The century-long legacy of communication and media literature presents itself as a profound testament to the evolution of scholarly thought and practice in these fields. We are engaging with a historical reality wherein diverse epistemological paradigms shape the questions posed, guiding the selection and application of methodological tools. This intellectual landscape transcends the boundaries imposed by administrative and pragmatic objectives, embracing broader critical horizons that challenge and redefine conventional frameworks. In social science, mainstream quantitative productions not only serve managerial purposes but also provide crucial “data” for critical and qualitative efforts aimed at questioning and transforming scientific inquiry. These efforts persist through political-economic analyses centered on the text and its distribution, cultural studies grounded in the notion that meaning emerges through negotiation between parties, and/or critical social research that highlights ideological dominance and the realm of industrial culture in contrast to orthodox structural determinism.

The diversification of contemporary technological possibilities not only broadens the traditional corpus of literature but also fosters the emergence of new avenues of inquiry. Thus, the boundaries of the interdisciplinary horizon, where core fields such as publishing, public relations, journalism, advertising, cinema, interpersonal communication, photography, and design intersect with politics, economy, ideology, and culture within the domain of communication and media literature, continue to broaden. This expansion includes emerging areas such as information processing, artificial intelligence, data science, vocational education, cultural heritage, and digitalization, alongside foundational social science disciplines. As an abbreviation derived from the initials of communication (iletişim) and media (medya) in Turkish, im also signifies the act of showing, marking, and attributing meaning. Therefore, im: Journal of communication & media studies —both by setting out from the concrete situation mentioned above and by living up to its etymological origins— begins its publication life with the aim of showing the cultural context of communication, marking the structural position of the media, and attributing meaning to social transformations.

As we approach the thirtieth anniversary of the Faculty of Communication at Başkent University, im is shaped by the goal of creating a public sphere for societal contribution, where its content steadfastly upholds universal scientific ethics, and its form integrates our design-oriented stance with the production of academic texts. The journal, the first issue of which will be published in June 2025, will meet its readers with two issues per year at six-month intervals in June and December. Our publication policy, which is based not on a series of instrumental concerns but directly on academic goals, will be entrusted to the efforts of the entire editorial staff, who work on a voluntary basis, the dedication of the referees, and the intellectual contributions of the advisory board, by operating open, transparent, and participatory mechanisms.

In light of these considerations, for its first issue to be published in June 2025, im is waiting for original research articles, reviews, translations, book and work reviews, reviews and interviews that will feed the communication and media literature, the scope of which is shaped by social transformation.