Change that occurs within any organization
invariably raises a hue and cry from the group's members;
some proclaiming the merit while others
forecast the negative consequences of the change.
The advent of online publishing has been no different
within the communication scholarly community,
following the classic model of change process.[1]

Thousands of words and trillions of bits have been generated, both praising and damning the advent of online scholarly publishing. Ironically enough, the worldwide computer network that enabled the innovation under scrutiny has also enabled the growth of the current academic controversy.

Advocates of online publishing pursue the digitization of data with no less fervor than that of Petrarch and Bishop de Bury in their scouring of fourteenth century Europe for quality manuscripts. "No dearness of price ought to hinder a man from the buying of books," wrote Bishop Richard de Bury while expressing his utter passion for the warehousing of knowledge. [2] The twenty-first century, more capitalistically-oriented to considering the "cost" of things, also questions, like de Bury's implied detractors, "the dearness of price" concerning this latest manifestation in a long chain of knowledge creation and transmission: the online publishing of scholarly thought.

Communication scholar and National Communication Association President Raymie McKerrow (2000) has declared, "Writing for electronic publication...is not the same as writing for print (p. 2)" [3]. As a web-applications developer myself, I must wholeheartedly concur with President McKerrow's view. But, I am somewhat concerned that the issues his view puts forth deal more with how the academic political process will weigh web publications rather than how this less structured, more rapidly deployed medium will impact the greater body of human knowledge. If we can put the politics of promotion and tenure aside for a moment, what exactly are the substantive issues in terms of knowledge that the development of this new publishing medium has catalyzed? Is the American Communication Journal Founder and outgoing Co-editor Tyrone L. Adams another Bishop Richard de Bury? Or, are these electronic publishing pioneers virtual Pandoras?

The American Communication Journal (ACJ) -- as the official online publication of the American Communication Association (ACA) -- grew out of a small group of scholars' concerns about the rising costs of participation in our national academic communities of Communication. Motivated by the desire to make collegiality and communality open and accessible to those not endowed with generous travel budgets, these scholars formed a virtual community. No communication topic was to be restricted, and no membership fees were to be levied. While free speech motivated some participants, membership in the American Communication Association varied widely, encompassing traditional practitioners, online entrepreneurs, traditional and rogue scholars, living both within the Americas and well beyond the western hemisphere.

Online traditions -- if such a new medium can be said to have any traditions, whatsoever -- ranged from technological neophytes to former military members who had been using electronic messaging to communicate long before the development of the DARPA online community. The ACA Board of Directors chartered the publication of an official online multimedia journal, to be designed, created, and hosted at the University of Arkansas by one of the UA system's own highly-skilled technophiles who also happened to serve on the ACA Board. A member of that Board, encouraging me to submit my work for publication, declared that the content of this journal would not be restricted nor shaped by the politics of any establishment. With soapbox zeal and the joy of the newly liberated, this same Board Member told me, "That information, like people, should be free."

The ACA Board's definitional dilemma over what constituted an 'acceptable cost for collegiality' became part of the fabric of the new organization's publication. Further confounding this ongoing definitional discourse, and in the case of online scholarship in general, the issues still do not seem to me clearly defined. In order to discuss ACJ as an online publication, the operational definition of a scholarly journal must first be clear.

If postmodern philosopher Michel Foucault was correct, and knowledge about any given subject is socially created/defined by the way that those in power choose to talk about it, a scholarly journal seems currently to mean a publication, sponsored by a learned body, that presents the results of either qualitative or quantitative research findings that have been peer-reviewed. The end product becomes a juried presentation of individual or team findings relative to substantive disciplinary issues within the sponsoring body's academic community. Current assumptions include the beliefs that the work represents original thoughts or findings, and that proper citations are to be given for information that is not original. [4]

