BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies
An early and popular form of film projector, "bioscope", was widely used to refer to the cinema in twentieth century South Asia. By focusing on the word's component parts, we highlight the expanding spectrum of forms involved in thinking about the relationship of life to visual and sound technologies. From the orbit of film, television and video, we invite research into a wide historical and contemporary canvas, from precinematic forms of assembly, through to contemporary computer practices, game cultures, multimedia telephony, ambient television, surveillance cameras, and the wide range of materials assembled on the internet. Our interests also extend to new media arts and contemporary screen-based art installations.
BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies is a blind peer-reviewed journal published biannually, starting January 2010. We encourage theoretical and empirical research both on located screen practices and wider networks, linkages, and patterns of circulation. This involves research into the historical, regional, and virtual spaces of screen cultures, including globalized and multi-sited conditions of production and circulation.
There is special attention given to archival research and field work. This includes documentation and ethnographic enquiry into media institutions and industries, and their modes of regulation, for example, the policies, debates and practices of urban administration, censorship regimes, and intellectual property regulation.
Our concern with old and new media forms invites work not only on changing technologies, but also on the spaces within which media experience is organized, including changing architecture and design and an enquiry into spatial forms and histories.
Our attention extends to the rich intersection of South Asian screen practices with related media forms, for example musical recording and performance, popular print culture and stage set design, and the history of publicity, advertising and consumer cultures.
To engage the specific idioms and forms of screen culture, we invite translations of important texts on screen experience as these are made available through writings on visual and sound cultures and technologies such as reviews, criticism, essays, and literary works.
BioScope is supported by the Sarai Programme, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, India, and the India Media Centre, School of Media, Arts and Design, University of Westminster, UK. is supported by the Sarai Programme, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, India, and the India Media Centre, School of Media, Arts and Design, University of Westminster, UK.
This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).An early and popular form of film projector, “bioscope”, was widely used to refer to the cinema in twentieth century South Asia. By focusing on the word’s component parts, we highlight the expanding spectrum of forms involved in thinking about the relationship of life to visual and sound technologies. From the orbit of film, television and video, we invite research into a wide historical and contemporary canvas, from precinematic forms of assembly, through to contemporary computer practices, game cultures, multimedia telephony, ambient television, surveillance cameras, and the wide range of materials assembled on the internet. Our interests also extend to new media arts and contemporary screen-based art installations.
BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies is a blind peer-reviewed journal published biannually, starting January 2010. We encourage theoretical and empirical research both on located screen practices and wider networks, linkages, and patterns of circulation. This involves research into the historical, regional, and virtual spaces of screen cultures, including globalized and multi-sited conditions of production and circulation.
There is special attention given to archival research and field work. This includes documentation and ethnographic enquiry into media institutions and industries, and their modes of regulation, for example, the policies, debates and practices of urban administration, censorship regimes, and intellectual property regulation.
Our concern with old and new media forms invites work not only on changing technologies, but also on the spaces within which media experience is organized, including changing architecture and design and an enquiry into spatial forms and histories.
Our attention extends to the rich intersection of South Asian screen practices with related media forms, for example musical recording and performance, popular print culture and stage set design, and the history of publicity, advertising and consumer cultures.
To engage the specific idioms and forms of screen culture, we invite translations of important texts on screen experience as these are made available through writings on visual and sound cultures and technologies such as reviews, criticism, essays, and literary works.
