im: Journal of communication & media studies adheres to national and international legislation and standards in the context of research and publication ethics. In all processes carried out within this framework, Press Law No. 5187, Intellectual and Artistic Works Law No. 5846, Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Directive of Higher Education Institutions, the principles of Committee on Publication Ethics and Directory of Open Access Journals are taken as basis.

Actions Contrary to Scientific Research and Publication Ethics
Actions contrary to the scientific research and publication ethics specified in the first paragraph of section 2, article 4 of the Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Directive of Higher Education Institutions are accepted as they are:
Plagiarism: Presenting the original ideas, methods, data or works of others as one's own work in whole or in part without citation in accordance with scientific rules,
• Forgery: Using non-existent or falsified data in scientific research,
• Distortion: To falsify research records or data obtained, to show devices or materials not used in the research as if they were used, to falsify or shape the results of the research in line with the interests of the persons and organisations receiving support,
• Republishing: Presenting duplicate publications as separate publications in academic appointments and promotions,
• Slicing: Inappropriately and inappropriately dividing the results of a research into parts in a way that disrupts the integrity of the research and publishing them in more than one issue and presenting these publications as separate publications in academic appointments and promotions,
• Unfair authorship: Including people who do not have active contributions among the authors or not including people who do, changing the author ranking in an unjustified and inappropriate way, removing the names of those who have active contributions from the work in subsequent editions, using their influence to have their names included among the authors even though they have not actively contributed. Click here for information about other types of ethical violations in the relevant directive.

Objection, Complaint and Ethical Violation Notifications
If readers notice a significant error or inaccuracy in a published manuscript in the journal or in the editorial content, they can report it by sending an e-mail to im@baskent.edu.tr Objections, complaints and notifications to the journal will be evaluated in accordance with COPE principles.

Ethics Committee Permission
The journal expects an ethics committee decision to be obtained for all scientific studies in which data are collected with a quantitative or qualitative approach through surveys, interviews, focus group studies, observations, experiments and various interview techniques; using humans and animals for scientific purposes and retrospective studies within the framework of personal data protection legislation. It stipulates that scientific research on humans and animals must be conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and ARRIVE guidelines. A copy of the ethics committee decision, together with its annexes, should be uploaded to the application interface; the name, date and decision number of the committee should be clearly stated in a footnote to the Introduction and in the method section. In case reports, the information that the informed consent form was obtained should be stated in the manuscript. Studies without ethics committee approval are not evaluated.

Publication Ethics Principles
Correction, Retraction, Expression of Concern
Editors may consider publishing a correction if minor errors are identified in a published manuscript that do not affect the findings, interpretations, or conclusions. In the case of major errors or violations that may invalidate the findings and conclusions, retraction of the manuscript may be considered. Editors may consider issuing a statement of concern if there is a possibility that the authors may have misused the research or publication, there is evidence that the findings are unreliable, and the institutions to which the authors are affiliated have not investigated the situation or the investigation appears inadequate or inconclusive. In cases of such corrections, retractions or expressions of concern, the journal follows the COPE guidelines.

Principles of Research Ethics
im: Authors are responsible for ensuring that published manuscripts in the Journal of Communication and Media Studies comply with ethical rules. Your journal adopts the following international principles of research ethics and requires submissions to include them: 

• The principles of integrity, quality and transparency should be ensured in the design, review of the design and conduct of the research.
• The research team and participants should be fully informed about the purpose, methods and anticipated potential uses of the research, and the requirements and risks, if any, of participation in the research.
• Confidentiality of information provided by research participants and confidentiality of respondents must be ensured. The research should be designed to protect the autonomy and dignity of the participants.
• Research participants should take part in the research voluntarily and should not be under any coercion.
• Harm to the participants should be avoided. The research should be planned in a way that does not put the participants at risk.
• Research independence must be clear and explicit; if there is a conflict of interest, it must be stated.
• In experimental studies with human subjects, the written informed consent of the participants who decide to participate in the research must be obtained. The consent of the legal guardian of children and those under guardianship or those with a certified mental illness must be obtained.
• If the study will be carried out in any institution or organisation, approval must be obtained from this institution or organisation that the study will be carried out.
• In studies with a human element, it should be stated in the text of the manuscripts that "informed consent" has been obtained from the participants and ethics committee approval has been obtained from the institution where the study is conducted.