What, then, is to be "appropriately" published as scholarship? Classically educated individuals know that John Calvin was a 16th century theologian and Thomas Hobbes a 17th century philosopher. Widely read individuals of the late-20th century also know that Calvin and Hobbes were very cute cartoon characters created by Bill Watterson. The first truth does not preclude the second; nor the second truth obviate the first. Calvin, in two differing but accurate views of reality, can be both the man who formulated a doctrine of predestination and a 6-year-old fictional boy who believes that his stuffed tiger is alive. No singular individual or institution has a patent on what represents perceived truth. Truth, as with art and beauty, can be in the eye of the beholder. When ACJ was first released, no perceived truth about online scholarship was ever clearly defined. This essay is a small part of a larger body of ongoing electric discourse about what it is and should be. It is most definitely a dialectic, representing all of the wonderful tension between the ancients, the moderns, and the postmoderns. Somewhere in all of this, the thesis and antithesis will meet in an attempt to arrive at synthesis -- or, shared truth.

Certainly, other journals had already been electronically published long before the invention of ACJ, and not just by scholarly groups. The Microsoft Developer's Training and Certification Library is an excellent working example of a massive online repository of case-studies -- some emerging from the commercial sector and some from the academy.[5]

One of the earliest of these particular electronic efforts in our Communication discipline, of course, is The Electronic Journal of Communication. [6] The Editorial Staff of EJC defined its purpose clearly in Volume 1, Number 1:

The incoming ACJ Editor-elect, Stephanie J. Coopman, also wrote in the same debut issue:     

Still, with that said, the ACJ unequivocally declares that all submitted work is peer-reviewed in a blind-review process. It continues to adhere to the style-sheet concept of textual presentation (even when the presentation medium begs for three-dimensionality). The editor's vision of unexplored territory visited through this new journal seems somehow constrained by some unstated, underlying fear of straying "too far" from the fold and being, thus, rejected from the socially constructed reality of academe; a fear of being perhaps too technological.

Answering the question then -- Is ACJ a scholarly journal? -- seems rather straightforward. However, some critics seem to be more concerned with whether digital files can constitute a proper form of publication. Others seem more concerned about how to weigh the value of such online publications. Neither of these two qualitative issues address the weightier concerns that many others have about what, precisely, the proliferation of unevaluated or under-filtered research reports might do to the general body of scholarly knowledge -- assuming that ACJ might do these things in using more informal standards for the explanation of research findings and providing an outlet for heretofore marginalized voices. The selection of Jim A. Kuypers of Dartmouth College as, first, Associate Editor and then evolving as Co-Editor, should have quelled the fears of any critics.

Kuypers' reputation as an established, traditional scholar, should have provided the credibility required by even the greatest of critics. University of Denver Professor Frank Dance once even told me: "Ann, the journal is the best thing about ACA." No one seems to question the quality of specific articles selected for inclusion and appearing in the journal. Students are allowed to cite ACJ resources as primary scholarly source material. Yet, the controversy over ACJ continues for some reason. The advocates of the medium proclaim its ability to actually improve the body of knowledge in multiple ways: (1) the extra-dimensionality of the medium enhances the ability to communicate knowledge, (2) web-based publications make knowledge more accessible to a greater audience thus increasing the potential for critical evaluation, (3) web-based publishing costs less, and (4) research findings reach readers faster.

Examining the journal carefully, reading every line of every issue, and critically analyzing these in light of what the genre's detractors might fear, I have come to believe that it is the radical design, the "code monkeying" if you will, that so extremely deviates from our traditional expectations of what scholarship looks like, constitutes. So, I chose to focus this opinion piece on the "code monkey" behind the publication and the technological journey of ACJ over the past three years.

Co$t$ and Benefits

""The code is the law."
    Lawrence   Lessig
(April, 1999)

So, Whom Do We Trust?

Professor Frankel, fellow of the Harvard Berkman Center for the Internet and Society, conducted an online seminar dealing with how the legal issue of trust works in the electronic realm. Some of the discussion issues produced during that seminar dealt with the unique structure of the World Wide Web society. Through the Internet, human society now has the possibility of linking with untold numbers of unknown individuals and computers. Viruses threaten that Cyber-community on a seemingly daily basis. Old ways of knowing about the character of individual acquaintances and commercial product and service providers do not work in this new world.  

