[Commlist] Call for Papers: Publishing Cultures in Transition: Open Access, Critical Digital Literacy, and Digital Infrastructures

Call for Papers: Publishing Cultures in Transition: Open Access,
Critical Digital Literacy, and Digital Infrastructures
==========================================================================

Edited by Klaus Rummler(1), Natalie Marty(2), and Urooj Nizami(3)

1 Zürich University of Teacher Education, Switzerland
2 Swiss Medical Weekly – SMW, Switzerland
3 Simon Fraser University, Public Knowledge Project – PKP, Canada

**Please submit your full paper until 14 November 2025 at
https://www.medienpaed.com/about/submissions**. Please also find the
author guidelines there.

https://www.medienpaed.com/announcement/view/42

Call for Papers as PDF (English):
https://www.medienpaed.com/public/journals/1/cfps/CfP_PublishingCultures.pdf

Theme
=====

In recent years, scholar-led Open Access (OA) journals have emerged as
powerful catalysts for reimagining the practices and politics of
academic publishing. These journals, especially those who are
following the Diamond Open Access model and are grounded in the
principle that neither readers nor authors bear publication costs, are
more than alternative distribution channels – they are the outcome of
_critical engagement_ with exclusionary and commercialized models of
scholarly communication.

The Example of Open Journal Systems (OJS by PKP)
------------------------------------------------

The Public Knowledge Project (PKP) is best known for developing Open
Journal Systems (OJS) – the world’s most widely used journal
management and publishing platform. OJS supports over 55.000 active
journals in 161 countries, operating in 60 languages – well over half
of all scientific journals, issues and papers, worldwide. Between 2020
and 2024 alone, nearly 9 million articles have been published using
OJS. These numbers not only reflect broad adoption but also affirm
OJS’s role in supporting bibliodiversity, multilingualism, and the
global dissemination of research, especially from and about the Global
South.

OJS and the broader PKP ecosystem have been described as an
archipelago (Nizami 2024): a distributed yet interconnected
constellation of journals, institutions, and communities. Each of
those publishing initiatives represents a distinct island – locally
grounded, self-governed, and responsive to their context – while
sharing common infrastructures, values, and dedicated to a commitment
to Open Access as a Global Public Good, affirming both sovereignty and
solidarity, thus enabling local relevance alongside global
collaboration.

Édouard Glissant, the Martinican writer and philosopher, writes
powerfully of «archipelagic thinking» (la pensée archipélagique) as a
means of using situated practices to connect distinctive contexts.
Quoting Glissant from Caribbean Discourse, the scholar An Yountae
writes,

> «For Glissant, the archipelagic imagination views ‹each island as embod[ying] openness. The dialectic between inside and outside is reflected in the relationship of land and sea.› He abolishes the very notion of the universal and the particular, or centre and periphery.» (Yountae 2024, 149; quoting Glissant 1989, 139).

While OJS has witnessed widespread global adoption, scholarly
engagement with the socio-cultural dimensions of the sea-change toward
open platforms in scholarly publishing has yet to be critically
explored. Rather than viewing islands as isolated, exotic, or insular,
we draw on archipelagic thinking to advocate for a relational approach
that integrates localized currents and global horizons. PKP’s mission
and vision reflects archipelagic thinking in two key ways: (1) OJS
fosters autonomy from dominant, centralized publishing systems,
offering a model of distributed sovereignty through free and open
source software; and (2) these tools support an ecosystem of
_bibliodiversity_, rejecting a model of extraction from the Global
South and setting a new paradigm of exchange and collaboration.

We invite contributions that critically examine and celebrate **the
cultures and practices of scholar-led (Diamond) Open Access
publishing** as sites of digital literacy, democratization, and
knowledge politics. We are particularly interested in works that
address the following interrelated themes:

**1. Critical Engagement with Scholarly Publishing Norms:** (Diamond)
Open Access journals frequently arise from critical positions towards
the commodification and gatekeeping characteristic of traditional
academic publishing. We encourage papers that analyse how
self-organized, non-profit, and scholar-led journals enact _critical
agency_ – both questioning and actively transforming the power
structures underpinning knowledge dissemination.

**2. Democratization and Equity in Knowledge Production:** This Call
for Papers recognizes Diamond Open Access as a practical means of
democratizing access to knowledge (c.f. Willinsky 2002), eliminating
financial barriers for both authors and readers. We seek research,
reflections, and case studies that document how Diamond Open Access
practices foster greater _inclusivity, equity, and diversity_ –
amplifying voices, languages, and perspectives often marginalised by
mainstream venues.

**3. Governance, Infrastructures, and Critical (Digital) Literacy:**
At the intersection with media education, scholar-led publishing
offers a unique laboratory for _critical digital literacy_ (c.f.
Kellner 2021). We welcome explorations of how participating in the
governance and production of Open Access journals cultivates new
competencies for critically engaging not just with texts, but with the
infrastructures and politics of academic communication. How do Diamond
Open Access journals serve as instances of moving from passive content
consumption to active, ethical, and critical media production?

**4. The Politics and Sustainability of Open Scholarship:**
Submissions may also address political and structural questions: What
policy, funding, and governance models enable the sustainability of
Diamond Open Access? How do these journals challenge prestige
economies and power imbalances (institutional, geographic, or
linguistic) in scholarly publishing? What are the key obstacles, and
how are they being negotiated?