Publication Ethics Principles
Correction, Retraction, Expression of Concern
Editors may consider publishing a correction if minor errors are identified in a published manuscript that do not affect the findings, interpretations, or conclusions. In the case of major errors or violations that may invalidate the findings and conclusions, retraction of the manuscript may be considered. Editors may consider issuing a statement of concern if there is a possibility that the authors may have misused the research or publication, there is evidence that the findings are unreliable, and the institutions to which the authors are affiliated have not investigated the situation, or the investigation appears to be inadequate or inconclusive. In such cases of correction, retraction or statement of concern, the journal follows the COPE guidelines.

Plagiarism Check
Plagiarism is presenting the ideas, methods, data, practices, writings, figures or works of others as one's own work, in whole or in part, without citing the authors in accordance with scientific rules. The journal screens all submitted manuscripts separately to prevent plagiarism. The papers submitted for review are checked for plagiarism using iThenticate, Turnitin or other software. The similarity rate is expected to be less than 20%. Works exceeding this rate are rejected at the preliminary review stage.
If plagiarism is detected in a work published in the journal or in the evaluation process, the following steps are meticulously applied:
• The detection of plagiarism is officially notified to the university to which the author is affiliated and co-operation is made to initiate the necessary legal proceedings.
• The PDF copy of the relevant manuscript is removed from the journal's website and links to the manuscript are blocked. The phrase "Plagiarised Manuscripts" is added to the title of the manuscript and the violation is publicly stated.
• The account of the author responsible for the plagiarism will be closed and the author will be banned indefinitely from submitting any future manuscripts to the journal.

Protection of Intellectual Property Rights
The journal is responsible for protecting the intellectual property rights of all published manuscripts and the rights of the journal and the author(s) in cases where these rights are violated. In addition, the journal takes necessary measures to prevent the content of all published manuscripts from infringing the intellectual property rights of other publications.

Protection of Personal Information
All personal data submitted to the journal are protected in accordance with legal regulations and ethical rules.

Conflict of Interest
Authors should clearly declare any financial or other significant conflicts of interest that may influence their findings or interpretations in their manuscript in the relevant file in the manuscript submission interface. Potential conflicts of interest that should be disclosed include consultancy activities, salaries and grants.

Financial Support
Authors should clearly declare any financial support provided by any organisation within the scope of their work in the relevant file in the manuscript submission interface.

Change of Author
Authors should carefully review the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscripts. Such requests are not accepted after the manuscript has been submitted.

Use of Artificial Intelligence
It is acceptable to use artificial intelligence in processes that will not affect the originality of the manuscript, such as language control in studies submitted to the journal. However, it is considered obligatory to act within the framework of ethical rules in the use of artificial intelligence. Unethical purposes such as fabricated data and manipulation are absolutely not accepted. For studies involving the use of artificial intelligence, it is mandatory to inform the journal at the manuscript submission stage. All responsibility for this belongs to the authors.

Publication of Studies Based on Surveys and Interviews
Ethics committee approval must be obtained for research in all disciplines that require ethics committee approval; information such as the name, date, and decision number of the ethics committee must be indicated in a footnote in the Introduction of the manuscript and documents regarding the approval must be submitted to the editor.

Publisher's Responsibilities
• To establish the necessary policies to prevent plagiarism and ethical violations by adhering to COPE and other international ethical principles.
• To observe intellectual property rights and to ensure the protection of personal data.
• To determine the journal policies and to carry out the necessary work to be included in international indexes.
• To work to meet the infrastructure and other needs of the journal.
Note: All decisions made by the editors working in the journal are independent from the publisher. The relationship between editors and publishers is based on the principle of editorial independence.

Responsibilities of Editors
• To ensure that the publication process is carried out in an ethical, impartial and transparent manner.
• To evaluate the compliance of manuscripts with scientific standards, to manage the referee process, to resolve conflicts of interest and to identify situations that are not in accordance with publication ethics.
• To carry out correction or withdrawal procedures in case errors or violations are detected in the manuscripts.
Note: Editors make a fair evaluation based on the intellectual content of the manuscript, regardless of the gender, race, ethnicity, religion, citizenship or political opinion of the author(s).