In the case of ACJ, scholars get the opportunity to literally engage in a political game of "Who Do You Trust?" As a virtual entity, ACA organizationally exists in an inherently unstable realm of bits. The greater risk, however, is to our integrity as a community of Communication scholars if we fail to participate and help in shaping this new communication medium. In my humble opinion, it is more of a time for us to engage in a radical constructique, as opposed to a radical critique. Let us work with one another to build this place called Cyberspace for ourselves and our academic progeny. Let us not examine our belly-buttons into oblivion.

At a national meeting of Communication scholars on technology in 1999, one senior member at that meeting declared that distance learning via the Internet could be a focus area where Communication could emerge as a leader in higher education. Networked computers, of course, have been used in higher education for over three decades. The embarrassed silence of others present in the audience was followed by an explanation that, uh...well...you see...the discipline of Education is already publishing entire journals on the esoterica of distance learning via the Internet. This same potentially embarrassing situation exists with online publishing. But, not yet. We still have time...

While we as a discipline debate over whether or not we should invest in online publishing, it is already being done by other disciplines. While some continue to belabor the politics of power presented by online publishing, the Pandora's box of possible opportunities remains yet unopened. The work of innovation, change, progress, still undone. Worse, I fear, the unstored and undervalued work of a generation of intellectual pioneers may be lost forever in this passive-aggressive context of political apathy.

Most new college graduates now have a vague idea (at least) of how computers work and can manipulate basic vocabulary such as bits and bytes and browsers. Generation E, currently being educated by We in higher education, is already burdened with our functionally obsolete knowledge. A working molecular processor already exists, and if you need some background material on this yourself, see: http://www.csee.usf.edu/ieee-cs/look/vijay/. Not exactly a new article on the subject. But, published online in 1997. Bits are now being replaced by qubits. And online publishing will soon grow quickly beyond the archaic confines of HTML.

Microsoft has announced the launch of a new operating system geared not toward personal computer desktops, but to the Internet. What these two things combined indicate seems extremely clear. Increased memory capabilities and network-friendly operating systems for using the Internet will create new dilemmas in communication -- yes, and for Communication. In the basic public speaking course alone, students will need to know the ethical consequences of taking holographic clips out of context to demonstrate their opponents in a bad light. For those who have been concerned about allowing students to play allegedly obscene lyrics in their analyses as supporting materials, the prospects here may well be terrifying. Students already have access to a library of online video clips containing a variety of rather free-willed sex acts. Imagine their being able to bring the action live, holographically to the classroom during an anthropological discussion of teenage courtship ritual during the 1990s! Our "Athenian youth" are dealing with a mediated existence, a wired reality, far beyond the pale of what we would, today, consider possible. Think of all the places that your students' minds visit on a daily basis, when online. Then, ask yourself: Is this changing us?

As we debate upon whether or not we should allow images and video streams in our online scholarly articles, others -- not necessarily communication scholars, mind you -- are studying the more substantive issues in how these new communication media impact the basic nature of the thing we proclaim to study. Harvard University, a leader in the sociological and legal issues regarding the Internet, does not even offer a communication program. Yet, they are at the very center of what the public considers to be communications, no?

Nobel Prize winner for medicine, Francois Jacob (1982) reminds us that "the actual living world, as we see it today, is just one among many possible ones ... It might well have been different; and it might even not have existed at all!" (p. 15). Just as the history of the earth created the actual form of it, as Jacobs claims, our actions or inactions will shape the actual networked world of academic Communication. If we pursue the "Adamsonian" exploratory model in a new, memory-rich, web-friendly cyber-realm, we may be challenged to defend our ideas and our research findings in a live forum rather than in the well-thought out reports held closely by tribalistic instinct and habituation. Research conducted in the full view and light of a jury-of-our-peers through networked communication media may become part of the new online publishing standard. Any research conducted less openly may soon become suspect.

