Journal of Communication Theory and Research has been published since 1983 by the Communication Faculty of Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli University. It is a professional double-blind peer-reviewed academic electronic Journal that publishes theoretical and practical studies on all areas where social sciences and communication discipline intersect.

The submissions to Journal of Communication Theory and Research are free of charge, and the journal provides immediate open access to its content on the Dergipark system. The language of articles submitted to the Journal should be either in Turkish or English.

All copyrights of accepted manuscripts belong to Journal of Communication Theory and Research. Authors are deemed to have transferred their copyright forms. Authors are not paid for copyrights. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC 4.0) by Ankara Haci Bayram Veli University that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in Journal of Communication Theory and Research.

Problems such as plagiarism, duplication, fraud authorship/denied authorship, research/data fabrication, breaching of copyrights, prevailing conflict of interest is unethical behaviors. In any possible malpractice discovered after the publication, the article will be removed from the system.

Submitted manuscripts must not have been published elsewhere or have not been accepted for publication; must not be under the review process elsewhere. After submitting manuscripts via Article Tracking System at https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/ikad from the personal account including e-mail address and password, the peer review process can be followed from the same page.

In submitted articles, there should not be any information that clarifies the author’s identity. Besides, while submitting articles, Copyright Transfer Agreement Form has to be signed by all authors through the Dergipark application system, and a digital copy must be uploaded to the system.

After the first evaluation by the Journal editor, the manuscripts are sent to at least two referees through a blind peer review system. If the reviewers request a revision in their evaluation reports, the author should only make changes within the framework of specified revisions. If one reviewer rejects the article, it is sent to a third reviewer. Unpublished articles will not be returned to the author. To make the required revisions asked by reviewers, the author should wait until all reviewers’ reports are uploaded on the system.

In addition to the original articles, the Journal also accepts short promotional and critical reviews of communication products such as forums, books, films, television programs, and national/international event reviews.

Submitted manuscripts may be produced from a dissertation, or presented in a congress, symposium, etc. For these kinds of article submissions, the editor should give information about the activity from which the work was derived. This must be indicated below the article as a footnote.

In the works produced by the author(s) from their thesis studies;

- A note should be given on the abstract page of the article stating the title and date of the thesis on which the study was produced,

The articles submitted to the Journal must have been edited according to the Journal rules. Manuscripts that are not edited based on guidelines are rejected before the editorial evaluation and reviewer process. In this case, the author must resubmit the manuscript after the required revisions.

Manuscripts must not contain any author information. Authors need to use Manuscript Template to format their manuscript. Submissions without the template are not accepted.

It is the authors’ responsibility to ensure that published articles in the Journal are following scientific, contextual, linguistic, and legal standards and rules.

The final decision regarding the publication of the article belongs to the editorial board.

Open Access Statement

Journal of Communication Theory and Research is an open-access journal, and the articles in the journal are under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/deed.tr)

Journal of Communication Theory and Research’s all content is available without any charge to its users. Except for commercial purposes, users are allowed to access the full text of all studies in the Journal. However, whole or a part of the Journal or works cannot be reproduced and quoted without giving reference or written permission.

Research Ethics

Journal of Communication Theory and Research adheres to the international standards of research ethics and the authors are responsible for the compliance of the manuscripts with ethical rules.

• In studies with human subjects (surveys, interviews, experiments, etc.) Ethics Committee Approval from the institutions must be obtained. Studies without Ethics Committee Approval are not accepted to Journal. In these studies, the Ethics Committee Document should be uploaded to the system along with the study.

• In studies with human subjects, it must be noted in the method’s section of the manuscript that the informed consent of the participants has been obtained.

• In studies with human subjects, participants should be fully informed about the aim, methods, and risks, if any, of the research. Participation should not be compulsory in the studies, and volunteerism should be adopted.

• If the studies are to be carried out in any institution or organization, approval must be obtained from this institution or organization and must be documented when necessary.

• In the case of children and those under wardship or with confirmed insanity, a legal custodian’s assent must be obtained and must be documented when necessary.

