Dear readers, contributors, reviewers and editorial board members,
Earlier this year the editors of Journalism Practice and Journalism Studies and myself wrote an editorial in which we honored the former editor Bob Franklin. We also reflected on us taking over each individual journal and our ambition to collaborate. In this editorial, I take the opportunity to focus exclusively on Digital Journalism. This editorial discusses the progress the journal has made since its launch in 2013, especially our key milestones and editorial processes, changes and initiatives throughout 2018. While the editorial reflects my ambitions for this journal, I will not go into detail about the intellectual vision for the future direction of the journal, as this is something I will present together with my three associate editors in a joint editorial.
The year 2018 has indeed been a busy one for Digital Journalism. First, I would like to express my sincere gratitude for all the invaluable help I have received from the exceptional Digital Journalism editorial team, comprised of Scott Eldridge II (University of Groningen, the Netherlands), Kristy Hess (Deakin University, Australia), and Edson Tandoc Jr. (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore). We have developed our editorial routines over the year, including but not limited to how we process submissions, our editorial policies and measures of quality, which special issue themes to invest in, as well as organizing peer review and how we determine the line between which manuscripts to send for peer-review and which to desk reject. Scott, Kristy, and Edson each have their intellectual strengths, and as a team they complement each other really, really well to give our editorial team a wide breadth of expertise. Moreover, we have all had faith in and have been committed to Digital Journalism from the very beginning of the journal. As it happens, the inaugural issue of 2013 contained articles by two members of the editorial team, and a book review by a third. In addition to the management of the journal, the Digital Journalism editorial team also provides information to our readers via our Twitter account (@djeditorialteam) and our shared Facebook group with Journalism Studies and Journalism Practice (facebook.com/journalism studies).
Second, allow me to extend our appreciation to the esteemed members of the editorial board. Most of you have served on the Digital Journalism board since its founding in 2013 as well, while others recently joined an expanded editorial board in January 2018 with the new editorial ship. As of January 2018, Digital Journalism is all proud to have equal representation of women and men on its editorial board. Moreover, the editorial board has expanded to have a stronger representation of digital journalism scholars and scholarship from Australia, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. This is important as Digital Journalism strives toward being a journal with an international outlook, publishing high-quality research from all corners of the world. To serve this end, we have also started establishing collaborations with prominent scholars to identify and attract the very best digital journalism scholarship from regions of the world where excellent research may otherwise fly under the radar. Also, we are pleased to continue publishing timely and important book reviews for the journal. We value book reviews highly and welcome book review suggestions from any scholar in the field.
Our editorial team greatly appreciate all the support we receive from scholars around the world accepting our invitations to perform reviews for the journal. You are the experts making high-quality possible in the first place, and we certainly remember who you are. We continue to review our peer-review processes to make sure we are able to provide timely reviews to contributors. In support of this ambition, we have moved the initial review period from two months to six weeks, and while we have a small group of scholars who manage to deliver their high-quality reviews within only a couple of days, we also recognize that contributing peer reviews can be an added task on top of existing research, teaching, and academic demands. As a token of appreciation, from 2018 and onwards we will invite the researcher having performed the most reviews for the journal during a calendar year to join our editorial board. Nevertheless, we also want to extend our sincere gratitude to reviewers who have helped us moving forward in critical instances, such as with special issue deadlines or last-minute calls for expertise. Many thanks! As a final note, we have prescribed in our invitations to reviewers since late this year that COPE – the Committee on Public Ethics – guidelines on constructive peer review should be followed. We hope these steps will continue to make Digital Journalism not only an excellent journal, but one where the process of submitting, reviewing, and producing leading research takes place in a supportive environment with the shared ambition of developing quality work.
I will now turn to discuss key aspects of our work with the journal in 2018, the progress the journal is making, and a series of changes and activities forthcoming.
Digital Journalism: Making Progress and the Bob Franklin Journal Article Award
Recognizing that any journal, including Digital Journalism, is indebted to scholars who share their work with us and scholars’ engagement with peers through review, I am committed to being transparent not only about the successes we have accomplished collectively as contributors, reviewers, and editorial board members, but also the processes which ensure Digital Journalism can continue to develop as a journal, including being transparent in the future directions we hope to take.
