An emerging economy of publications and citations

The Humboltian image of an independent academic is challenged by the recent developments in the governance of universities. Digital technology has produced new tools for the surveillance and steering of researchers’ work. Researchers become actors in an economy based on the disembedded symbolic tokens of publications and citations. Incentives are produced, which make researchers subservient to the steering system. Bibliometrics offers the technology, which is used. The general idea has its worldly application, which is forming the rules for what is supposed to count as academic knowledge, i.e. a priviledged form of knowledge in society generally. Educational research is in this essay used as an example, where some possible implications is projected.