Author’s Responsibility

• It is the author’s responsibility to ensure that the article is following the scientific and ethical standards and rules. The authors must certify that the manuscript has not previously been published elsewhere or in any language and is not currently being evaluated or in any language. The authors must ensure that the submitted study is original.

• Citation and reference rules should be paid attention to, and the author should know that he/she is responsible for any legal liabilities that may arise in this regard. Necessary permissions should be obtained for the materials based on text such as tables, figures, and images to be used in the study and references should be given in the text.

• The order of names in the author list of an article must be a co-decision and it must be indicated in the Author Agreement Form by all authors. Any conflicts on this are the responsibility of the authors.

• If there are some financial support or/and conflict of interest that may influence the research, it must be indicated in the study.

• When an author discovers a mistake in his/her paper, it's the author’s right to retract it. In this case, for retraction requests, the author must apply to the Journal with a written application.

Responsibility of the Editor

• All studies submitted to Journal are objectively evaluated.

• Studies submitted for evaluation are under a double-blind peer-review. In this process, it’s the Journal team’s responsibility not to reveal any information that would disclose the identity of the author(s) in reviewing process.

• Editors and assistant editors are responsible for the continuity of the evaluation process. They are obliged to meticulously manage the entire process starting from the submission of a manuscript.

• Editors do not allow any conflicts of interest between the authors, editors, and reviewers and they have the full authority to assign a reviewer. In other respects, the final decision for publication of the manuscripts in the Journal is the editorial board's responsibility.

Responsibility of the Reviewers

• Reviewers must objectively evaluate the submitted studies.

• Reviewers must accept or reject the studies in the evaluation process in accordance with their research areas, and inform the editors of these decisions as earliest as possible for the continuity of the Journal.

• Reviewers must ensure the confidentiality of information on studies they have accepted to evaluate and inform the editorial board with justifications if they know copyright infringement and plagiarism in the study and keep a report on this situation.

• When the reviewers accept to evaluate a study, they declare that they will evaluate the study within the period defined for them. In any other cases, they are expected to inform the editors.

• Reviewers are expected to report their decisions with justification. This is important in terms of both development of academic studies and informing the authors’ studies about the reasons for the final decision.

• Reviewers must write his/her decisions about the study in detail in the section titled “note to the author” on the evaluation form.

Information for Authors

• The manuscripts submitted to the Journal must be in accordance with the Journal. It is the editorial board's decision to reject the studies without being evaluated that are following the publication policy and the Journal’s aim.

• Only one study of each author can be published in a single issue.

• The author himself/herself is responsible for the originality of the study. In studies where plagiarism or similar problems are encountered, the final decision about the study is the editorial board's responsibility.

• Abstract papers presented at scientific meetings or articles generated from dissertations are accepted for the evaluation process, provided that they are specified. Even if the studies generated from postgraduate’s or doctorate degrees are accepted, the review system is also operated for these studies.

• After the article is submitted for evaluation, the names of any authors cannot be removed without the written consent of all authors, a new author cannot be added and the name order of authors cannot be changed.

• A similarity report (taken from intihal.net or Ithenticate) should be provided in the submission stage for each article.

Peer Review Process

Submitted manuscripts are scanned for plagiarism. In studies with a similarity of 20% or more, the editorial board has the right to revise or reject them according to the similarity of content. Article similarity rate should not exceed 20%. Studies with plagiarism are returned. It is the author’s responsibility in this matter.

After plagiarism check, the eligible ones are evaluated by the editors in terms of criteria such as content, methodology, and subject. It is the editor's right to revise or reject it in this process if deemed necessary. The blind peer review process is commenced for eligible studies for evaluation.

Selected manuscripts are sent to two reviewers from abroad or Turkey. In cases where reviewers make different decisions, the manuscripts are sent to a third reviewer and the final decision is evaluated accordingly. After reviewer evaluations, it is possible that a study will be directly accepted, rejected or revision requested.

The studies for which revision is requested can be re-evaluated by the reviewer in line with the requests of the reviewers, or it is checked by the editor when the reviewer does not request to review it again. With the approval of the revisions, the final decision on the publication of the article is made.