and independent, there should always be at least two reviewers, and their opinions should coincide in a substantive way. If there are significant differences of opinion, it is usual to break the deadlock by sending the article to a third reviewer who will act as arbitrator. Finally, the aspect of anonymity is vital. The reviewer receives the copy “blind” – i.e. he or she doesn’t know who wrote the article. Furthermore, the writer is not told who the reviewers are. Of course, in an academic community which is relatively small, it is not uncommon for much inspired guessing as to who wrote what, and who reviewed it; however, the degree of achieved anonymity surprising, is great – in most instances, neither writer nor reviewer is aware of the other until the article appears in print, and all is revealed!
Typically, reviewers are asked to decide whether the article can be published as it stands (given the unevenness of scholarship, taken together with the ego of reviewers, this seldom happens); accept with minor changes; return for major rewriting; or reject out of hand. Internationally, the benchmark for the rejection acceptance ratio varies between one in four to one in three. The more prestigious a journal, the higher the rate of rejection.
The maintenance of perceived standards, and a sense of high scientific standard, is essential. In this sense, academic publishing is not too different from commercial publishing – however, where the mark of excellence in commercial publishing is judged by its circulation figures and the amount of money its advertising can command, the mark of success in academic publishing remains its standing in the scientific community. To this end, elaborate systems of ratings have been concocted. These are complex, often contradictory, and highly contested, and make an excellent subject for further discussion.
I want now to turn to the range of academic journals in the field of media and communication studies in South Africa.
South African Journals
Communicatio, based at the University of South Africa, was inaugurated in 1974. Heavily influenced by a north-European (Belgian and German) philosophical approach to communications, the journal initially offered interpretative approaches. Articles focused on hermeneutics, reception theory, phenomenology and existentialism. In a parallel fashion, the professional communication research published in the journal owed much to the American tradition – organisational communication, intercultural communication, a trend that predominated in the 1980s. The guiding hand of its long-time editor, Pieter Fourie, is still evident.
Communicare began life in 1980, focusing almost exclusively on business, marketing organisation and intercultural communication. Little critical discussion, very little theoretical development and debate took place in its pages. The journal is now based at the University of Johannesburg (ex-Rand Afrikaans University) under the watchful eye of Gideon de Wet. In recent years it has taken on a far more engaged multidisciplinary stance, while retaining its core competence in the areas of business communication.
Equid Novi has always focused primarily on issues of journalism, journalism-education and news construction and flows. The home base of this journalism has moved around the country with its founding editor, Arnold de Beer, and is now at the University of Stellenbosch. In the past fifteen years, the journal has been open to a wide variety of paradigmatic approaches, from highly constructed positivist quantitative methodologies to more radical theoretical approaches. Always international in its outlook, in 2005 it became the official mouthpiece of a working group of the Association for the Education of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Of the journals based at Afrikaans universities, Communicatio and Ecquid Novi were the most open to changing paradigms. From the late eighties, both began to publish material that was more eclectic in approach and content, a factor that allowed them to establish significant international profiles after the year 2000.
Critical Arts also began in the early 1980s under the editorship of Keyan Tomaselli, who is still at the helm. It differed from the other journals not only in terms of its political stance, but in terms of the subject matter as well. Covering both media studies (specifically mass media as opposed to interpersonal or business communications) and cultural studies, the journal began from quite different starting points to those based in Afrikaans Universities. The journal initially was constituted as an anti-apartheid enterprise, which attempted to redefine the way that media was taught and researched.
Like much else in the world of academia, the past eighteen months have forced the local academic publishing scene to face up to significant changes. With an exponential growth in academic journals worldwide, there is increasing competition for good articles, and a strongly felt need to distribute copies beyond our borders. As with all else that matters in the twenty-first century, at the top echelons, academia is a global game, and the best journals must become global players, or face marginalization.
The response of South African journals has been remarkable, with the majority of local outlets literally reinventing themselves. The pond has suddenly become bigger, which is a good thing, encouraging South African academics to bring African concerns into the mainstream.
With Internationalisation comes new levels of stringent competition for the best of academic resources – the best authors, the most highly placed editorial boards, the slickest designs and the most efficient distribution system. Locking into global service providers like the mega-publishing houses allows local journals to maintain their editorial independence while at the same time making sure the housekeeping of printing, binding and posting is done by someone else. Of course, there are downsides – the question of intellectual property and the limitations placed on authors and editors by the strict copyright contracts is an issue that needs further debate.
Then there is that vexed question of deadlines. Tardiness is something academics are so very good at, so I will just have to keep reminding myself of my good intentions.
Professor Ruth Teer-Tomaselli of the University of KwaZulu-Natal is the UNESCO Chair in Communications.