**5. Infrastructures and Ecologies of Scholar-Led Publishing: OJS &
PKP in Practice:** We encourage concise reports and reflections on how
OJS and PKP enable diverse, scholar-led publishing models in different
disciplines and regions. We welcome insights into the everyday
realities and evolving ecologies of scholar-led publishing with OJS
and PKP.

*   How do local cultures and academic communities shape, adapt, and
govern their use of these open infrastructures?
*   What new opportunities or challenges arise for decolonial
practice, language equity, and non-commercial models?
*   Share case studies, practical experiences, or critical
perspectives on platform implementation, governance, and innovation.
*   While there are no expectations that submissions engage with
particular theorists, we particularly welcome grounded theory building
and/or submissions that focus on relational, archipelagic thinking,
through OJS use.

Contributions
=============

By highlighting these themes, this special issue aims to advance
collective theorizing and practical strategies for transforming the
culture, ethics, and politics of academic publishing. We invite
critical, theoretical, empirical, and practice-based manuscripts that
illuminate the ways in which especially Diamond Open Access journals
operate as _critical, democratizing, and media-educational projects_
reshaping the public good of scholarly knowledge in the digital age.

Submission and Procedure
========================

Requirements for Full Texts
---------------------------

*   Communication and Media Studies scholars are welcome
*   No payment from the authors will be required
*   Submissions must be original contributions or first publications
(original articles).
*   Submissions (i.e., full texts) must follow common structures of
scholarly (research) articles.
*   An abstract of 150-200 words should briefly summarise the central
statements and results.
*   Both, title and abstract must be in German and English and
submitted together with the article.
*   Five to six keywords.
*   Wordcount of the full text: Up to 40.000 characters (excluding
abstract and references).
*   Citation style: Chicago Manual of Style, 18th ed. (English; 
author-date).
*   Language: English (British English).
*   Submission Format: Full text.
*   The submission guidelines for authors:
https://www.medienpaed.com/about/submissions#authorGuidelines.

In the context of scientific transparency, we encourage all authors to
make their research data (e.g., software, data sets, questionnaires
used) or other additional material (e.g., posters, supplementary
media) available with the submission.

Quality Assurance Strategy
--------------------------

*   Single-Stage Review Process.
*   Two double-blind peer-reviews per submission.
*   Contributing authors will be enquired for reviews. Considering
them as experts in the field, authors will comment and review other
authors’ submissions within this call.
*   Additional (external) reviewers might be involved.
*   Full texts should be reviewed until end December 2025.

Submission
----------

*   **Full text contributions of 40.000 characters** (excl. abstracts
and references). The contributions will undergo a double-blind
peer-review process upon formal evaluation by the editors. Authors to
this call and special issue will be included as reviewers in this
process.
*   **Submission until 14 November 2025** via
https://www.medienpaed.com/about/submissions to the section
«Publishing Cultures».
*   For the production in OJS, the special issue will be organised as
‹section›. The editors of the special issue will be enrolled as
‹section editors›.

Publication Format
------------------

*   Rolling publication, beginning with four accepted articles.
*   Issue will conclude with an editorial that thematically frames the
contributions (not necessarily in TOC order).
*   Articles will receive Crossref DOIs, be indexed in DOAJ, and
archived with OAPEN etc.
*   The full issue will also be published as an open-access book and
made available as print-on-demand.
*   Publication of the special issue is planned for mid April 2026.

Editors
=======

*   Klaus Rummler (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8379-244X), Zürich
University of Teacher Education, Editor-in-chief of MedienPädagogik,
Switzerland. (post /at/ medienpaed.com).
*   Natalie Marty (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6861-7512), Managing
Director of Swiss Medical Weekly – SMW, President of the Association
of Swiss Diamond Open Access Journals, Switzerland.
(natalie.marty /at/ smw.ch).
*   Urooj Nizami (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5740-5795), Simon Fraser
University, Public Knowledge Project – PKP, Associate Director for
Community Engagement and Outreach, Canada. (urooj_nizami /at/ sfu.ca).

References
==========

Glissant, Edouard. 1989. _Caribbean Discourse: Selected Essays_. Caraf
Books. University Press of Virginia.
https://monoskop.org/images/a/a5/Glissant_Edouard_Caribbean_Discourse.pdf.

Kellner, Douglas. 2021. «Digital Technologies, Multi-Literacies, and
Democracy: Toward a Reconstruction of Education». In _Technology and
Democracy: Toward A Critical Theory of Digital Technologies,
Technopolitics, and Technocapitalism_, by Douglas Kellner.
Medienkulturen Im Digitalen Zeitalter. Springer Fachmedien.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-31790-4_10.

Nizami, Urooj. 2024. «Welcome to PKP’s Community Newsletter,
Archipelago!». _Public Knowledge Project_, January 30.
https://pkp.sfu.ca/2024/01/29/welcome-pkp-newsletter-archipelago/.

Willinsky, John. 2002. «Democracy and Education: The Missing Link May
Be Ours». _Harvard Educational Review_ 72 (3): 367–92.
https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.72.3.0nj018h638677r24.

Yountae, An. 2024. «5. Poetics of World-Making: Creolizing the Sacred,
Becoming Archipelago». In _The Coloniality of the Secular. Race,
Religion, and Poetics of World-Making_, by An Yountae. Duke University
Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781478027096-007.
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