International Journal of Communication

Focus and Scope

The International Journal of Communication is an online, multi-media, academic journal that adheres to the highest standards of peer review and engages established and emerging scholars from anywhere in the world. The International Journal of Communication is an interdisciplinary journal that, while centered in communication, is open and welcoming to contributions from the many disciplines and approaches that meet at the crossroads that is communication study. We are interested in scholarship that crosses disciplinary lines and speaks to readers from a range of theoretical and methodological perspectives. In other words, the International Journal of Communication will be a forum for scholars when they address the wider audiences of our many sub-fields and specialties, rather than the location for the narrower conversations more appropriately conducted within more specialized journals. USC Annenberg Press is committed to excellence in communication scholarship, journalism, media research, and application. To advance this goal, we edit and publish prominent scholarly publications that are both innovative and influential, and that chart new courses in their respective fields of study. Annenberg Press is among the first to deliver journal content online free of charge, and devoted to the wide dissemination of its content. Annenberg Press continues to offer scholars and readers a forum that meets the highest standards of peer review and engages established and emerging scholars from anywhere in the world.

Section Policies

Editorials

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Articles

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Special Sections

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Features

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Book Reviews

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Articles on COVID-19 Effect

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Open Access Policy

This is an Open Access journal. Users have the right to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full text of articles in this journal, or use them for any other lawful purpose.

Open Access enables authors to obtain the maximum possible exposure for their work. Freely available papers are read more, cited more, and have more impact than ones available only to paid subscribers. As an experiment, enter a research topic into a search engine like Google and see how many links you obtain to papers published in traditional journals. You will find that most references are to working papers, not to published papers, because working papers are freely available. The advent of the web has made free dissemination of research feasible and financially viable. Because existing specialty journals obtain revenues from selling subscriptions, primarily to libraries, access to the research they publish is limited. The attractive revenue stream that such subscriptions provide makes it unlikely that these journals will convert to Open Access. Thus a need exists for new refereed Open Access journals to replace existing journals. We believe that the establishment of a major Open Access journal in communication study will lead others to establish Open Access journals for many sub-fields and specialties in communication, reclaiming full control for the profession of its research output. We hope that this will lead the profession to a new norm in which all research is freely available and which there are no article processing (APC) or submission charges.  The International Journal of Communication has no article processing charges and no article submission charges.

 

Archiving

This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. More...

USC Annenberg Press

USC Annenberg Press is committed to excellence in communication scholarship, journalism, media research, and application. To advance this goal, we edit and publish prominent scholarly publications that are both innovative and influential, and that chart new courses in their respective fields of study. Annenberg Press is among the first to deliver journal content online free of charge, and devoted to the wide dissemination of its content. Annenberg Press continues to offer scholars and readers a forum that meets the highest standards of peer review and engages established and emerging scholars from anywhere in the world.

Indexing Sources for IJoC

The International Journal of Communication is proud to be indexed on the following indexing sources: Clarivate (formerly Thomson Reuters) Social Sciences Indexing to include — SSCI — SCI — ISI — EBSCOhost (EBSCO) — Elsevier — Genamics Journal Seek (GJS) — Google Scholar — International Association for Media & Communication Research (IAMCR) — IGT Knowledge Center — Scholarly Exchange — Univerciencia — ERIH PLUS — International Institute of Organized Research (I2OR).

Turnaround Time

An important goal of IJoC is to speed the review process. In particular, we aim to have papers go through at most two rounds of refereeing. In light of this goal, a paper judged to be unlikely to be acceptable by a second round will be rejected, either without consultation with referees or in response to referee reports. We aim to turn around papers as quickly as is consistent with a thorough evaluation of their contribution. We aim to adhere to the following standards for turnaround time.

Code of Ethics

The International Journal of Communication (IJoC) aspires to select and publish, through peer review, the highest quality research in communication studies. In order to achieve this goal, the entire peer review and publication process should be thorough, objective and fair. Journal reputation depends heavily on the trust by all stakeholders in the fairness of the peer review and publication process. An important role of the publisher is to support the extensive efforts of the journal editors, and often unsung volunteer work undertaken by peer reviewers in maintaining the integrity of the scholarly record. It is a tribute to scholarly practice that the system works well and problems are comparatively rare. The publisher has a supporting, investing and nurturing role in the scholarly communication process and is also ultimately responsible for ensuring that best practices are followed. IJoC supports the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). See http://publicationethics.org

This journal uses double-blind review, which means that both the reviewer and author identities are concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa, throughout the review process. To facilitate this, authors need to ensure that their manuscripts are prepared in a way that does not give away their identity.

Disseminating

We are making efforts to disseminate the journal content as widely as possible. If the journal is not listed in the catalog of your institution's library, we encourage you to request that it be listed. The journal is listed also in NewJour, a resource used by librarians, and on Registry of Embedded Multimedia Electronic Journals.

Archiving in D-Space

Papers published in International Journal of Communication are stored on the Annenberg Press server of the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, currently located at the University of Southern California. We take the preservation of the papers very seriously. We are working to permanently archive the content of the journal in D-Space.

Mission Statement

USC Annenberg Press is committed to excellence in communication scholarship, journalism, media research, and application. To advance this goal, we edit and publish prominent scholarly publications that are both innovative and influential, and that chart new courses in their respective fields of study. Annenberg Press is among the first to deliver journal content online free of charge, and devoted to the wide dissemination of its content. Annenberg Press continues to offer scholars and readers a forum that meets the highest standards of peer review and engages established and emerging scholars from anywhere in the world.