Author Guidelines
Mission
General Instructions
Publication Ethics
Submission of Original Articles
Summary of Peer-Review Process
Responses to articles
JoC Forum
Copyright Agreement Information for authors with Funder arrangements
License to Publish Form
Permissions for Illustrations and Figures
Research Data Policy
Open Science Badges
Open Access
Mission
The Journal of Communication is a general forum for communication scholarship and publishes original research articles and book reviews examining a broad range of issues in communication theory and research. JoC publishes the best scholarship on all aspects of communication research. All theoretical approaches as well as methods of scholarly inquiry are welcome – we aim to showcase cutting-edge research in the field of communication irrespective of approach. Manuscripts are expected to make original contributions to academic research in the field of communication. Manuscripts should address critical theoretical and empirical questions in communication that are relevant to scholars across specializations. We are particularly interested in manuscripts that connect analytical threads across subfields in communication studies or make major theoretical contributions that have relevance beyond a specific area of research. Submissions are expected to present arguments that are theoretically sophisticated, conceptually meaningful, and methodologically sound. The journal is committed to fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion, and to adhering to the highest editorial and ethical standards. The editorial by the current editors-in-chief provides further insights into the vision for the JoC and outlines the types of manuscripts we are seeking. Explore it here: 'Navigating the Seas of Inclusivity: A Collaborative Voyage at the Helm of a Communication Flagship Journal'
General Instructions
All submitted manuscripts must be prepared in strict accordance with the 7th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA).
Submitted manuscripts must not have been published elsewhere or be currently under consideration with any other publication outlet. Submissions that closely resemble previously published articles by the same author/s will be immediately rejected.
To ensure a double-anonymous review process, authors must remove all identifying information from submitted materials (except for the title page, which is retained by the editors). Self-citations should be written in the third person. For example, use "Xi and Smith (2024) have demonstrated" rather than "as we have previously demonstrated (Xi & Smith, 2024)". For preregistered studies, authors must ensure that the published preregistration does not include author information.
If any manuscripts written by the submitting author(s) use the same primary data set and are currently under review, have been published or already accepted for publication, then please use the cover letter to detail how the current work differs from the other manuscripts in terms of range, scope, and theoretical significance. Also, the Journal of Communication does not require a study to be pre-registered. However, if authors have pre-registered their work (e.g., in OSF), then please include in the cover letter any details or documentation confirming the completion of a pre-registration process.
The journal asks that authors follow the general principles for reducing bias. The American Psychological Association (APA) provides guidelines for bias-free language and inclusive language.
Publication Ethics
Authors should observe high standards with respect to publication ethics as set out by the Commission on Publication Ethics. Falsification or fabrication of data, plagiarism, including duplicate publication of the authors’ own work without proper citation, and misappropriation of the work are all unacceptable practices. Any cases of ethical misconduct are treated very seriously and will be dealt with in accordance with the COPE guidelines.
Submission of Original Articles
Authors should submit a single main document, a single supplemental materials document (if applicable), and a title page through the Oxford University Press Journal of Communication submission site.
The title page should provide contact information and a brief biographical statement for each author. The main document should include all materials that would appear in the final hard copy version of a work accepted for publication. The supplemental materials document should contain additional elements of a research project that can be utilized for peer review and/or inclusion as a supplemental file for a work accepted for publication. Author identification must be removed from the main document, as well as any supplemental materials.
Main Document
The main document should be a maximum of 35 pages in length (including the abstract, main text, references, tables, figures, and endnotes).
- Page 1 should include only the title (centered), an abstract (maximum of 150 words), and selected keywords (at least 5 of author's own choosing).
- Page 2 starts with title (centered) and the main text follows directly thereafter. Please note that the title functions as the first-order heading for the introduction. Subsequent subheadings should begin with a second-order subheading (bold flush left).
- Standard type (12-point font, double-spaced, Times New Roman, 1.0 inch margins) should be used throughout.
- Running head and page numbers on top right corner (header) of each page.
- References are double-spaced; 2nd and subsequent lines should have hanging indent of 0.5 inch (References should also start on a new page). Reference style should follow the 7th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA).
