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Individuation through infrastructure: Get Full Text Research, data extraction and the academic publishing oligopoly

Samuel A. Moore (Centre for Postdigital Cultures, Coventry University, Coventry, UK)

Journal of Documentation

ISSN: 0022-0418

Article publication date: 28 July 2020

Issue publication date: 24 December 2020

443

Abstract

Purpose

This article explores the recent turn within academic publishing towards ‘seamless access’, an approach to content provision that ensures users do not have to continually authenticate in order to access journal content.

Design/methodology/approach

Through a critical exploration of Get Full Text Research, a service developed collaboratively by five of the world's largest academic publishers to provide such seamless access to academic research, the article shows how publishers are seeking to control the ways in which readers access publications in order to trace, control and ultimately monetise user interactions on their platforms.

Findings

Theorised as a process of individuation through infrastructure, the article reveals how publishers are attempting an ontological shift to position the individual, quantifiable researcher, rather than the published content, at the centre of the scholarly communication universe.

Originality/value

The implications of the shift towards individuation are revealed as part of a broader trend in scholarly communication infrastructure towards data extraction, mirroring a trend within digital capitalism more generally.

Keywords

Citation

Moore, S.A. (2021), "Individuation through infrastructure: Get Full Text Research, data extraction and the academic publishing oligopoly", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 77 No. 1, pp. 129-141. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-06-2020-0090

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited

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