The inaugural issue of Digital Journalism was published in early 2013, with its OnlineFirst articles published throughout the fall of 2012. In its first year, Digital Journalism published three issues, and the year after expanded to four issues, then from 2015 to 2017 the number of issues increased by two each year, reaching 10 in 2017 where it has remained. In 2018 the journal has published a total of 73 double-blind peer-reviewed journal articles. In addition to the substantial number of high-quality peer-reviewed work, there are two editorials, four guest editorials, a keynote address, and several clear-cut book reviews etc.
The number of submissions to Digital Journalism has also grown each year, continuing to do so in 2018. At the time of writing in September 2018, we have already received 50 percent more submissions this year compared to last. With few exceptions, most submissions are clearly relevant to the journal, and generally come into the ScholarOne submission portal in good scientific shape. Published articles in the journal are receiving a fair amount of attention. In 2013 the total number of article downloads amounted to approximately 25,000, and during the years that followed the total number of downloads increased substantially, having tripled by 2016. However, from 2016 to 2017 the total number of downloads increased by 366%, to around 353,000 downloads. The 2018 data are naturally not complete at this time, but we continue to see great interest in the articles published in the journal. Web of Science Citations Data provide us with a glimpse of the contributions Digital Journalism articles have made to the work of other scholars as well. This data calculates all citations eligible as Web of Science Citations for each year, and also shows a continuous increase as the journal grows. In 2015 there was a total of 45 citations. By the following year this grew to 200, and then in 2017 increased further to 333. For the first six months of 2018 the number of citations had already reached 362, signaling again the continued prominence of work in this field. As a clear reflection of this upward trend, Clarivate Analytics upgraded Digital Journalism from the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) to the prestigious Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) on July 18, 2018 and in 2019 the journal will receive its first SSCI Impact Factor score. At many universities around the world this recognition serves as a prerequisite for researchers choosing which journals to submit to. We are very pleased about receiving this recognition, and share this accomplishment will all those who have contributed to the journal, allowing it to grow and become part of those prominent journals sought out by researchers around the globe. It is also worth noting, in considering its growth, that Digital Journalism was ranked 4th of all journals in Communication by Google Scholar in 2018.
While citation metrics and indexing offer one measure of prominence, we have also sought to support specific accolades for excellent work in Digital Journalism. In the past, this has included when articles in Digital Journalism have received such scientific recognition by being selected for awards, such as the prestigious Wolfgang Donsbach Outstanding Journal Article of the Year Award, managed by the journalism studies division of ICA. One important aspect of my vision for Digital Journalism from the outset was to develop and implement an article award recognizing the most outstanding article in the field. Moreover, I wanted to ensure the field of journalism studies honors Bob Franklin for his extraordinary and sustained work in building this field. Partnering with editors-in-chief Bonnie Brennen (Journalism Practice) and Folker Hanusch (Journalism Studies), we launched in 2018 The Bob Franklin Journal Article Award, which “seeks to recognise the article published across the three journals that best contributes to our understanding of connections between culture and society and journalism practices, journalism studies and/or digital media/new technologies”. An international panel of five distinguished scholars decides which article will receive the award, choosing from articles nominated by each of the three journals. In our process for nominating an article, the Digital Journalism editorial team collected nominations first from its editorial board members, created a short list of five articles, which each of us ranked and deliberated to decide on one article that we recommended to the panel. From 2018 onwards, the Digital Journalism editorial team will approach the (first) author of the article we nominate to invite them to join our editorial board.
Digital Journalism: Launching the Conceptual Article Format
Early 2019 marks the launch of a new kind of article format for the journal: the conceptual article. I have sent personal invitations to each of the authors of these conceptual articles. The conceptual article represents a new article format for the journal; it has a target length of 3000 to 4000 words, is theoretical/conceptual by nature and includes a more selective list of references. Each conceptual article must put forth a concise definition of the concept, and use this for an informed and critical discussion of contemporary and future research. While conceptual articles are by invitation, they are not commissioned essays without peer-review. On the contrary, each of these conceptual articles have been blind peer-reviewed by three reviewers. The reviewers are all members of our esteemed and highly competent editorial board. Following this thematic launch of the conceptual article format, we will publish a series of conceptual articles focusing on different concepts starting in 2019. Each article will present, define, and discuss a concept that is significant for digital journalism studies. Scholars are most welcome to approach the Digital Journalism editorial team with nominations of important and/or emerging concepts for which you think there is a need for an authoritative discussion and definition. For such nominations, we encourage you to present us with one or several appropriate researchers for the task. The Digital Journalism editorial team will consider all nominations, but reserve ourselves the right to choose whom to invite and for what concepts.
