Assignment #6B

In my opinion, chapter 7, “The politics of research” from Brian Martin’s book, “Information Liberation” is available as a PDF file because the author wished for this information to be as free as most of the information one would need for research.This chapter of Martin’s book is available as a PDF file because he believes knowledge can be accomplished in many different ways.This chapter is also available to read as a PDF on the web because Martin wanted readers to understand that there are different ways of achieving knowledge. He states, “Knowledge isn’t necessarily everlasting, nor is it necessarily of general value. Rather than thinking of knowledge as great truths engraved on tablets in the sky, it’s more useful to think of knowledge as ideas that are generally agreed by specific communities.” He wanted everyone to have access to the PDF file.

Brian Martin book chapter is available to read as PDF on web, because he wants knowledge to be liberated for everyone and not to be limited towards a price. He wants readers to have unlimited ways to seek knowledge, and teach them that there are many ways to find great knowledge in order to help the readers understand more.This chapter of the book can generally be used by anyone reading it in order to recognize how these subgroups can “affect the creation and use of knowledge” by “finding disciplines, hierarchy, and competition”. Furthermore, knowledge in the subgroup culture can tend to be biased, as Martin pointed out in the pharmaceutical world, when it pertains to the funding of research in finding the best drug for a particular ailment.

Martin states the word “Knowledge” suggests certainty, authoritativeness, even usefulness. It is a good thing to be knowledgeable . Yet much knowledge is quite limited, specific, parochial.

The availability of this book chapter online exemplifies his idea that scholarship should be liberated. If it were not available for free online it would defeat his purpose of defending that knowledge and research should be free and not just accessible to people with proper funding.I believe that the availability of this chapter online exemplifies Martin’s idea that scholarship should be liberated. Having the chapter available for readers online without a price goes hand in hand with his belief that knowledge is free and very powerful in the world.Martin would want more “participatory and egalitarian” access to fair, unbiased knowledge to the ordinary person. We should be able to receive any information without paying a price. We should be able to gain knowledge in different ways. We should have access to different types of information and also have access to scholarly data.