Prestige and Gatekeeping in Postgraduate Journals: The Case of Postgraduate English

Relatively little has been said about the opportunities and challenges of digital, open access publishing as it pertains to postgraduate-led journals catering to postgraduate researchers.This paper draws on the authors’ experiences with Postgraduate English, one of the longest-running, born-digital journals for postgraduate researchers in English studies. It makes the case for the benefit of such publications within the prestige economy and describes the ways in which quality can be assured, challenging those who might see postgraduate publications as further diluting the pool of high-quality research. At the same time, the paper raises critical questions about who really wins in postgraduate publishing. While those who publish and edit can benefit from the prestige indication of these activities, ultimately host institutions may gain more from the relationship via the hidden labour costs behind such activity.