The new Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly new submission length and theory requests are below the signature information.

 

 

Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly is published by AEJMC, and while it attracts scholarship and draws readership from outside the association, its origin within the ninety-three-year-old association helps explain what Quarterly has become.  The association is made up of 3,400 members, seventeen divisions, and ten interest groups.  Within those divisions and interest groups are scholars at different stages of their research careers, actively pursuing a broad and varied range of scholarly topics, employing diverse methods and working within a number of paradigms.

 

Not surprisingly, the many studies submitted to and published in Quarterly reflect that diversity and range of activities: historical, legal, qualitative, and social science inquiries that examine the many forms and processes of journalism and mass communication, and that may vary across individual, organizational, institutional, or societal levels of analysis.

 

Indeed, by some standards the success of a publication serving the field is its ability to present the best work representing all of those many interests and approaches.  Distinctive individual pieces collectively reflect the field.

 

At the same time, Quarterly can serve a role of presenting scholarship that cuts across specialties, makes connections, and encourages interdisciplinarity, and that addresses broad issues, themes, and theories in the field.  In each issue, in fact, we invite scholars to employ “a variety of methods and theoretical perspectives,” to “challenge the boundaries of communication research,” and to guide readers “to new questions, new evidence, and new conclusions.” 

 

The importance of this mission statement has been reaffirmed and emphasized by the discussions that followed the release of the recommendations of the Task Force on the Status and Future of AEJMC Publications.  To this end, the editors of Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly are committed to publishing such theory-building work, whether it takes the form of an inductive process of creating theoretical propositions from existing scholarship, or develops through a deductive approach; whether it represents theory-building within a “narrow” area (risk communication, media economics, agenda setting, etc.) or cuts across such areas; and whether it emerges from a social science or critical paradigm.  

 

Similarly, we remain committed to our goal of publishing manuscripts that examine the relationship of our research methods to our theories or that provide historical perspective on the field.  The Spring 2003 issue challenged readers and contributors to make Quarterly “the venue for submissions examining both basic and sophisticated methodological questions.”

 

In order to serve the diversity of scholarly methods and approaches in our field, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly has recently added additional pages per volume to permit more flexibility in manuscript length and to expand the book review section. Quarterly has expanded the traditional 5,000-word manuscript guideline to 6,000 words for manuscripts not employing tabular material.  At the same time, we have adopted a process used by several leading journals: manuscript reviewers will be asked to offer an assessment of a manuscript’s length-to-contribution “ratio.”  If reviewers recommend shortening or lengthening a piece, that recommendation will inform the editor’s decision and any revision process.  

 

The Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly editors hope the increased word limit for non-quantitative manuscripts will encourage the submission of more theory-building and methodology-oriented manuscripts that cut across the boundaries of communication research.  As in the past, Quarterly will continue its process of rigorously reviewing all manuscripts and will continue to welcome studies addressing important topics of journalism and mass communication from the diverse interests and approaches that mark our field.