The Rise of the Guest Editor-Discontinuities of Editorship in Scholarly Publishing.

Marcel Knöchelmann,Felicitas Hesselmann,Martin Reinhart,Cornelia Schendzielorz

doi:10.3389/frma.2021.748171

Abstract

Scholarly publishing lives on traditioned terminology that gives meaning to subjects such as authors, inhouse editors and external guest editors, artifacts such as articles, journals, special issues, and collected editions, or practices of acquisition, selection, and review. These subjects, artifacts, and practices ground the constitution of scholarly discourse. And yet, the meaning ascribed to each of these terms shifts, blurs, or is disguised as publishing culture shifts, which becomes manifest in new digital publishing technology, new forms of publishing management, and new forms of scholarly knowledge production. As a result, we may come to over- or underestimate changes in scholarly communication based on traditioned but shifting terminology. In this article, we discuss instances of scholarly publishing whose meaning shifted. We showcase the cultural shift that becomes manifest in the new, prolific guest editor. Though the term suggests an established subject, this editorial role crystallizes a new cultural setting of loosened discourse communities and temporal structures, a blurring of publishing genres and, ultimately, the foundations of academic knowledge production.

Highlights

It is a truism to claim that scholarly publishing is undergoing profound changes
The explosion of special issues visible at MDPI ridicules the meaning of the word special since it grows on the exponential increase of that which is supposed to be special within the ordinary
A reflexive result of such an organizational publishing policy is the shifting of publishing incentives and reputation gain, which unprecedentedly emphasized the role of a prolific guest editor

Summary

INTRODUCTION

It is a truism to claim that scholarly publishing is undergoing profound changes. Visible transformations are driven by a diversity of developments such as the increasing impact of digital technology, new modes of commercialization, changing publishing practices such as preprinting or open access, and new subject formations concerning authorship, reviewership, or, editorship. Both special issue and collected edition share their essence of being a topically united collection of shorter pieces that appears as a seemingly standalone publication, both are accessible on larger publishing platforms by a diversity of means (title, search functions, topic references) They are to be downloaded by article or by compressed PDF, both commissioned by scholars from within the field, the publisher merely providing technological means and brands in response to processing fees. Publishers would not be able to stay connected to scholarly fields and their developments, both in ways to connect to intellectual resources such that journals become, or stay, relevant as essential communicative sites, to lure in submissions and guide them to relevant audiences; and in ways to stay alert to relevant meta-developments, the new sub-fields and topoi to explore and to, potentially, serve and exploit It is the guest editor—the scholar-seeking-network-and-reputationalesteem—who provides both these means. Whether the enlargement of social and symbolic capital are fulfilled by such a role is a different question, one that can be answered only with an eye on the failure or success of the publishing platform itself, indicating again the circular enforcement of publishing

CONCLUSION

Findings

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT