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Crisis in Academic Publishing

By Guest PostJune 18, 2012Economy, Media, Scienceacademic journals, academic publishing, academic spring, arxiv, berlin declaration, bethesda declaration, boycott, commercial publishers, crisis, diane sauve, digital publishing, dominique berube, elsevier, erudit, george lozano, harvard university, internet, jean claude guedon, joanie lavoie, latin america, marie lambert chan, open access, parallel system, personal websites, public funds, springer, taxpayers, université de montréal, vincent lariviere, yves gingras

“In almost every country in the world, research is supported by public funds. When researchers publish their results in academic journals, they do so for free. The results are also reviewed by peers for free. And journals often require researchers to give up their rights to these articles. Then, major publishers or learned societies sell their journals at exorbitant prices to libraries… which are also financed by public funds! It’s a vicious circle in which taxpayers pay for the production and access to researchers while publishers and societies make profits of 30-45% before taxes. It’s outrageous!” exclaimed Jean-Claude Guédon. This professor of comparative literature at the Université de Montréal is far from being the only one to protest. In recent months, more than 11,000 researchers worldwide have expressed their dissatisfaction through a petition calling for a boycott of Elsevier. This academic publishing giant earned profits of more than US $1.1 billion in 2011.

This movement, which many observers have called the “Academic Spring,” was born as a result of Elsevier’s support of the Research Work Act. This U.S. bill would ban open access to academic publications subsidized by the state. “It’s all anecdotal but at least has the benefit of reminding people about the importance of open access,” Guédon said. (more…)

Emotional News Framing Affects Public Response to Crises, MU Study Finds

By Guest PostJanuary 16, 2012Mediaanger frame, automobile recalls, corporate response, crisis, crisis situations, distinct emotions, effective communication, glen cameron, human face, hyo kim, journalism research, maxine wilson gregory chair, message, nanyang technological university, news frames, organizational crises, plane crashes, public relations, relief, sadness frame, singapore, strategies, substantive action, university of missouri, victims, wellbeing

COLUMBIA, Mo. – When organizational crises occur, such as plane crashes or automobile recalls, public relations practitioners develop strategies for substantive action and effective communication. Now, University of Missouri researchers have found that the way in which news coverage of a crisis is framed affects the public’s emotional response toward the company involved.

Glen Cameron, the Maxine Wilson Gregory Chair in Journalism Research and professor of strategic communication at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, along with Hyo Kim of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, studied the reactions of news readers when exposed to a story about a crisis. One group read an “anger-frame” story that blamed the organization for the crisis. Another group read a “sadness-frame” story that focused on the victims and how they were hurt by the crisis. Cameron and Kim found that those who read the “anger-frame” story read the news less closely and had more negative attitudes toward the company than those exposed to the “sadness-frame” story. (more…)

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Crisis in Academic Publishing

Emotional News Framing Affects Public Response to Crises, MU Study Finds