Open AccessScholarly Publishing, Boundary Processes, and the Problem of Fake Peer Reviews
Author(s) -
Kirsten Bell,
Patricia Kingori,
David Mills
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
science, technology and human values/science, technology, and human values
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1552-8251
pISSN - 0162-2439
DOI - 10.1177/01622439221112463
Subject(s) - publishing , subject (documents) , phenomenon , context (archaeology) , variety (cybernetics) , sociology , boundary work , public relations , media studies , political science , epistemology , social science , law , history , library science , computer science , philosophy , archaeology , artificial intelligence
Over the past decade, the phenomenon of "fake" peer reviews has caused growing consternation among scholarly publishers. Yet despite the significant behind-the-scenes impact that anxieties about fakery have had on peer review processes within scholarly journals, the phenomenon itself has been subject to little scholarly analysis. Rather than treating fake reviews as a straightforward descriptive category, in this article, we explore how the discourse on fake reviews emerged and why, and what it tells us about its seeming antithesis, "genuine" peer review. Our primary source of data are two influential adjudicators of scholarly publishing integrity that have been critical to the emergence of the concept of the fake review: Retraction Watch and the Committee on Publication Ethics. Via an analysis of their respective blog posts, Forum cases, presentations, and best practice guidance, we build a genealogy of the fake review discourse and highlight the variety of players involved in staking out the fake. We conclude that constant work is required to maintain clear lines of separation between genuine and fake reviews and highlight how the concept has served to reassert the boundaries between science and society in a context where they have increasingly been questioned.