Journal Publishing and Marketing in an Age of Digital Media, Open Access and Impact Factors ALEX MARLAND Memorial University of Newfoundland The academic publishing industry is grappling with disruption brought about by digital media. Knowledge travels remarkably freely around the world, as do scholars and their interests. New journals are being launched, conventional ones are publishing more content, audiences are bombarded with stimuli, and so on. The official journals of national academic associa- tions, such as the Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique (Journal/Revue), can no longer count on captive markets of authors and subscribers. But change is difficult and academic institutions can be slow to adapt to changing circumstances. In this environment, publishers and editorial teams that treat marketing as an afterthought are on the wrong side of the four-stage product lifecycle of introduction, growth, maturity and decline. Marketing is a “critical function,” particularly for mature journals that risk losing institutional sub- scribers (Morris et al., 2013: 37, 156). However, most academics are not salespeople. They lack strategic guidance for building market share, for nur- turing a competitive advantage and for improving their publication’s influ- ence (Groesser, 2012: 625). This article examines the marketing and publicity actions available to the Journal/Revue and similar journals in a digital environment character- ized by open access (OA) and impact factor (IF) metrics. It begins with a general discussion of the (re)positioning of established flagship national journals in a competitive global publishing marketplace that is being Acknowledgments: The author wishes to thank the two anonymous external reviewers and the interview respondents for their time, insights and assistance. The comments received from Pierre-Marc Daigneault and Graham White on earlier drafts are also appreciated. Alex Marland, Department of Political Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 230 Elizabeth Avenue, St. John’s, Newfoundland, A1B 3X9, email: amarland@mun.ca Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique 50:1 (December / décembre 2017) 77–95 doi:10.1017/S0008423916001086 © 2017 Canadian Political Science Association (l’Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique terms of use, available at https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008423916001086 Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 173.243.43.154, on 12 Apr 2017 at 04:14:57, subject to the Cambridge Core