Communication and the Public
Communication and the Public is an international peer-reviewed journal that publishes both theoretical and empirical research articles in the intersections of communication and the public broadly defined. It welcomes research in these areas from and about any parts of the world, especially the parts of the world where the experiences have been under-considered in the extant social and cultural theories or in communication studies. It publishes quality works in both social scientific and humanistic traditions.
The regular features of the journal include research articles, theoretical essays, forum and symposium, and book reviews. To better reflect the multi-disciplinary thematic focus, the journal will publish frequent special issues. Proposals for special issues from any social scientific or humanistic disciplines are welcome.
Communication and the Public aims to build a community of scholars who seek to carry out dialogues and intellectual fusion across disciplinary, national, and cultural boundaries. The thematic focus of the journal is the mutually constituting dynamics between communication and the public. The journal will highlight the ongoing theoretical contentions concerning various uses of “public” (as in, for example, public communication, public life, public discourse, public opinion, public interests, and the public sphere) and “the public,” as in contrast to other forms of social collectivity (e.g., crowd and the mass). It welcomes considerations of such issues in the intersections of the online and offline worlds. It aims to galvanize concerted intellectual efforts toward understanding the formation of publics, public interests, public representation, public contestation, public arts, and public spaces.
This peer reviewed journal is interested in publishing articles on a wide range of topics, including but not limited to: the formation of publics and public spheres; new technologies and digital publics; historical trajectories and cultural variations of civil society, citizenship, social capital, and network society; the changing meanings of public and private; the relationship between publics and other social categories such as class, gender, race, and nation; media and social movements; and communication ethics in the formation of publics and public opinion.
| Yi-Hui Christine Huang | City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China |
| Yu Hong | Zhejiang University, China |
| Zhao Alexandre Huang | Université Paris Nanterre, France |
| Fen Lin | City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China |
| Jian Lin | Zhejiang University, China |
| Lu Wei | Zhejiang University, China |
| Hanxiao Zhang | Zhejiang University, China |
| Sandra Braman | Texas A&M University, USA |
| Craig Calhoun | Arizona State University, USA |
| Joseph M. Chan | The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China |
| Terry Flew | University of Sydney, Australia |
| Zhongdang Pan | University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA |
| Zizi Papacharissi | University of Illinois Chicago, USA |
| John D. Peters | Yale University, USA |
| Dhavan Shah | University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA |
| Guobin Yang | University of Pennsylvania, USA |
| Barbie Zelizer | University of Pennsylvania, USA |
| Yuezhi Zhao | Tsinghua University, China |
| Robert Asen | University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA |
| Saugata Bhaduri | Jawaharlal Nehru University, India |
| Ségur Céline | Université de Lorraine, France |
| Ching-Ching Chang | Academia Sinica, Taiwan, China |
| Jaeho Cho | University of California, Davis, USA |
| Michael Curtin | University of California, USA |
| Benjamin Detenber | Nanyang Technological University, Singapore |
| Jonathan Gray | University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA |
| Shaohua Guo | Carleton College, USA |
| Steve Guo | Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong SAR, China |
| André Jansson | Karlstad University, Sweden |
| Min Jiang | University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA |
| Sora Kim | The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong |
| Tetsuro Kobayashi | City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China |
| Marwan Kraidy | Northwestern University, USA |
| Francis L. F. Lee | The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong |
| Hongtao Li | Zhejiang University, China |
| Limin Liang | City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China |
| Jun Liu | University of Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Lilach Nir | The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel |
| Enrique Peruzzotti | Universidad Torcuato di Tella, Argentina |
| Thomas Poell | University of Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Daniel Raichvarg | University of Burgundy, French Society of Information and Communication Sciences, France |
| Hernando Rojas | University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA |
| Leslie Regan Shade | University of Toronto, Canada |
| Cuihua Shen | University of California, Davis, USA |
| Fei Shen | City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China |
| Lijiang Shen | Pennsylvania State University, USA |
| Marko Skoric | City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong |
| Cara Wallis | Texas A&M University, USA |
| Lars Willnat | Syracuse University, USA |
| Jing Wu | Peking University, China |
| Michael Xenos | University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA |
| Haiqing Yu | RMIT University, Australia |
| Elaine Jingyan Yuan | University of Illinois-Chicago, USA |
| Baohua Zhou | Fudan University, China |
| Yuqiong Zhou | Shenzhen University, China |
- Clarivate Analytics: Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI)
- Scopus
Manuscript Submission Guidelines: Communication and the Public
Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ctp 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 Communication and the Public will be reviewed.
