Dimensões tecnopolíticas e econômicas da comunicação científica em transformação

Abstract

Successive episodes of crisis, experimentation, and proposals for revisions of values and practices in the processes of production, circulation and consumption of scientific information have presented challenges to the traditional or hegemonic structures and models of scholarly communication, with emphasis on the incentives for reconfiguration scientific journals. At the same time, reconfigurations and counteracting efforts are being made by the hegemonic agents in favor of the status quo and towards the appropriation and development of new business models for scholarly publication, towards the preservation of the protagonism of these agents. Given this scenario, we aim, with this research, to investigate the processes of reaction, reconfiguration and counterreaction in the scenario of the scholarly communication in transformation, addressing the emerging technological and political dimensions of these processes. In order to do so, we focused on qualitative and quantitative analyzes of documents related to demonstrative scholarly communication initiatives — whether in the form of journals, platforms, preprints, among others — as well as analyzing data sets available on open access publications. We also conducted a qualitative approach, based on individual interviews, so that a wide spectrum of manifestations could be captured by experts and advocates. To support the analysis, we used the theoretical framework on the development, crisis and reaction movements in the scenario of production, circulation and access of/to scholarly publications and information, considering their historical contexts and the socioeconomic conditions throughout the manifestation of these processes. As main results and considerations of this research, we have reported the manifestation of new political-economic dilemmas arising from the reaction and reconfiguration movements in the scenario of scholarly communication, such as the development of open access publishing business models oriented or driven by the main commercial publishers. We also emphasized that the publishers, and their respective groups or conglomerates, have acted in a counter-reaction to the proposals of transformations in scholarly communication, mainly by business strategies focused on the vertical integration of platforms and research infrastructures, with the purpose of maintaining its protagonism. As a consequence of these strategies, we see the conformation of processes of massive capture of data and information that circulate in the integrated platforms, incurring the alienation of free work of scientists and other users of these platforms, in potential manifestation of surveillance processes and threats to privacy, besides of the potential 'algorithmizing' effect towards decision-making processes in research. Open access and open science have demonstrated potential for renewing the production and publication of research results, with consequent increments on participation and access. On the other hand, the continues and strong relationship of these processes to the systems of validation and credit, still heavily oriented to information and subsidies provided and controlled by commercial publishers and for-profit organizations, raise questions about the potential manifestation of conflicts of interest when of these processes.