The Role of the Zenodo Repository in Supporting Independent Scholarly Publishing: A Case Study of the "Journal of Internet Studies"

This article is devoted to the study of using the universal Zenodo repository as a strategic tool for the development of independent scholarly journals. The object of the research is open scholarly infrastructures; the subject is the model of integrating a young academic publication with the Zenodo repository, based on the case of the “Journal of Internet Studies”. The author analyzes the typical barriers faced by emerging journals: the problem of material identification (lack of DOI), the problem of long-term storage, and the problem of visibility in the global scholarly space. The paper also presents an analysis of Zenodo’s functional capabilities as a joint project of CERN and OpenAIRE, including the automatic assignment of DOIs, unlimited storage capacity, long-term archiving, and indexing in OpenAIRE. A real case of a Russian journal that integrated the repository into its publishing model from its very first issue is separately presented. The research methodology is based on general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction), as well as on specialized methods — content analysis, the narrative method, and the case study method. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the fact that, for the first time on concrete empirical material, the effectiveness of Zenodo is demonstrated as a ready-made technical base for private publishing initiatives lacking institutional support. Based on the conducted research, it can be concluded that Zenodo, without replacing Scopus and Web of Science, successfully meets the basic needs of a young journal and levels its capabilities with those of major players. We note separately that the case of the “Journal of Internet Studies” demonstrates the practical viability of this model.