Welcome to the Media Studies Guide to Open Access! 

This web site introduces a number of Open Access (OA) journals and resources that are relevant to the Media Studies field.  This resource guide includes a selection of some of the Media Studies OA journals that are currently  available. Since Media Studies is an interdisciplinary field, the guide is broken down by subject area.  Subject areas can be accessed by selecting from the links in the sidebar.  The link "Open Access Resources & Tools" will open a list of more general OA related links and tools. 

What is Open Access (OA)?

Open Access is best described as digital, online information that is free of charge and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions (Suber, 2007).  OA focuses primarily on scholarly and academic journals.  The articles within OA journals are subject to a peer-review process and the authors of the articles are not paid.  Unlike traditional scholarly journals, which are generally distributed through paid subscriptions to hard-copy or on-line journals, OA does not restrict access to materials with fees or charges.  As the OA movement grows so do the types of publications included in OA repositories, many of which now include access to these and unpublished research papers.  For a more extensive definition of Open Access and its history see Peter Suber's "Open Access Overview."

Why is OA useful to the Media Studies field?

Media Studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines the ways that all types of media affect our culture and society.  With the growth of the Web and other digital environments it is essential that scholars in the field of Media Studies study and participate in the developments that are taking place within the digital medium.  Open Access allows researchers within the field to disseminate their research throughout a variety of scholarly communities that pertain to the many subject areas addressed by Media Studies.  Furthermore, unlike traditional publishing, OA provides wider and less restrictive access to articles in a more timely manner allowing researchers a potentially larger audience and wider reach than articles published in non-OA academic publications.