The junkification of research, 2025, Carl Rhodes and Martina K Linnenluecke

[SNT Gatchaman]

The junkification of research

Spoiler: Authors

Carl Rhodes; Martina K Linnenluecke

This essay considers the emergent phenomenon of ‘junkification’ in academic research publishing. The term junkification was originally coined to describe the increasing volume of low-quality content and products permeating digital platforms. Extending junkification to online academic publishing, we draw on literature that frames academic research as an increasingly commodified good.

We theorise that this commodification has enabled the same mechanisms that underpin the shift to junkification in digital marketplaces (and their subsequent degradation) to permeate online academic publishing. We argue that this trend represents a further perversion of the long-standing and pervasive ‘publish or perish’ culture in academia. As commercial publishing interests converge with new technologies, a system emerges where scholars increasingly bear the costs of low-esteem publishing that limits genuine scholarly contributions.

We analyse the structural and cultural shifts within academic publishing that facilitate and perpetuate the junkification of research, and call for a re-evaluation of the underlying values and practices sustaining scholarly communication to counteract this trend.

Web | DOI | PDF | Organization | Open Access

 

[SNT Gatchaman]

Our review has shown that academic research is increasingly subjected to processes of junkification and enshittification in an analogous manner to what has been observed in online platforms. The commodification of research has been created by an increasingly competitive academic landscape that has simultaneously prized journal ranking lists and journal impact-factors as the measure of research quality over and above the intrinsic value of the research itself.

Despite the ‘prestige’ associated with academic publishing, editors typically receive minimal compensation, and the critical functions of quality control and fact-checking are relegated to unpaid peer review – based on voluntary commitments to maintain scholarly standards . The digital revolution has prompted a shift towards an online production process, which has rendered physical printing (and its associated costs) and concerns about page limits virtually obsolete.

Companies like Springer Nature, Elsevier, Wiley-Blackwell and Taylor & Francis have become market leaders and reliable sources of profitable investment. Junkification is a deliberate and exploitative business practice that trades research quality for corporate revenues.

Our use of the term junkification does not refer to publishing in ‘lower-prestige’ or unranked journals, but to a systemic erosion of quality controls, integrity and innovation in those parts of online academic publishing where commercial incentives are directly tied to volume. Junkification denotes a structural condition rather than a judgement of individual journals or authors and creates a publishing environment that prioritises throughput over scholarly contribution.

Why then do scholars and their institutions continue to support commercial publishing models that largely benefit from content generated through third-party funding and the free labour by authors, reviewers and editors? The answer lies in established norms and expectations that are deeply embedded in academia. There is an entrenched perception of the quality of peer reviewed articles over other types of academic outputs.

 

[Creekside]

I'd apply junkification to arts too. When I look at "top 100" lists of books, music, shows, etc, to me the rankings have nothing to do with quality of the art, but rather media exposure of the work. Someone shitting on a canvas can get more media attention than someone who paints a really lovely nature scene. Number of papers published in which media, or number of citations, is not a good measure of quality. The more (falsely) exciting the paper is, the more citations it's likely to receive.

If a paper gets hundreds of citations, and then it's retracted, isn't it still a win for the author?

 

[bobbler]

"Our review has shown that academic research is increasingly subjected to processes of junkification and enshittification in an analogous manner to what has been observed in online platforms. "

I feel out of touch - having been surprised to see the word in a journal, but quite used to BS being a proper term, I looked up enshittification (and the journal to see it is published by Sage Journals) and found that it was Macquarie's word of the year in 2024 in Australia

‘What many of us feel’: why ‘enshittification’ is Macquarie Dictionary’s word of the year

The committee’s honourable mentions went to ‘right to disconnect’ and ‘rawdogging’

www.theguardian.com

 

[rvallee]

The commodification of research has been created by an increasingly competitive academic landscape

'Competitive' doesn't really describe things accurately. When we look at the giant mass of junk pseudoscience in evidence-based medicine, I don't see any competition happening. The same derivative nonsense dominates, unopposed, despite absolutely no merit. In psychosomatic/biopsychosocial ideology, there is literally none of that, everyone is aligned in a cycle of self-praise for producing the same garbage. I see zero criticism over ideas, even outcomes. It functions far more like a church than academia.

Regulatory capture is more like it, and once a market has been captured, it simply shuts down all competition. The ultimate goal is total domination. It resembles competition, but it's not at all based on merit, which is the only definition of competitive that can apply here. It encourages, hell almost requires, cheating and fraud.

There is an entrenched perception of the quality of peer reviewed articles over other types of academic outputs.

And this is actually one of the mechanisms of regulatory capture. Instead of merit-based competition, what we see is a closing of the ranks on competing ideas, which is very easy to do when reviewers can shut down competing ideas. Even the top tier journals engage in it. Cochrane is a great example of how it completely locks in fashionable ideas, making them impossible to even address them in the normal ways. Whenever a fashionable idea is challenged in any way, we keep seeing its dominant influencers given some veto right to essentially dismiss all criticism. It just keeps happening again and again, editors basically saying "send this to the authors and if they disagree, well, tough shit".

A competitive system does not allow incidents like we have seen of Simon Wessely exerting pressure to change publications he deems insufficiently generous to him, described in a way as if the journal had basically gifted him the privilege to be a reviewer, about himself. This is about the clearest sign of a system that doesn't even pretend to bother with any of this stuff.

