Abstract
It is hard to believe that Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly (JMCQ) has been in print for more than 100 years! The Centennial issue of the journal showcased our significant impact over the past century and the wide array of mass communication topics investigated—from news, journalism, and political communication research to communication technology and media channels, media management and economics, as well as public relations and advertising research. There is much to be proud of! As we head into 2025, there are several changes in the works.
Editorial Team
In keeping with JMCQ’s priority of expanding our methodological and geographical scope, we welcome a new Associate Editor (AE) to the team: Dr. Celeste González de Bustamante of the University of Texas at Austin is well-positioned to oversee historical and qualitative work as well as regional studies from Central and Latin America in particular. Let me also take this opportunity to express my deepest thanks to Dr. Hong Cheng, who served tirelessly as AE for the past 12 years and deserves utmost gratitude and recognition for his excellent work and dedication to our flagship journal.
I would also like to acknowledge a staff update from our SAGE team: Dani Giglia has replaced Martha Avtandilian as our journal’s Publishing Editor. The rest of JMCQ’s excellent editorial team, whose expertise is critical for the success of the journal, remains unchanged. Our continuing AEs are Drs. David Atkin, Renita Coleman, Colleen Connolly-Ahern, and Sei-Hill Kim. I would also like to acknowledge our Book Review Editor Dr. Greg Perreault as well as our Engagement Editor Dr. Viorela Dan for their stellar contributions.
Entering the new year afforded us the opportunity to substantially revamp our Editorial Board, bringing on cutting-edge researchers from around the globe who will help us maintain our reputation as a leading journal outlet. As the oldest peer-reviewed journal in the field of journalism and mass communication, we are fortunate to continue to count on the expertise of esteemed scholars in the United States and abroad.
Publication Process
Our goals to publish high-quality journalism and mass communication research and advance theories and methodologies in the field remain unchanged. Building on our long journal traditions of research quality and innovation, we are initiating several changes in production and peer review. Starting in 2025, the journal will be published fully online, which is more environmentally sound, aligns with the learning and research practices of the current generation of scholars, and is in keeping with the overall trend in the field.
We continue to welcome scholarship from all AEJMC divisions and interest groups utilizing different methods—from ethnographies and interviews to surveys and experiments, as well as mixed-methods work. We also strive to provide an expeditious peer review process. This year, we are moving to two external reviews per manuscript submission, down from three, with the goal of shortening our time-to-decision ratios while maintaining rigor. We will rely on our Editorial Board, ad hoc reviewers, and AEs to help us achieve this objective.
Social Media
Journal visibility has become increasingly important in the social media era. We have a successful online presence on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/journalism-mass-communication-quarterly/). In the new year, we are embracing a new social media channel to feature the latest journal articles and keep you apprised of journal developments—BlueSky. We welcome you to join our new online community and follow us at @jmcquarterly.bsky.social.
Invited Forums and Special Issues
As Editor of JMCQ, I also continue to welcome discussion and debate on cutting-edge developments in the field through the invited forum section of the journal. Such pieces are especially important in a quickly evolving field, as the invited forum in the current issue on the topic of Computational Communication Science (CCS) demonstrates. The forum format has proven to be a valuable resource for scholars looking for succinct overviews and best practices within a specific research domain.
The journal also continues to solicit special issues on important journalism and mass communication topics. We have several of these in the works at different stages of development. The call for submissions to the artificial intelligence (AI) and democracy special issue just closed but expect to see two upcoming calls out soon: one on inequalities in journalism content and production and the other on inclusivity and intersectionality.
JMCQ would not exist without our community of authors, reviewers, Editorial Board members, and other supporters. Thank you to all for helping evaluate the quality of scholarship as reviewers and contributing with your new research as authors. The names of the 421 individuals who served as reviewers for the 2024 calendar year are published below the summary of the spring issue.
Summary of Current Issue
The spring issue begins with an invited forum on CCS edited by Annie Waldherr and Matt Weber, which discusses Best Practices for CCS through different lenses. Contributors address the balance between developing innovative tools and standardization and emphasize the importance of establishing inclusive guidelines for CCS research. This important piece can be used as a baseline by future scholars employing computational communication tools.