| Ravi S. Vasudevan | Centre for the Study of Developing Societies/SARAI, India |
| Rosie Thomas | University of Westminister, UK |
| S V Srinivas | Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, India |
| Kartik Nair | Temple University, USA |
| Debashree Mukherjee | Columbia University, USA |
| Lotte Hoek | University of Edinburgh, Scotland |
| Salma Siddique | Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Germany |
| Samhita Sunya | University of Virginia, USA |
| Swati Bakshi | University of Westminister, UK |
| Vindhya Buthpitiya | University of St Andrews, United Kingdom |
| Vebhuti Duggal | Ambedkar University, Delhi |
| Iftikhar Dadi | Cornell University, USA |
| Nitin Govil | University of Southern California, USA |
| Steve Hughes | Royal Anthropological Insitute, UK |
| Priya Jaikumar | University of Southern California, USA |
| Ranjani Mazumdar | Jawaharlal Nehru University, India |
| Zakir Hossain Raju | Independent University, Bangladesh |
| Richard Allen | City University, Hong Kong |
| Ira Bhaskar | Jawaharlal Nehru University, India |
| Moinak Biswas | Jadavpur University, India |
| Corey Creekmur | The University of Iowa, USA |
| David Desser | Emeritus Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA |
| Christine Gledhill | University of Sunderland, UK |
| Lalitha Gopalan | The University of Texas at Austin, USA |
| Jyotindra Jain | Formerly at Jawaharlal Nehru University, India |
| Laleen Jayamanne | The University of Sydney, Australia |
| Neepa Majumdar | University of Pittsburgh, USA |
| Gina Marchetti | University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China |
| M Madhava Prasad | Formerly English and Foreign Languages University, India |
| Ashish Rajadhyaksha | Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, India |
| Arvind Rajagopal | New York University, USA |
| Robert P Stam | New York University, USA |
| Ravi Sundaram | Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, India |
BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies
This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics
Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site https://peerreview.sagepub.com/bio to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.
Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of BioScope will be reviewed.
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.3 below.
As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere.
If you have any questions about publishing with Sage, please visit the Sage Journal Solutions Portal.
1.1 Aims & Scope
1.2 Article types
1.3 Writing your paper
2.1 Peer review policy
2.2 Authorship
2.3 Acknowledgements
2.4 Funding
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
2.6 Research data
3.1 Publication ethics
3.2 Contributor’s publishing agreement
3.3 Open access and author archiving
4.1 Formatting
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
4.3 Supplemental material
4.4 Reference style
5.1 ORCID
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
5.3 Permissions
6. On acceptance and publication
6.1 Sage Production
6.2 Online First publication
6.3 Access to your published article
6.4 Promoting your article
Before submitting your manuscript BioScope, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.
The journal encourages theoretical and empirical research both on located screen practices and wider networks, linkages, and patterns of circulation. This involves research into the historical, regional, and virtual spaces of screen cultures, including globalized and multi-sited conditions of production and circulation.
There is special attention given to archival research and field work.
The articles along with the abstract, citations and references should not exceed 12000 - 13000 words.
There is no limit on the number of references allowed.
The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.
1.3.1 Make your article discoverable
When writing up your paper, think about how you can make it discoverable. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article through search engines such as Google. For information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords, have a look at this page on the Gateway: How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online
BioScope adheres to a rigorous single-anonymize reviewing policy in which the identity of both the reviewer and author are always concealed from both parties.
BioScope is committed to delivering high quality, fast peer-review for your paper, and as such has partnered with Publons. Publons is a third party service that seeks to track, verify and give credit for peer review. Reviewers for BioScope can opt in to Publons in order to claim their reviews or have them automatically verified and added to their reviewer profile. Reviewers claiming credit for their review will be associated with the relevant journal, but the article name, reviewer’s decision and the content of their review is not published on the site. For more information visit the Publons website.
The Editor or members of the Editorial Board may occasionally submit their own manuscripts for possible publication in the Journal. In these cases, the peer review process will be managed by alternative members of the Board and the submitting Editor/Board member will have no involvement in the decision-making process.
All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.
If the named authors for a manuscript change at any point between submission and acceptance, an Authorship Change Form must be completed and digitally signed by all authors (including any added or removed) . An addition of an author is only permitted following feedback raised during peer review. Completed forms can be uploaded at Revision Submission stage or emailed to the Journal Editorial Office contact (listed on the journal’s manuscript submission guidelines). All requests will be moderated by the Editor and/or Sage staff.
Important: Changes to the author by-line by adding or deleting authors are NOT permitted following acceptance of a paper.
Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.
Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.
2.3.1 Writing assistance
Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance. It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.
BioScope requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding.
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
BioScope encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.
Please ensure that a ‘Declaration of Conflicting Interests’ statement is included at the end of your manuscript, after any acknowledgements and prior to the references. If no conflict exists, please state that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’.
The journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages.
Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:
- share your research data in a relevant public data repository
- include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, we encourage you to consider using the statement to explain why it cannot be shared.
- cite this data in your research
Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway
3.1.1 Plagiarism
BioScope and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.
3.1.2 Prior publication
If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.
3.2 Contributor’s publishing agreement
Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway
3.3 Open access and author archiving
BioScope offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.
