Emancipating Scholars: Reconceptualizing Scholarly Output

This research describes the current state of a scholarly publication machine that is highly dependent on journal rankings. Through a critique of the current system and the methodologies used to measure the notion of quality in scholarly research one can discover that the current system is set up to limit a system of open democratic discourse. The process of journal ranking is inherently political and we show how the use of these rankings can stifle the discourse, thereby allowing only a select elite few to be participants. By identifying the constructs of ideational influence and social influence we attempt to create a composite measure for scholarly quality. We draw from past works on communicative theory and democratic discourse to propose a system that has greater transparency, more equal access, open participation, increased truthfulness, and lower power differences.