- All tables, figures, and endnotes should be placed after references.
- Tables and figures should be in standard 12-point type, Times New Roman. Each table and figure should be presented on a separate page, but in the case of simple tables and figures more than one (but no more than two) may be presented on a single page.
- When appropriate, effect sizes (e.g., Cohen’s d, Pearson’s r, eta-squared) should be supplied. These details will provide enhanced understanding of a study’s findings, aid null hypothesis significance testing (NHST), and service future attempts to synthesize an area of study using meta-analytic procedures.
- Submit one main document in Microsoft WORD format (e.g., a docx extension). NOTE: Journal of Communication does not accept PDF files.
Figure accessibility and alt text
Incorporating alt text (alternative text) when submitting your paper helps to foster inclusivity and accessibility. Good alt text ensures that individuals with visual impairments or those using screen readers can comprehend the content and context of your figures. The aim of alt text is to provide concise and informative descriptions of your figure so that all readers have access to the same level of information and understanding, and that all can engage with and benefit from the visual elements integral to scholarly content. Including alt text demonstrates a commitment to accessibility and enhances the overall impact and reach of your work.
Alt text is applicable to all images, figures, illustrations, and photographs.
Alt text is only accessible via e-reader and so it won’t appear as part of the typeset article.
Detailed guidance on how to draft and submit alt text.
Supplemental Materials Document
None of the items to be included in the supplemental materials document count against the main document’s page limit. However, a decision can always be made by researchers to include any of the potential supplemental materials listed below in the main document. If a choice is made to include any of the potential supplemental materials in the main document, then the space devoted to those items will work against a submission’s page-count limit. Like the main document, the supplemental materials document should be a single Microsoft WORD format submission. There are no specific formatting guidelines for the supplemental text materials, but authors should seek to create a document that follows APA style guidelines wherever possible and maximizes ease of use for editors and peer reviewers.
There are no required supplemental materials for an initial submission. However, the inclusion of methodological instruments (e.g., questionnaires, experimental stimuli, interview guides, codebooks, scripts) as well as details on sampling procedures is strongly encouraged if the information presented in the main document is not exhaustive. If an invitation to revise and resubmit a manuscript is extended, then the Journal of Communication editorial team may request the inclusion of some of these supplemental items in order to make a well-informed publication decision upon resubmission. Any requests of this kind will be detailed in the decision letter. Offered below is a list of items that could be included in the supplemental materials document. The list is not meant to be exhaustive. Instead, it provides potential submitters with a sense of what they may wish to include as part of an initial submission (depending on the nature of their work). If multiple supplemental items are being included in the single supplemental materials document, then each new item should begin on a new page within the document, with appropriate headings and numbering. The document should only include information that is necessary to document and evaluate the research presented in the article.
Examples of potential supplemental items include: Questionnaire items (in surveys); experimental stimuli (including links to any video material); descriptive statistics; justification of criterion values (e.g., Alpha level) and hyperparameters; syntax and/or code of statistical analyses; codebooks (in manual content analysis), dictionaries (in computational content analysis); documentation of workflows, preprocessing steps, and algorithms (e.g., in machine learning/topic modeling); interview guides and focus group protocols (in qualitative interviewing); meta-analysis checklists (e.g., QUOROM, MARS, MOOSE, PRISMA); validation procedures/metrics; comprehensive list of resources used in document analyses.
Please prepare the main and supplementary materials documents properly for anonymous peer review. Offline or email submissions will not be accepted. Nor will abstracts sent by email to the editors-in-chief be considered. All manuscripts must be submitted online through Manuscript Central.