Authors' Responsibilities
• To prepare their studies in accordance with ethical and scientific rules.
• To ensure that the data of the manuscript are original and accurate, not to plagiarise, fabricate data or manipulate.
• To clearly declare any conflict of interest, financial support or contributing persons and institutions in the study.
• To conduct research on human or animal subjects in accordance with international ethical principles. To obtain approval from the relevant ethics committee for such studies and to include the information regarding the approval in the text of the manuscript.
• To act in harmony with the editors and referees in line with international ethical principles during or after the manuscript evaluation process.

Responsibilities of Reviewers
• Accepting only studies that fall within its field of expertise.
• To evaluate manuscripts impartially in accordance with scientific, ethical and academic standards.
• To protect the confidentiality of study data during the evaluation process.
• To declare conflicts of interest during the evaluation process and to make comments in an objective and constructive manner.
• To inform the editors in case of suspected plagiarism, data manipulation or ethical violations.

Publication Policies
• All processes and procedures of the journal are carried out through the DergiPark platform developed by TUBITAK, and the journal also has a website at im.baskent.edu.tr.
• The manuscripts submitted to the journal should not have been published previously and should not have been simultaneously submitted to another journal for evaluation.
• The submitted studies should be in accordance with the purpose and scope of the journal and the spelling rules should be followed. Studies that do not meet the specified criteria are rejected at the preliminary review stage.
• The journal publishes research manuscripts, review manuscripts, translation manuscripts, book and work reviews, reviews and interviews.
• Maximum one work of an author can be published in the same issue.
• Studies prepared in Turkish and English are evaluated.
• All works published in the journal are published as open access under the CC-BY-NC licence and made freely available on our archive page.
• In the refereeing process, double blind refereeing is applied. Authors and referees do not know each other's identities. Board members from within the journal (such as editors or editorial board members) who submit manuscripts are suspended from their duties in the journal until the process is completed and are prevented from seeing the process.
• During the manuscript evaluation process, care is taken to ensure that the referees are experts in their field, have at least a PhD degree and do not work in the same institution as the author. In order to protect double blind reviewing, journal board members are not assigned as reviewers.

Special Issue Publication Policy
A special issue may be published once a year in the journal, in accordance with the decision of the editorial board. Submitted manuscripts for special issues go through the same evaluation processes applied to periodic issues. It is ensured that these manuscripts comply with the journal's writing rules, ethical principles and publication policy.

Fee Policy
Manuscripts applications to the journal, processes carried out after the application and publication activities are free of charge. No submission or processing fee is charged from the author or their institution under any name.

Advertisement Policy
Sponsorship and advertisement are not accepted due to publication policies. All expenses of the journal are covered by Başkent University.

Open Access Policy
Published manuscripts  in the journal are published as open access under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. Full texts of all published manuscripts can be accessed free of charge at this address. Click for detailed information.

Copyright Policy
Authors own the copyright of their works published in the journal and their works are licensed as CC BY-NC 4.0. Click for detailed information.

Archiving and Data Distribution Policy
All works published in the journal are digitally archived in LOCKSS. Click for detailed information.

Manuscript Review Process
The manuscript review process in the journal consists of four main headings: preliminary review, referee process, revision and publication. Click for detailed information.

1. Preliminary Review
• The study is reviewed by the editor for compliance with the journal publication principles, academic writing rules and the APA 7 citation system and is subject to similarity scanning using iThenticate, Turnitin or other software. Studies that do not comply with the specified principles and rules and have a similarity rate of 20% or more are not evaluated.

2. Review Process
• A double-blind review process is initiated for studies that pass the preliminary review stage. Within the scope of this process, the manuscript is sent to two expert reviewers in the field for evaluation. The identities of the reviewers and authors are kept confidential during the review process and the process is carried out within the framework of the principle of confidentiality. In order for a study to be published in the journal, both reviewers are expected to give a positive opinion. However, if one of the reviewers gives a positive opinion and the other gives a negative opinion, the study is sent to a third reviewer and the final decision is made.

3. Revision Process
• In case of a revision request by the reviewers, the authors should mark the changes they have made in their studies with a distinct color. Revisions made in line with the reviewer requests are first checked and evaluated by the editor and then by the reviewers.
• The studies that have completed the referee process are reviewed by the language editors. If deemed necessary, revisions regarding language and spelling are requested from the authors. The revisions made by the authors and highlighted in a distinct color are reviewed and approved by the language editors.

4. Publication Process
• The typesetting and layout of the manuscripts that have passed technical, academic and linguistic reviews are made ready for publication and published in the first issue that follows in line with the plans made.