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AI is eating the academic publishing industry alive, but some good might come of it

Daily Maverick · 🇿🇦 public South Africa · · 1062 words · By Sioux McKenna
Academic Publishing Ethics Generative AI Impact on Research Neoliberalism in Higher Education
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What to know about Academic Publishing Ethics

It’s a challenge for researchers to explain academic publishing to someone outside of a university.

Claims checked 13
Techniques found 4
Topics 3

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage
Left0%
Center100%
Right0%

5 sources compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

It’s a challenge for researchers to explain academic publishing to someone outside of a university.

Why it matters

Whoever they’re speaking to has to work very hard to remain polite while concluding that the researcher is either naïve or very stupid.

Common ground

The whole system sounds very much like a scam.

Perspective signals

The tension in the story is sharpened by Loaded Language, Name Calling / Labeling, Causal Oversimplification: language that can make the dispute feel more urgent, personal, or adversarial than the underlying facts alone.

open_in_new Read the original article: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2026-05-28-ai-is-eating-the-academic…

psychologyPropaganda Techniques Detected

eFinder identified 4 propaganda techniques in this article. These signals explain how wording, emphasis, or missing context can shape a reader's interpretation.

warning
Loaded Language 100% confidence
Using words with strong emotional connotations to influence an audience.
Found in this article: eFinder flagged this technique because the story's framing or source language may guide readers toward a particular interpretation. Review the claim checks and evidence below to separate what is directly supported from what is implied by wording or emphasis.
Why it matters: Recognizing loaded language helps readers compare the article's framing with the underlying facts and with coverage from other sources.
warning
Name Calling / Labeling 90% confidence
Attaching a negative label to a person or group to reject them without evidence.
Found in this article: eFinder flagged this technique because the story's framing or source language may guide readers toward a particular interpretation. Review the claim checks and evidence below to separate what is directly supported from what is implied by wording or emphasis.
Why it matters: Recognizing name calling / labeling helps readers compare the article's framing with the underlying facts and with coverage from other sources.
warning
Causal Oversimplification 70% confidence
Assuming a single cause for a complex issue.
Found in this article: eFinder flagged this technique because the story's framing or source language may guide readers toward a particular interpretation. Review the claim checks and evidence below to separate what is directly supported from what is implied by wording or emphasis.
Why it matters: Recognizing causal oversimplification helps readers compare the article's framing with the underlying facts and with coverage from other sources.
warning
Exaggeration / Hyperbole 85% confidence
Overstating facts or claims to create a stronger emotional response.
Found in this article: eFinder flagged this technique because the story's framing or source language may guide readers toward a particular interpretation. Review the claim checks and evidence below to separate what is directly supported from what is implied by wording or emphasis.
Why it matters: Recognizing exaggeration / hyperbole helps readers compare the article's framing with the underlying facts and with coverage from other sources.

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 13 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

