Satirical academic website takes aim at Beijing’s research race
Online for a month now, “S.H.I.T Journal” – playing on the double meaning of the acronym for Science, Humanity, Information, and Technology – is racking up millions of views by publishing studies on grotesque topics presented with apparent rigour. A ‘subtle protest’ against the Party’s pressure to publish ever more studies to certify the excellence of Chinese universities.
Milan (AsiaNews) - Last February, a new “academic journal” was launched on the Chinese web, whose name reveals much about its irreverent nature. The fledgling online platform is in fact called “S.H.I.T. Journal”: four letters that apparently stand for the words Science, Humanity, Information, Technology, but whose most explicit reference is actually to the English word “excrement”. The Chinese name of the journal, however, is composed of the two characters “gou” (to make) and “shi” (stone), homophones respectively of the words “dog” and “faeces” (hence “dog faeces”), to which it is undoubtedly alluding.
This play on meanings also recurs in the magazine’s logo: a pyramid-shaped pile of yellow stones topped by the figure of a man pushing a boulder with his hands. The idea is that the mission of ‘S.H.I.T.’ is to deconstruct, to dismantle through satire the excessive formalism of academic publications, often dictated by reasons linked to political censorship. Although this aspect is not directly mentioned by the journal, it is well known that with President Xi Jinping’s rise to power, academic freedom
in China has been severely restricted.
In recent years, there has in fact been a decline in university autonomy and the introduction of greater controls over content in teaching, research and publishing.
On the website, “S.H.I.T.” is described as “the official academic portal for high-level studies on inner rubbish”, whose aim is to “provide a space for young researchers and students who have been rejected by leading mainstream journals and who suffer from intense competition and editorial pressure, to vent their emotions and express their creativity”.
Not a traditional academic journal, then, but an experimental project, launched by a group of researchers and influencers, aimed at demystifying the evaluation mechanisms of national scientific output, which tend to place greater importance on the format of articles rather than on the value and originality of the content.
The genius of “S.H.I.T.” lies in not directly criticising these phenomena, but in using imitation and parody to ridicule them, thereby achieving an ironic and irreverent effect.
The articles published by “S.H.I.T.” do, in fact, have a rigorous structure and style, including an abstract, keywords, introduction, literature review, bibliography and even a DOI (digital identifier, ed.), just like in the most reputable scientific journals. The topics covered, however, are absurd and fanciful, as demonstrated by some of the titles: “Using quantum mechanics to explain why people are single”, “On the lethal effect of 152 mm high-explosive armour-piercing projectiles on cancer cells”, or “Monetary inflation in the criminal underworld: how much money should East Asian parents burn to ensure their children do not spend recklessly?”, and again “Spending too much time in the bathroom is correlated with a 100% increase in productivity”. The texts are often accompanied by fictitious statistics and graphs to lend greater credibility to the arguments put forward.
Furthermore, “S.H.I.T.” faithfully replicates the operational structure of traditional academic journals, except that contributors are jokingly referred to as “defecation operators”, reviewers as “sniffers”, and the editorial board is instead composed of “excrement shovellers”. It also boasts a collective and decentralised evaluation system, which completely overturns the traditional model based on the opinion of scientific committees that hold the right of a single veto.
New manuscripts are initially displayed anonymously in the section of the site called the “dry toilet”, where users – the “sniffers” – can evaluate them freely. Those that are most successful move on to the “septic tank” category before being definitively included in the “hall of fame”. Articles with the lowest scores, on the other hand, are relegated to the “sedimentation” area.
Finally, “S.H.I.T.” features an access system that allows users to become official members and to participate in voting, comment on and monitor contributions. It includes interactive features that allow users to view votes cast on articles in real time, categorise them based on popularity, and search for content. Netizens can easily find like-minded people on the site and form groups to create new content, fostering a sense of community.
About a month after its launch, the magazine “S.H.I.T.” surpassed 100 million views, quickly going viral on the Chinese web. Some colourful expressions originating from its virtual pages have become “memes” and spread rapidly across social platforms such as Douyin – the Chinese version of TikTok – Xiaohongshu (RedNote) and X.
Despite its tongue-in-cheek tone, the “protest” led by “S.H.I.T.” has helped to highlight some critical issues within Chinese universities.
As demonstrated by a recent study published in the scientific journal Nature, practices such as “publish or perish” or “determining salary based on merit” have had detrimental effects on the psychological well-being of lecturers at Chinese universities, with repercussions on their performance. Added to this is the implementation of the ‘Double First-Class Initiative’, a strategy launched in 2015 with the aim of promoting excellence in higher education in China and strengthening the country’s global leadership in advanced education by 2050. However, its excessive emphasis on the quality of academic performance and research outcomes has led to a significant increase in stress among university lecturers, with repercussions on academic conduct and job satisfaction.
It will certainly not be a satirical magazine such as ‘S.H.I.T.’ that will resolve the problems within the academic world in China, but undoubtedly this sort of ‘internal rebellion’, led by those who know the rules of the game well, can prompt reflection on the absurdity of certain mechanisms.
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16/01/2023 13:47
07/01/2020 09:36