4. Preparing your manuscript for submission
4.1 Formatting
The preferred format for your manuscript is MS-Word.
The manuscript must include the following:
- Title of the paper, name of author, author’s affiliation and institutional address with pin code, email id and abstract of not more than 200 words. In case there are two or more authors, then corresponding author’s name and postal address details must be clearly specified.
- The contributors should provide 4–6 keywords for online searchability.
For each text citation there must be a corresponding citation in the reference list and for each reference list citation there must be a corresponding text citation. Tables should be provided in editable format. Both tables and figures should be referred to in the text by number separately (e.g., Table 1) not by placement (e.g., see Table below).
All figures and tables should be cited in the text and should have the source (a specific URL, a reference or, if it is author’s own work, ‘The author(s)’) mentioned irrespective of whether or not they require permissions.
- The language and spellings used should be British (UK), with ‘s’ variant, for example, globalisation instead of globalization, programme instead of program. For non-English and uncommon words and phrases, use italics throughout the text. Meaning of non-English words should be given in parentheses just after the word when it is used for the first time.
- Articles should use non-sexist and non-racist language.
- Spell out numbers from one to nine, 10 and above to remain in figures. However, for exact measurement (e.g., China’s GDP growth rate 9.8 per cent) use numbers. Very large round numbers, especially sums of money, may be expressed by a mixture of numerals and spelled-out numbers (India’s population 1.2 billion).
- Single quotes should be used throughout. Double quote marks are to be used within single quotes. Spellings of words in quotations should not be changed. Quotations of 45 words or more should be separated from the text.
- Notes should be numbered serially and presented at the end of article. Notes must contain more than a mere reference. However, mere URLs may be incorporated in the endnotes.
- Use ‘per cent’ instead of % in the text. In tables, graphs, etc., % can be used. Use ‘twentieth century’, ‘the 1990s’.
- Please follow ‘ – ‘ i.e. endesh preceded and succeeded by space in text.
- Abbreviations are spelled out at first occurrence. Very common ones (US, GDP, BBC) need not be spelled out.
- References should come at the end of the manuscript.
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines
- Figures, including maps, graphs and drawings, should not be larger than page size. They should be numbered and arranged as per their references in the text. All photographs and scanned images should have a resolution of minimum 300 dpi and 1,500 pixels and their format should be TIFF or JPEG.
- Due permissions should be taken for copyright protected photographs/images. Even for photographs/images available in the public domain, it should be clearly ascertained whether or not their reproduction requires permission for purposes of publishing (which is a profit-making endeavour).
- All photographs/scanned images should be provided separately in a folder along with the main article.
Please Note: All figures and tables should be cited in the text and should have the source (a specific URL, a reference or, if it is author’s own work, ‘The Author’) mentioned irrespective of whether or not they require permissions
Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Sage after receipt of your accepted article.
This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplementary files
BioScope adheres to the APA reference style. View the APA guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.
- References: A consolidated listing of all books, articles, essays, theses and documents referred to (including any referred to in the tables, graphs and maps) should be provided at the end of the article.
- Arrangement of references: Reference list entries should be alphabetized by the last name of the first author of each work. In each reference, authors’ names are inverted (last name first) for all authors (first, second or subsequent ones).
- Chronological listing: If more than one work by the same author(s) is cited, they should be listed in order by the year of publication, starting with the earliest.
- Sentence case: In references, sentence case (only the first word and any proper noun are capitalized—e.g., ‘The software industry in India’) is to be followed for the titles of papers, books, articles, etc.
- Title case: In references, Journal titles are put in title case (first letter of all words except articles and conjunctions are capitalized—e.g., Journal of Business Ethics).
- Italicize: Book and Journal titles are to be italicized.
Bioscope is hosted on Sage Track Sage, a web based online submission and peer review system. Visit https://peerreview.sagepub.com/bio to login and submit your article online.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the Journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created.
As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.
The collection of ORCID IDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this Journal. If you already have an ORCID ID you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID ID will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID ID is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.
If you do not already have an ORCID ID please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).
Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway
6. On acceptance and publication
Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be made available to the corresponding author via email, and corrections should be made directly or notified to us promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.
Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.
6.3 Access to your published article
Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.
Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.
For more information, please contact:
The Editors, Bioscope.
E-mail: bioscope2009@gmail.com