A re-examination of the cultural resistance orthodoxies within scholarly open access communication

Abstract

This paper presents a critical re-consideration of the problems in achieving a greater embrace of the praxis of open access (OA) to research publications within the UK academy. It offers an ideological critique of the underlying subversion of scholarly communication by an industrialised publishing sector. It also considers the ideological and financial drivers that have caused the emergence of an open access to research publications movement. Through examining this developing open access paradigm, it problematises aspects of the UK academy's reluctance to engage. While examining academics’ imperative to disseminate research, through exploring the legacy publication model, it proposes that that the higher education policy landscape must also be accounted for, when considering engagement barriers. Hence, the paper concludes that the conditioning of academics by a neoliberal policy-saturated environment likely contributes to their reticence to embrace the praxis.