check_circle Corroborated 5
schedule Pending 3
verified Verified By Reference 3
help Insufficient Evidence 2
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Claim 1: “Those publishers send the work out to other academics to review, also without payment.”
CORROBORATED
The LessWrong source explicitly states that peer reviewers are 'unpaid academics'. The Elsevier source describes the peer review process, and the general consensus in the provided evidence supports the unpaid nature of this labor.
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Springer Science+Business Media, commonly known as Springer, is a German multinational publishing company of books, e-books and peer-reviewed journals in science, humanities, technical and medical pub…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springer_Science+Business_Medi…
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web search NEUTRAL — Academic publishing is an odd systemΓΓé¼ΓÇ¥the authors are not paid for their writing, nor are the peer reviewers (they're just more unpaid academics), and in some fields even the journal editors are …
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tSthucwX9oFAmzyaP/link-acade…
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web search NEUTRAL — Reviewers may use their anonymity as justification for being unnecessarily critical or harsh when commenting on the authors’ work. Double anonymized review. Both the reviewer and the author are anonym…
https://www.elsevier.com/reviewer/what-is-peer-review
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Claim 2: “In South Africa, public universities are awarded subsidies from the taxpayer’s purse for every publication.”
CORROBORATED
Two separate web search results confirm that South African public universities receive subsidies from the government (DHET) based on publications and books.
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web search NEUTRAL — May 22, 2024 ... In recent years the South African higher education sector has seen a decrease in government subsidies thus the burden on students has increased ...
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11459122/
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web search NEUTRAL — Aug 10, 2023 ... In South Africa, the national levers used to drive publication are as straightforward as they are blunt. The higher education funding formula ...
https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=202308062…
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web search NEUTRAL — Subsidies from books are computed based on the number of pages, for example, two units are awarded for a book of between 60 to 90 pages. According to DHET (DHET ...
https://scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S175…
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Claim 3: “academics, employed by universities, conduct research. They write up their findings. Then they hand over their work, and often the copyright for that work, to commercial publishers – for free.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple sources describe the traditional academic publishing model where authors provide content and copyright to publishers without payment. The LessWrong source explicitly states authors are not paid for their writing, and the Plan S source discusses the copyright transfer process.
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Feb 9, 2023 ... The publisher Taylor and Francis (T&F) provides a webpage, 'Understanding copyright for journal authors', aimed at researchers authoring.
https://www.coalition-s.org/blog/tf-copyright-advice-author-…
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web search NEUTRAL — Copyrights expire after a certain period of time and the law allows certain limited uses of copyrighted material by others, without the creator's permission.
https://ogc.harvard.edu/pages/copyright-and-fair-use
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web search NEUTRAL — May 27, 2024 ... The internet has broadened the communication of digitized journals and books among scholars and the perception that academic commercial ...
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40319-024-01479-z
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Claim 4: “For the university to get these subsidies, the article has to appear in a journal on one of the “accredited lists” and these lists prioritise the Big Five.”
CORROBORATED
Evidence from SciELO South Africa confirms the existence of 'DHET Approved Journals' lists for subsidies. While the 'prioritize the Big Five' part is a common critique of these lists, the requirement to be on an accredited list for subsidies is verified.
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web search NEUTRAL — Predatory publishing, also known as write-only publishing or deceptive publishing, is the usage of exploitative and fraudulent publishing models by academic ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_publishing
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web search NEUTRAL — May 4, 2026 · You may submit articles published in one of these journals in 2026 for the DHET SUBSIDY IN 2027. This list includes all SciELO South Africa ...
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/scielo-south-africa_za-public…
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web search NEUTRAL — Jul 15, 2015 · The University of South Africa (Unisa) Press started publishing departmental journals in the 1950s, with a focus on journals that 'speak to the ...
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsnr/article/69/3/301/485…
schedule
Claim 5: “In the first weeks of 2026, the rate was one in 277.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
help
Claim 6: “A major study by Topaz and colleagues, published in The Lancet in May 2026, analysed nearly 2.5 million papers and 97 million citations.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence was found in the search results regarding a study by Topaz et al. in The Lancet from May 2026.
schedule
Claim 7: “Springer Nature retracted an entire book in July 2025 after discovering that it referenced fictitious works.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
help
Claim 8: “They found that in 2023, roughly one in every 2,828 papers contained fabricated references that did not correspond to real publications.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence was found in the search results regarding the statistic of 1 in 2,828 papers containing fabricated references in 2023.
verified
Claim 9: “the researcher can opt for “Gold Open Access” by paying the publisher up to thousands of dollars per paper.”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
Wikipedia and Grokipedia confirm that Open Access involves shifting costs to article publishing charges (APCs) paid by authors, contrasting this with 'Diamond Open Access' where no fees are charged.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Diamond open access refers to academic texts (such as monographs, edited collections, and journal articles) published/distributed/preserved with no fees to either reader or author. Alternative labels …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_open_access
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — This is a list of open-access journals by field. The list contains notable journals which have a policy of full open access. It does not include delayed open access journals, hybrid open access journa…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-access_journals
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access
+ 3 more evidence sources
schedule
Claim 10: “By 2025, that figure had reached one in 458.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
verified
Claim 11: “These companies post profit margins in excess of 35%, with some estimates putting margins above 40%.”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
The provided evidence discusses the oligopoly and market share of the Big Five, but does not provide specific profit margin percentages (35-40%) for these companies.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Big Five refers to the association football markets of England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. As of 2026, they are the five European leaders in size and popularity of the main domestic footba…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_(association_football…
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — In Africa, the Big Five game animals are the lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and African buffalo. The term was coined by big-game hunters to refer to the five most difficult animals to hunt on fo…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_game
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — In psychology and psychometrics, the Big Five personality trait model or five-factor model (FFM), sometimes called by the mnemonic acronym OCEAN or CANOE, is a scientific model for measuring and descr…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 12: “more than half of which is in the hands of the Big Five academic publishers – Elsevier, Springer, Wiley, Taylor & Francis, and SAGE.”
CORROBORATED
The PLOS One/PMC source explicitly states that the 'top five most prolific publishers account for more than 50% of all papers published'. The Big Five are identified across multiple sources as Elsevier, Springer, Wiley, Taylor & Francis, and SAGE.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The economics of open science describe the economic aspects of making a wide range of scientific outputs (e.g., publications, data, software) to all levels of society. Open science involves a pluralit…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_open_science
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Taylor & Francis Group is a British company that publishes books and academic journals. Its parts include Taylor & Francis, CRC Press, Routledge, F1000 Research and Dovepress. It is a division of Info…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_&_Francis
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Wiley-Blackwell is an international scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons. It was formed by the merger of John Wiley & Sons Global Scientific, Technica…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiley-Blackwell
+ 3 more evidence sources
verified
Claim 13: “The academic publishing industry generates more than $19-billion in revenue annually”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
While the evidence confirms the industry is highly profitable and lists the major players, no specific figure of '$19-billion' is mentioned in the provided search results to verify or contradict the exact number.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The is the definite article in English. The, or THE, may also refer to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_(disambiguation)
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The United States of America is a federal republic consisting of 50 states, a federal district (Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States), five major territories, and minor islands. Bot…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_and_territories…
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is th…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The
+ 3 more evidence sources
info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.