Inquiries regarding manuscripts should be directed to:
David Ewoldsen, Natascha Just, Chul-joo "CJ" Lee, and Keren Tenenboim-Weinblatt
Editors-in-Chief
Journal of Communication
e-mail: [email protected]
Summary of Peer-Review Process
Properly-formatted manuscripts considered by the editors-in-chief to be of sufficient quality and in line with the Journal of Communication’s mission will be assigned to one of the editors-in-chief to oversee the external review process. This editor will serve as action editor or assign the manuscript to an associate editor to serve as the action editor for the work. The action editors will secure reviewers and make judgments concerning publication worthiness. Publication judgements will be based on reviewer feedback and the action editor’s own reading of the submission materials. All associate editor and reviewer feedback is then sent to the editors-in-chief. The editors-in-chief will then send a final decision letter to the corresponding author. In most instances, authors can expect decisions on initial submissions within 90 days. Because manuscripts receive expert review, and because the Journal of Communication Editorial Board is international in scope, this time may vary. The Journal of Communication retains the right to make changes in accepted manuscripts that (in the opinion of the editors-in-chief) do not substantially alter meaning as well as for grammatical, stylistic and space considerations.
Responses to articles
We occasionally invite responses to articles when we believe that additional commentary could enrich the discussion and expand perspectives on topics of interest within the field. Because these are by invitation only, we kindly ask you to refrain from unsolicited submissions. However, if you are interested in contributing a response, feel free to reach out to the editors-in-chief at [email protected] to explore the opportunity further.
JoC Forum
Through critical review of books in the field(s) of communication and media, the JoC Forum seeks to spark thoughtful engagement and provoke creative debate. Of particular interest are review essays that have an interdisciplinary, international, and historically informed perspective. The JoC Forum aims to surface arguments, scholars, and subject areas that challenge our understanding of the field’s past, present and future, especially those topics beyond the field’s prevailing mainstream. We are not interested in standard book reviews that focus on a single text; rather, we are interested in reviews that will pull together three or more books as a way to provoke debate and discussion about contemporary intellectual, theoretical, and empirical debates in the field. Each contribution to the JoC Forum will typically engage with several books around a central question, theme, or concept. Contributions may vary in length but can range from 3,000 to 6,000 words. All contributions to the JoC Forum will be peer-reviewed. Authors considering submission should contact the JoC Forum Editors to discuss suitability.
Please let us know if you have published a new book or if there is a book we should know about. You can do so by filling out this form. Publishers and authors should use this form to alert us to new books.
Publishers and authors may send hard copies of books for review to Jeff Pooley, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, 3620 Walnut St., Philadelphia, PA 19104. For other questions, please contact either of the Forum editors at [email protected] or [email protected].
Copyright Agreement Information for authors with Funder arrangements
Certain funders, including the European Research Council (ERC), NIH, members of the Research Councils UK (RCUK) and Wellcome Trust require deposit of the Accepted Version in a repository after an embargo period. Details of funding arrangements are set out at the following website: Complying with funder policies. Please contact the Journal production editor if you have additional funding requirements.
License to Publish Form
Upon receipt of accepted manuscripts at Oxford Journals authors will be invited to complete an online copyright license to publish form.
Please note that by submitting an article for publication you confirm that you are the corresponding/submitting author and that Oxford University Press ("OUP") may retain your email address for the purpose of communicating with you about the article. You agree to notify OUP immediately if your details change. If your article is accepted for publication OUP will contact you using the email address you have used in the registration process. Please note that OUP does not retain copies of rejected articles.
Please follow this link for questions about the reuse of OUP material.
Permissions for Illustrations and Figures
Permission to reproduce copyright material, for print and online publication in perpetuity, must be cleared and if necessary paid for by the author; this includes applications and payments to DACS, ARS and similar licensing agencies where appropriate. Evidence in writing that such permissions have been secured from the rights-holder must be made available to the editors. It is also the author's responsibility to include acknowledgements as stipulated by the particular institutions. Oxford Journals can offer information and documentation to assist authors in securing print and online permissions: please see Guidelines for Authors. Information on permissions contacts for a number of main galleries and museums can also be provided. Should you require copies of this then please contact the editorial office of the journal in question or the Oxford Journals Rights department. E: [email protected]
Research Data Policy
Availability of Data and Materials
Where ethically feasible, Journal of Communication strongly encourages authors to make all data on which the conclusions of the paper rely available to readers. We suggest that data be presented in the main manuscript or additional supporting files, or deposited in a public repository whenever possible. Information on general repositories for all data types, and a list of recommended repositories by subject area, is available at Choosing where to archive your data.
