The idea of open access (OA) is a simple one: publicly-funded academic literature should be freely available for all to access. But in practice, the OA movement has since its inception become a virtual labyrinth of business and publishing models, implemented in array of forms by various stakeholders.

Building on Pinch and Bijker's Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) framework (1984), Van Baalen, Van Fenema and Loebbecke's (2016) Social Construction of Digital Technology (SCODT) framework offers thread through this labyrinth: a theoretical means of analyzing how stakeholders influence the development and adoption of digital technologies through a social process of “stabilization and closure”.

This presentation will describe the SCODT framework as analytical tool, and will trace the history of the OA movement as a demonstration of the SCODT process of stabilization and closure. It will highlight three major stakeholders in the OA movement: scholars, publishers, and librarians, examining the ways in which these stakeholders worked together to stabilize OA as the future of scholarly publishing, albeit in a compromised form. Power imbalances among OA stakeholders remained entrenched, and more powerful stakeholders were able to co-opt the OA movement to control the narrative surrounding OA and the flow of money OA publishing fees could garner.