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"Newspapers are going to hell in a handbasket" agree both Dean Starkman, a media critic who defends the best of traditional news

admin2014-06-25  14
问题     "Newspapers are going to hell in a handbasket" agree both Dean Starkman, a media critic who defends the best of traditional newspapers, and Clay Shirky, a guru of the digital age who looks forward to a future beyond newspapers. But what it might mean for the future of scientific journals?
    Unlike newspapers, scientific journals are not facing the economic collapse that forces change. But are the economics likely to change? Probably not in the short term. Despite calls for boycotts, scientists continue to send their studies to familiar journals; and, although open-access publishing is flourishing, with more new journals and articles, it isn’t reducing the incomes of traditional publishers. Indeed, some traditional publishers may well be boosting their income and profits by adding some open-access publishing to their own stable. And scientific libraries, the prime customers of scientific publishers, despite complaining about price increases, continue to be obliged to buy traditional journals.
    However, other pressures may oblige scientific publishers to change. Shirky argues that newspapers limit choices: they are the few telling the many what is news and what they should think. Now, with the arrival of the Internet, anybody can be a journalist and a publisher. What Starkman cares about is not so much the technology of newspapers, but rather, strong stories—thorough, well-researched, accurate reports that change how we think. He is unclear where such stories will come from when newspapers are bankrupted.
    There are similar worries within science. We have our stars who publish in the top journals which are our sorting mechanism. Millions of studies are published every year, and we cope with this torrent of information by hoping that the most important papers are published in the top journals. If we read the top journals we will know what’s important. Sadly, this is an illusion. Although science has its stars, the proletarians are important, often publishing studies that show that the studies from the stars have misled us. Indeed, because the top journals skim off the sexy, exciting, and new, we are systematically misled if we read only those journals. Economists call this the "winner’s curse," whereby the companies that win contracts have often overbid.
    Shirky argues that in the case of news it is time to move from "filter then publish" to "publish then filter. " Such a world would also be healthier for science, and less deceiving. Instead of trying to understand the world by reading top journals, we should concentrate on systematic reviews and meta-analyses that combine each new study with what already exists and show us clearly how the evidence is changing.
    With the appearance of open-access megajournals, scientific publishing has begun to move in the direction favored by Shirky. These "journals" have peer-review systems that don’t attempt to judge what is new and important, but simply whether the conclusions are supported by the data. If the conclusions are appropriately experimental, then almost anything can be published. These megajournals could be game changers that will eventually bring down the empire of traditional journals.
In the second paragraph, the author discusses______.
选项 A、the overall economic picture of the publishing industry
B、the paradoxical situation faced by scientific journals
C、the different outlooks of newspapers and scientific journals
D、the favorable economic situation for scientific publishers
答案D
解析 作者在第二段主要说明的观点是：科学期刊目前没有面临报纸那样的经济冲击，而且短期之内经济状况也不会发生变化。作者援引报纸是为了与科学期刊作比较，突出后者经济状况上的有利局面，第四至六句分别从科学家对期刊的持续投稿、传统出版商利润的提升、科学图书馆持续买进传统期刊来例证这种有利经济局面。[D]选项正确。
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