Special issues

Special issue information

Journalism Studies welcomes proposals for special issues at any time of the year.

This guide outlines our process around special issues to help prospective guest editors in preparing proposals and to provide broad general timelines.

Preparing a proposal

Special issues provide an opportunity for Journalism Studies to devote one entire issue to an important topic or area of study. At Journalism Studies, we look for special issues to make a substantial intervention or break ground driving forward knowledge in a particular area relevant to the journal. Special issues should be of interest to our global readership and make substantial contributions to advancing theories and/or methods in journalism studies.

Proposals for special issues should therefore provide a rationale for the issue, consisting of a maximum of two pages (single-spaced). The rationale should address the issue’s relevance for journalism studies, and how it intends to contribute to advancing theories and/or methods of journalism studies. To give us an indication of possible contributions, proposals will ideally include titles and abstracts for potential submission, or at least list potential authors who have been approached. Authors should also indicate a probable timeline for the issue (see below for indicative schedule).

Typically, one special issue will include 8 full papers (each max. 9000 words including references and tables) and a guest editors’ introduction (ca. 3-5000 words).

Proposal submissions should be emailed to the editor-in-chief of Journalism Studies.

Review of the proposal

Upon receiving the proposal, the editorial team – consisting of the editor-in-chief and associate editors – will discuss the merits of the proposals. Proposals may also be sent to a number of editorial board members for additional input. The editor-in-chief then makes a determination about whether to move forward with the proposal or reject the proposal. Acceptance will be made on the basis of the guest editors’ track record in the area of the proposed issue, the rationale, as well as potential for high-quality submissions. Guest editors may also be asked for additional revisions prior to moving forward with the special issue based on the reviews received. Once a final decision has been made to proceed, guest editors should draft the Call for Papers (see below).

Full papers or abstracts

At Journalism Studies, we only accept full paper submissions for special issues. While many special issues in the past have asked for abstract submissions, we have found that asking for full papers is a more efficient process in terms of publication timelines.

Call for papers

The Call for Papers should be a maximum of one page (single-spaced) in length and include: 1) a brief rationale; 2) a bullet-point list of themes the submissions could address; and 3) a prospective timeline, including deadline for full manuscripts. The final draft for the CfP must be approved by the editor-in-chief, and will subsequently be published on the journal website. While the journal will publish the call through its social media presence, guest editors are strongly encouraged to circulate the CfP as widely as possible themselves.

Reviewing and publication process

Once the special issue proposal has been accepted, we will set up an account for guest editors in ScholarOne, as all submissions need to be handled through the system. Only one account can be set up for each special issue, hence guest editors have two options: a) use one guest editor’s email address, in which case only that person has access to the articles and should manually download submissions distributing to co-editors; or b) use one joint email address, to which each guest editor has access with a shared password, as this means all guest editors can access ScholarOne through the same account.

Once full papers are submitted to the special issue, they are automatically assigned to the guest editors’ account. Guest editors are responsible for screening all submissions, deciding which ones to desk-reject, and which to send out for review including the number of reviews per manuscript. We recommend that guest editors send out more articles for peer review than are required for the special issue. If more articles are successful in peer-review than can be accommodated, the extra articles could be published in a regular issue of the journal.

The editor-in-chief will help guest editors guide submissions through the ScholarOne system. Once guest editors are satisfied with the quality of a submission (usually following one or two rounds of review), they will make a recommendation to accept through the system. The editor-in-chief will read the article and make the final decision on acceptance.

All accepted articles are subsequently sent to production, but at that stage are held until the entire issue is ready for publication. The issue is then published online as one, in order to maximise impact.

Timelines

The following schedule serves as a guide only and is based on experience. Actual times may vary slightly. Note that typically minor revisions require only the sign-off by guest editors, while major revisions require re-review. As it is extremely common for submissions to have to be re-reviewed, this extra time for reviews needs to be calculated into the timeline.

Full papers due ca. 4-6 months following CfP publication

Submissions sent for review/desk-rejected within 2 weeks of submission deadline

Typical time for first reviews 6 weeks

First decisions 2 weeks

Time authors given for minor revisions 1 month

Time authors given for major revisions 2 months

Typical time for second reviews 6 weeks

Time authors given for revisions 2 months

Finalizing of all manuscripts, ed-in-chief review 1 month

Approximate total time from manuscript due date to being ready for publication is 9-10 months. However, the journal currently publishes 16 issues per year, which provides some flexibility in our timelines. It is normally relatively easy to move publication back or forward. Once the special issues is ready and approved, the special issue will be assigned to the next possible issue of the journal.