Journalism and mass communication faculty in Central Asian countries face increased institution and government pressure to produce research that appears in Scopus-indexed publications. This study interviews faculty members in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to examine how they attempt to meet these publication requirements. The findings suggest a disturbing research environment where some faculty resort to unethical means, such as buying and selling research co-authorship or paying to publish in predatory and fake journals.
This paper highlights the difficulties confronting journalists in Kyrgyzstan, who face a number of problems, including poor rates of pay, little or no ethical training, and a situation in which they, and the media organizations they work for, are prepared to receive payment for covering or declining to cover a story. The result: envelopes containing cash are seen as an acceptable way of supplementing journalistic incomes. The study involves in-depth qualitative interviews with 27 journalists in Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan, from 4 to 23 January 2016. The author concludes that while it would be almost impossible to remove the practices identified above, universities could play an important role in helping new generations of reporters overcome such temptations by including more ethics in the journalism curriculum.
Predatory publishing is an increasingly difficult challenge to ignore because it threatens the integrity of research literature and scholarship. Still, this scholarly area is largely overlooked in journalism and media communications (J&MC) literature. This case study examines two J&MC journals from companies listed as possibly predatory by analyzing the experiences of scholars purportedly affiliated with them. Using a survey and interviews, the analysis suggests that these journals used deceptive and unethical tactics to recruit scholars as ostensible editorial board members and reviewers. Some scholars were listed without their consent or knowledge, and others asked unsuccessfully to be removed from the journals’ posted list of editorial board members and/or reviewers. However, some say they find their affiliation rewarding intellectually, for their careers, and for the discipline. The findings have practical implications for J&MC scholarship, especially for developing country academics with insufficient English-language proficiency and who face publish-or-perish pressures from their universities and government higher education ministries.
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