In moving forward, I envision us annually publishing a handful of strong, timely and relatively short conceptual articles with salient relevance to digital journalism. These will complement the larger body of full-length original articles addressing a wide variety of topics with relevance to the study of digital journalism. We are also keen on working with prolific scholars on special issue topics, which we will turn to next.
Digital Journalism and Special Issues
In addition to its regular issues, featuring a range of research on digital journalism, we continue to provide a platform for issues edited by experts in the field with concise editorial ambitions. Digital Journalism commissioned two special issues in 2014 and three each in 2015, 2016, and 2017. In 2018 we published four special issues, all commissioned in agreement between former editor Bob Franklin and current editor Oscar Westlund. The first of these was Measurable Journalism: Digital Platforms, News Metrics, and the Quantified Audience in issue 4, guest edited by Matt Carlson. Thereafter followed Online and Newsworthy: Have Online Sources Changed Journalism? in issue 7, which was guest edited by Sarah Van Leuven, Sanne Kruikemeier, Sophie Lecheler, and Liesbeth Hermans. Issue 8 was the bi-annual Future of Journalism special issue, guest edited by Karin Wahl-Jorgensen, Andrew Williams and Arne Hintz the fourth and final special issue of the year is issue 9, guest edited by Henrik Bødker, and focuses on Journalism History and Digital Archives. Looking toward the future, we already have several timely special issues in the works that will be published in 2019 or 2020. In order of the CfP’s being announced, these special issues are:
Algorithms, Automation, and News: Capabilities, Cases, and Consequences
(Seth C. Lewis, Neil Thurman, and Jessica Kunert)
Data Journalism Research: Studying a Maturing Field
(Ester Appelgren, Carl-Gustav Lindén, and Arjen van Dalen)
Mobility and Mobile News
(Andrew Duffy, Nuri Kim, Rich Ling, and Oscar Westlund)
Digital Journalism in Latin America
(Pablo Boczkowski and Eugenia Mitchelstein)
Policy Issues in Digital Journalism
(Philip Napoli)
Sponsored Editorial Content
(Jonathan Hardy)
Remembering the Arab Spring: Reflections on its 10 Year Anniversary and the Transnational Impact on Journalism
(Bruce Mutsvairo, Saba Bebawi, and Peter Fray)
In 2018 we also developed a procedure for managing the incoming flow of special issue proposals, and our review of these. Any scholar in the field is welcome to e-mail me with their formative ideas or draft for special issue call for papers. As there is a limited space for special issues, this initial communication offers an opportunity to explore the feasibility for any special issue ideas. Special issue proposals are first subject to review by the associate editors, and when in cases where our editorial team agrees to proposals, the editorial board is also consulted. Within two weeks they will review, score, and comment on the proposal. Based on this outcome, our editorial team will make a final decision about whether to proceed or not, and if so, which revisions will be necessary. In finalising the call for papers, we produce a one-page flyer with the CfP, and Taylor & Francis develops a web page dedicated to the special issue easily accessible from the Digital Journalism web site. These steps allow us to make crucially important decisions about what special issue themes the journal prioritizes.
The Road Ahead for Digital Journalism
As we continue to grow, submissions of special issue proposals and the steady, and increasing, inflow of original articles both have called on us as an editorial team to develop more rigorous reviews at the initial stages. Therefore, we continue to hold a high bar for article submissions, only moving forward with work which addresses timely and important topics for the field, presented in work which offers theoretical and/or empirical work that helps advance the field of digital journalism studies. We look forward to an expanded articulation of these priorities when the Digital Journalism editorial team in 2019 publishes a revised version of its “aims and scopes”. In doing so we aim to be more precise about what sorts of specific research areas in the broader field of digital journalism that we welcome submissions for. Digital Journalism prioritizes submissions focusing on worthwhile and cutting-edge topics, which previously have not been studied, but also submissions on topics and questions researchers need to study more in-depth. With any article, we will expect scholars to advance the field of digital journalism studies, applying applicable theories, concepts, and methods in appropriate ways. The Digital Journalism editorial team is eager to continue collaborating with established scholars in the field submitting timely and worthwhile articles, but also young and emerging scholars, and from all corners of the world.
Yours sincerely,
Editor-in-Chief, Digital Journalism
Professor, Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway
[email protected]