In the end the real system is about money and power. Success is defined by financial success, by generating money to people who invest in return for profit. We know something works if it makes money, and anything that works will primarily be used for that purpose. The academic system has become a parody of itself in most ways.

 

[Utsikt]

In the end the real system is about money and power. Success is defined by financial success, by generating money to people who invest in return for profit.

It’s the same «it’s good for the economy» meme, ignoring that the 12 people with the most money own more than the 4 billion with the least, so it’s primarily good for the wealthy.

 

[bobbler]

The junkification of research

Spoiler: Authors

Carl Rhodes; Martina K Linnenluecke

This essay considers the emergent phenomenon of ‘junkification’ in academic research publishing. The term junkification was originally coined to describe the increasing volume of low-quality content and products permeating digital platforms. Extending junkification to online academic publishing, we draw on literature that frames academic research as an increasingly commodified good.

We theorise that this commodification has enabled the same mechanisms that underpin the shift to junkification in digital marketplaces (and their subsequent degradation) to permeate online academic publishing. We argue that this trend represents a further perversion of the long-standing and pervasive ‘publish or perish’ culture in academia. As commercial publishing interests converge with new technologies, a system emerges where scholars increasingly bear the costs of low-esteem publishing that limits genuine scholarly contributions.

We analyse the structural and cultural shifts within academic publishing that facilitate and perpetuate the junkification of research, and call for a re-evaluation of the underlying values and practices sustaining scholarly communication to counteract this trend.

Web | DOI | PDF | Organization | Open Access

Of course it is really obvious, but somehow has only just dawned on me explicitly but ...

if academia really relies on the principle of having 'the literature'

and an expense for eg universities and other institutions is purchasing access to the databases and journals via licenses


and these are becoming owned by businesses that merge and aggregate so become larger

I'm assuming given the careful risk planning that institutions do individually but also in the various networks and groupings within their sectors that they've picked up on this as a surprisingly big issue.

That without access to these then they can't sell any of their 'products/services' because research, teaching and all sorts of other functions I can't think of likely now would become sub-par at best would they not? A university without any access to the key journals?

Does anyone know whether there are protective mechanisms to ensure that power is limited otherwise technically it could even become geopolitical if it is like the classic 'owning the back-catalogue of a famous artist' or 'buying a patent from a competitor to stop it coming to market' situation and most of an entire country's historic academic literature can only be used or accessed via companies who could theoretically be bought by anyone?

For example do and could universities have back-up plans such as their own archive which they are allowed to use and agreements with other institutions etc should for example all of the big journals decide to switch off access - eccentric as that might be or seem? How does it work in actual 'ownership' of the works itself?

Of course the other thing in the back of my mind is changing them to be somewhat more like media organisations where certain ideologies or approaches could be preferred, and whilst there are technically as it notes peer review and editors they all work in the same hierarchy that they are assessing and I don't know what the obligations and/or limitations of owner organisations are regarding the content itself?

 

[bobbler]

'Competitive' doesn't really describe things accurately. When we look at the giant mass of junk pseudoscience in evidence-based medicine, I don't see any competition happening. The same derivative nonsense dominates, unopposed, despite absolutely no merit. In psychosomatic/biopsychosocial ideology, there is literally none of that, everyone is aligned in a cycle of self-praise for producing the same garbage. I see zero criticism over ideas, even outcomes. It functions far more like a church than academia.

Regulatory capture is more like it, and once a market has been captured, it simply shuts down all competition. The ultimate goal is total domination. It resembles competition, but it's not at all based on merit, which is the only definition of competitive that can apply here. It encourages, hell almost requires, cheating and fraud.

And this is actually one of the mechanisms of regulatory capture. Instead of merit-based competition, what we see is a closing of the ranks on competing ideas, which is very easy to do when reviewers can shut down competing ideas. Even the top tier journals engage in it. Cochrane is a great example of how it completely locks in fashionable ideas, making them impossible to even address them in the normal ways. Whenever a fashionable idea is challenged in any way, we keep seeing its dominant influencers given some veto right to essentially dismiss all criticism. It just keeps happening again and again, editors basically saying "send this to the authors and if they disagree, well, tough shit".

A competitive system does not allow incidents like we have seen of Simon Wessely exerting pressure to change publications he deems insufficiently generous to him, described in a way as if the journal had basically gifted him the privilege to be a reviewer, about himself. This is about the clearest sign of a system that doesn't even pretend to bother with any of this stuff.

In the end the real system is about money and power. Success is defined by financial success, by generating money to people who invest in return for profit. We know something works if it makes money, and anything that works will primarily be used for that purpose. The academic system has become a parody of itself in most ways.

I don't know how Australian universities and academics are assessed but in the REF (since 2008) citations became a big part of the measure - but I've now just realised that surely only via these companies owning the databases/distribution would you be able to even count those citations accurately surely?

And whilst some in a department eg heavy on a psychosomatic clique can all agree to cite each others work or be told about someone's paper via internal mechanisms, then other than Listserves and conferences/associations maybe theoretically possibly acting as a way to put out that something has been released or published then I'm wondering whether awareness of said paper is these days impacted by who publishes and how/where in said publication (given it is online)... I'm imagining there are ways things are headlined vs not

 

[Sean]

Yeah, why was Wessely even allowed to see the article before going public, let alone 'review' it?

Do we have that right for any article he writes about us?