While the communication community debates how to "count" these online treatises, the Cyber community swirls galaxies beyond our self-imposed parameters creating totally new possibilities, problems, and issues. Certain chemical changes entail catharsis in order for new compounds to be formed from their old. The Internet might be a mere blip on the screen of human history and best viewed, not as a medium at all, but as a conceptual catharsis for the utilitarian dissemination of scholarship.

For a nanosecond, however, communication has been a major player in the cutting-edge game of technology and academic politics. This publication was at the forefront of web-publishing exploration. While others plodded along proclaiming their expertise in HTML, ACJ integrated cutting-edge object-oriented technologies into its design, blatantly soliciting submissions from not just communication scholars, but scholars who could themselves communicate in the various languages of the new electronic frontier. Whatever evaluative label may ultimately be associated with it, its founder, Tyrone L. Adams, is a name that I will definitely include in my brief history of the discipline that is introductory to every class in communication that I teach. Tyrone L. Adams made the possible into the actual.

Your reading of this essay is standing evidence.

FOOTNOTES

[1] CRTNET list discussions of this subject are archived at: http://lists1.cac.psu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=crtnet

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[2] Richard deBury’s Philobiblon is available online in plain text format at: http://sailor.gutenberg.org/pub/gutenberg/etext96/phlbb10.txt

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[3]  McKerrow's complete essay regarding electronic publishing is available at: http://www.natcom.org/NCAnews/PDF/may00.pdf

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[4] Several sources are available on the subject of what constitutes and "how to do" scholarly writing. I did not read them all, so I have not listed them as references. The one I did completely read is short. Frank, M. F. (1985). Scholarly Writing and Publishing: Issues, Problems, and Solutions. Boulder & London: Westbury Press.

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[5] Electronic journals have proliferated and are now widely available in the scientific, medical, and technical areas. An excellent and current view of the growth of electronic journal publication is available in: Ketcham-Van Orsdel, L. and Born, K. (April 15, 2000). Pushing Toward More Affordable Access. Library Journal, Vol. 125 Issue 7, p47, 6p, 6c.

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[6] The Electronic Journal of Communication is available online at: http://www.cios.org/www/ejcmain.htm

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[7] The story of Private Lockard is told in Wohlstetter, R., Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1962. It is also available through a secondary source online at: http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi42.htm

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[8] If you want to know more about these two cases, do an AltaVista http://www.altavista.com search using the term tetracycline and another, separate search using the term Thalidomide.

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[9] I did an 8-page literature review on the history of the evolution of publishing in general while working on this essay, but decided that even ACJ was not liberal enough to allow that in an opinion piece. However, I recommend the two works listed in the references on this subject for a quick overview of the change process. What astounded me is that many of the same challenges being made now are the same kinds of challenges made over the centuries of written records. If you want to do some real critical thinking about this issue, put it into the context provided by Eric A. Havelock, Sterling Professor of Classics Emeritus at Yale University in a small book (The Muse Learns to Write: Reflections on Orality and Literacy from Antiquity to the Present) published by Yale University Press in 1986. Havelock suggests that human consciousness itself was impacted by the act of recording information rather than telling it. I would never have known who Bishop de Bury was without the discussions with and assistance from CSU Information Services Librarian, Pamela Howard, who also maintains a page for bibliophiles:

http://facstaff.colstate.edu/pamelahoward/howardpb.html#Book1

[10] In this and other issues, Adams' subtlety of web-design provides exceptional fodder for students of visual rhetoric and metaphor. Just as a hint, look at correlations among the multiple variables available to the web publisher, including sound, color, and font choice. The ACJ construction exemplifies the joy of pure discovery, and Adams' intellect is clearly reflected in the process.

Diringer, D. (1982). The book before printing: Ancient, Medieval, and Oriental. New York: Dover Publications, inc.

Jacob, F. (1982). The possible and the actual. New York: Pantheon.

Lessig, L. (1999). Code and other laws of Cyberspace. New York: Basic Books.