Data Availability Statement
The inclusion of a Data Availability Statement is a requirement for articles published in Journal of Communication. The statement may refer to original data generated in the course of the study or to third-party data analyzed in the article. The statement should describe and provide means of access, where possible, by linking to the data or providing the required unique identifier.
The Data Availability Statement should be included under the heading ‘Data availability’. More information and example Data Availability Statements can be found at Data Availability Statements.
Data Citation
Journal of Communication supports the Force 11 Data Citation Principles and requires that all publicly available datasets be fully referenced in the reference list with an accession number or unique identifier such as a digital object identifier (DOI). Data citations should include the minimum information recommended by DataCite:
- [dataset]* Authors, Year, Title, Publisher (repository or archive name), Identifier
*The inclusion of the [dataset] tag at the beginning of the citation helps us to correctly identify and tag the citation. This tag will be removed from the citation published in the reference list.
Preprint policy
Authors retain the right to make an Author’s Original Version (preprint) available through various channels, and this does not prevent submission to the journal. For further information see our Online Licensing, Copyright and Permissions policies. If accepted, the authors are required to update the status of any preprint, including your published paper’s DOI, as described on our Author Self-Archiving policy page.
Self-Archiving policy
For information about this journal's policy, please visit our Author Self-Archiving policy page.
Open Science Badges
Journal of Communication supports Open Science Badges to acknowledge open science practices. These voluntary badges are offered for those who would like to share data and materials and preregister research, and signal to the reader that the content has been made available in a persistent location. These badges will feature in the published article as well as the website. When submitting a manuscript, authors should indicate the desired badge, and include a completed Open Science Badge application form and eligibility will be confirmed upon acceptance.
The three badges are as follows:
- Open Materials Badge: This badge acknowledges authors who deposit research materials in an Open Access repository; for example, the Open Science Framework (for other repositories please consult the Registry of Research Data Repositories). Open materials criteria can be found on the OSF - open materials badge criteria page, and a link should be given in the submitted paper with a link to the deposited materials.
- Open Data Badge: This badge acknowledges authors who deposit their data in an Open Access repository (either an entire dataset or part of it, or a transformed dataset, as long as an independent researcher can reproduce the reported results). Criteria can be found on the OSF - open data badge criteria page, and a link to the deposited data should be included in the paper.
- Preregistered Badge: This badge acknowledges preregistered research in an institutional registration system (e.g. Open Science Framework). Registration should predate the intervention, and the design and analysis plan should correspond directly to the design and analysis. Full disclosure of results is needed in accordance with the preregistered plan. More information can be found on the OSF - preregistered badge page.
Please note that for all three badges, manuscripts should contain a link to data, materials, or preregistered research in the Open Science Framework or other recognized repository.
Open Access
Journal of Communication offers the option of publishing under either a standard license or an open access license. Please note that some funders require open access publication as a condition of funding. If you are unsure whether you are required to publish open access, please do clarify any such requirements with your funder or institution.
Should you wish to publish your article open access, you should select your choice of open access license in our online system after your article has been accepted for publication. You will need to pay an open access charge to publish under an open access license.
Details of the open access licenses and open access charges.
OUP has a growing number of Read and Publish agreements with institutions and consortia which provide funding for open access publishing. This means authors from participating institutions can publish open access, and the institution may pay the charge. Find out if your institution is participating.
Please note that you may be eligible for a discount to the open access charge based on society membership. Authors may be asked to prove eligibility for the member discount.
Disclaimer
The International Communication Association (ICA) is committed to advancing the scholarly study of communication by encouraging and facilitating excellence in academic research worldwide. As part of this commitment, ICA provides a platform for diverse perspectives through its publications. The views, opinions, and statements expressed by the editors, authors, and content contributors in the journals published by ICA are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of ICA, its members, officers, or its governing bodies. ICA respects the autonomy of its journal editors and upholds the principles of academic freedom and integrity. The content published in ICA journals is subject to peer review and adheres to the highest standards of scholarly ethics. However, ICA does not endorse or take responsibility for the individual viewpoints presented in these publications.