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this journal.
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, 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, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.
If you have any questions about publishing with Sage, please visit the Sage Journal Solutions Portal
- What do we publish?
1.1 Aims & Scope
1.2 Article types
1.3 Writing your paper - Editorial policies
2.1 Peer review policy
2.2 Authorship
2.3 Acknowledgements
2.4 Declaration of conflicting interests - Publishing policies
3.1 Publication ethics
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
3.3 Open access and author archiving - Preparing your manuscript
4.1 Formatting
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
4.3 Supplementary material
4.4 Reference style
4.5 English language editing services - Submitting your manuscript
5.1 ORCID
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
5.3 Permissions - 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 - Further information
Before submitting your manuscript to Communication and the Public, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.
Communication and the Public is an international peer-reviewed journal published by the Center for Public Communication Research at Zhejiang University in the People’s Republic of China. It publishes both theoretical essays and empirical research articles in social scientific and humanistic disciplines that problematize the concepts of “public” and “the public” as they are associated with various communication phenomena and take place in any society around the globe, especially in countries under-represented in the field of communication studies.
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.
Communication and the Public adheres to a rigorous double-anonymize reviewing policy in which the identity of both the reviewer and author are always concealed from both parties. Each manuscript is reviewed by at least two referees. All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible.
Papers should only be submitted for consideration once consent is given by all contributing authors. Those submitting papers should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the paper are acknowledged as contributing authors.
The list of authors should include all those who can legitimately claim authorship. This is all those who:
- Made a substantial contribution to the concept or design of the work; or acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data,
- Drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual content,
- Approved the version to be published,
- Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.
Authors should meet the conditions of all of the points above. When a large, multicentre group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship.
Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship, although all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgments section. Please refer to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship guidelines for more information on authorship.
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 Third party submissions
Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:
• Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
• Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
• Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.
Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.
2.4 Declaration of conflicting interests
Communication and the Public encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.
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
Communication and the Public 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
Communication and the Public offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme. 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
The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.
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 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.
Communication and the Public adheres to the APA reference style. View the APA guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.
4.5 English language editing services
Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.
Communication and the Public is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ctp 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. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.
Submissions should consist of a cover file and a separate manuscript file. The cover file should include the manuscript title, author(s), affiliation, each author’s contact information and e-mail address, any acknowledgments, and author biographies (100 words maximum for all authors). The manuscript file should include an abstract of no more than 150 words, followed by 4 to 5 keywords. Authors’ names should NOT appear anywhere other than on the cover file.
Manuscripts should not exceed 9000 words in length (inclusive of references, tables, figures, appendices, and endnotes). The manuscript should be prepared in accordance with the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th edition (2009). See Manuscript Preparation below. It should be double-spaced and have 1-inch margins on all four sides. For empirical papers, hypotheses or research questions should be clearly stated. Methodological procedures should be described with the levels of specificity sufficient for readers to understand the evidence gathered and render critical and fair appraisals of such evidence. For papers utilizing quantitative methods, reliability estimates should be provided for all indices. Effect size estimates should accompany reports of all statistically significant differences. Authors must report standard deviations with means, and confidence intervals for measures of strength of association. References should be carefully edited to ensure consistency with APA guidelines.
Previously copyrighted material: Authors are responsible for gaining permission to reproduce any copyrighted material in their submissions, including images and quotations of more than 300 words. See Permissions below.
Book Reviews
Communication and the Public publishes book reviews and review essays. Books for review and manuscripts of reviews should be sent to:
Editorial Office
Communication and the Public
Annenberg School for Communication
3620 Walnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
USA
Tel: 215-898-7041
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 sent by PDF to the corresponding author and should be returned 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.
Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Communication and the Public editorial office (communication-public@zju.edu.cn) as follows:
Editorial Office
Communication and the Public
College of Media and International Culture
Zhejiang University (Xixi Campus)
No.148 Tianmushan Rd.，Hangzhou
310028，P. R. China