I think it's interesting to consider how digital these open access projects are. It reminds me of how Facebook, particularly, used to give out digital devices to poor people in brown countries, except the devices could only access Facebook approved domains. There is this sense that just being able to access the internet allows knowledge to flow, but there are also restrictions in who has computers and phones, who has unlimited mobile data and who doesn't, and of course literacy, and free time Just handing someone a piece of the internet is not liberatory unless there places within it where knowledge is free to access.
What JSTOR gains from being relatable on Twitter is the same as what it gains from having a (limited) open access platform- the illusion of free knowledge without all the chains being loosed. Cory Doctorow and Rebecca Giblin's work laying out how this applies to ebooks and DRM in Chokepoint Capitalism is super pertinent by the way!
I think it's interesting to consider how digital these open access projects are. It reminds me of how Facebook, particularly, used to give out digital devices to poor people in brown countries, except the devices could only access Facebook approved domains. There is this sense that just being able to access the internet allows knowledge to flow, but there are also restrictions in who has computers and phones, who has unlimited mobile data and who doesn't, and of course literacy, and free time Just handing someone a piece of the internet is not liberatory unless there places within it where knowledge is free to access.
What JSTOR gains from being relatable on Twitter is the same as what it gains from having a (limited) open access platform- the illusion of free knowledge without all the chains being loosed. Cory Doctorow and Rebecca Giblin's work laying out how this applies to ebooks and DRM in Chokepoint Capitalism is super pertinent by the way!