In the first article under the journalistic profession section, Willnat et al. share the results of the most recent American Journalist survey, which has been conducted every decade since 1982. The current wave included journalists in a variety of professional and geographic areas. The survey covered the same topics as in previous iterations as well as new developments such as social media impacts and increasing threats against U.S. journalists. Willnat et al. conclude that overall, there have been more negative than positive changes in the journalistic profession during the past decade.
The next article focuses on the conflicting values between social media logic and journalistic news reporting. Based on interviews with Polish social media news editors, Nowak-Teter proposes five principles of social media logic. Her study responds to concerns that the commercial nature of social media, which exist in a data-driven world of likes and shares, may lead to the erosion of traditional journalistic independence and professionalism. She finds that although journalists still strive to follow traditional news factors, they also respond to online audience metrics and often default to a strategy of putting out as much content as possible.
Next, Mothes et al. analyzed the relationship between digital technology use and conception-performance gaps regarding news quality and news industry-oriented journalism roles. Their mixed-methods approach involved content analysis of 148,474 news stories from 365 news organizations in 37 countries, as well as surveys of journalists about digital tool use and role importance. The study showed a disconnect between ideals and implementation: journalists valued news quality-oriented roles but produced content in line with news industry-oriented roles, particularly when audience analytics and social media tools were important in their work.
Moving to the fact-checking domain, Cazzamatta examined how digital platforms have impacted fact-checking through a content analysis of 3,154 articles from 23 fact-checking organizations in eight European and Latin American countries. Fact-checking articles were categorized based on topic and focus of verification: social media rumors or claims made by public figures. Results not only confirmed the trend toward debunking social media rumors but also revealed differences based on local context and institutional history.
The next set of articles focuses on the media’s role in shaping and reflecting social group identities. Here, Kaskeleviciute et al. explored the complex relationship between terrorism and media representations. They compared the effects of reporting that differentiates explicitly between Muslims generally and terrorists who self-identify as Muslims, versus undifferentiated reporting, which evokes the tendency to view members of an outgroup as homogeneous. Experimentally manipulating differentiated/undifferentiated reporting and insider/outsider terrorist characteristics in news stories, the results showed that differentiated coverage produced higher levels of participant differentiation between terrorists and Muslims and, in turn, reduced negative stereotypes about Muslims.
Moving from Germany to Serbia, the next article captures the relationship between news frames and online hate speech using framing theory and sociocognitive discourse analysis. Đorđević analyzed reader comments on Serbian news websites about a controversial rape incident, identifying dominant discourse structures of hate speech in reader comments. Her study highlights the persistence of rape culture and the impact misogyny in interactive online spaces can have on rape victims, such as not reporting rape.
Next, Bozdağ et al. examined the connection between populist political communication styles and social media user engagement by performing a content analysis of 4,139 tweets from candidates and parties in the 2023 Turkish elections. Seeking to understand how populist political communication styles affect users, they found that messages with an explicit populist style, emphasizing the struggle of the people versus an antagonist group, elicited the most engagement, a finding with implications for political communication internationally.
Laskin and Nesova employed co-orientation theory to compare the views of Russian and American youth on nuclear war and weapons. Utilizing survey methodology to reach this population, the results demonstrate general agreement on nuclear issues. However, Russian students accurately anticipated both this agreement and the views of American students, while American students were mistaken on both counts—a state of imbalanced co-orientation. This disconnect has implications for public diplomacy and prevention of nuclear conflict.
In a timely study about open science, Perreault and Dienlin use normalization process theory to evaluate the adoption of open science practices in communication scholarship. Based on interviews with communication scholars from around the world, they find that there is an inconsistent understanding of what open science entails and uneven commitment across institutions with different organizational cultures. Despite concerns that open science could perpetuate rather than rectify inequity, the study concludes that open science holds promise for improving research quality and advancing communication scholars’ careers.
In the final article of the spring issue, McIntyre and Abdenour evaluate the quality of news reporting in Rwanda—a rarely studied country context—and compare state-aligned and independent media organizations. Conducting a content analysis of 2,644 stories in a variety of media from seven news outlets, the study captures different measures of quality such as story length, source diversity, and journalistic function. Results indicate that independent outlets outperform their government-aligned counterparts, although the authors acknowledge the drawbacks of applying standards based on Western culture to other sociopolitical contexts.
I hope you enjoy reading the articles in the spring issue. Let me end with sincere gratitude to all authors and reviewers who are part of the JMCQ scholarly community.