Medya ve Kültür

Media and Culture Journal, which started its publication life in 2021, includes original, qualified theoretical and/or applied articles in Turkish and English in the fields of cultural studies and communication. The main topics of the Journal of Media and Culture, which are directly related to communication and cultural studies, are listed below.

2. If there is an institution that supports the study, (*) should be placed on the last word of the article title, and the supporting institution information should be stated as a footnote on the same page.

3. Submitted articles should be in the range of at least 6,000 and maximum 13,000 words, including references and appendices.

4. Articles should be arranged according to the APA 7 reference system. Make sure that the references used in the texts are compatible with the bibliography information.

5. Qualitative and quantitative studies that require data collection from participants using surveys, interviews, focus group studies, observation, interview techniques, and research on humans require an ethics committee approval. In the applications of studies requiring an ethics committee approval, the author/authors are required to submit the wet-signed ethics committee approval while uploading their articles to the system. Information about the ethics committee should be included in the method section of the article and the Article Information Form in the last section of the text, including the name, date, and number of the authorizing committee, and the statement that the article has been prepared in accordance with the decision of the ethics committee.

6. It is necessary to obtain permission from the owners in using scales, questionnaires and photographs belonging to others and to include this information in the studies. It is required to pay attention to the compliance with copyright regulations in the use of intellectual and artistic works and to make the necessary references in the texts.

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Media and Culture expects all its parties to take on the following ethical responsibilities as part of the publication ethics. The ethical duties and responsibilities listed below are based on the guidelines and policies published as open access by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).  COPE workflow diagrams.

The publication of an article in a peer-reviewed journal is essential for the development of a coherent and respected knowledge network. Peer-reviewed articles support and develop scientific methods. Therefore, it is important for all relevant parties involved in the publishing process, including authors, journal editors, reviewers, and publishing agencies, to agree on the expected ethical behaviors and standards.

1. Authorship of the Paper:
Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included in the paper and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

2. Conflicts of Interest:
Authors: All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.
Reviewers: Referees should inform the journal editor about the evaluation process if they suspect any conflict of interest in the article they are evaluating, and refuse article evaluation if necessary. In order to prevent conflict of interest, people in the institutions where the article authors are working cannot referee the article.
Editors: Editors should not have personal or financial conflicts of interest with articles.

3. Data Access and Retention:
Authors are asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data, if practicable, and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

4. Data Fabrication and Falsification:
Fabrication and/or falsified experimental results, including the manipulation of images.

5. Duplicate / Multiple Submission(s):
Manuscripts that are either found to have been submitted elsewhere or published elsewhere. If authors have used their own work, either previously submitted or published, as the basis for a submitted manuscript, they are required to cite the previous work. They also need to indicate how novel contributions are offered in their submitted manuscript, over and above those of the previous work.

6. Intellectual Property
• Authors certify that their submitted manuscript (and any supporting items) are their own intellectual property and the copyright has not been transferred to others.
• Authors certify that the manuscript contains no plagiarism, no fabrication, no falsification, no manipulated citations and that the manuscript conforms to JSS authorship policies.
• All manuscripts, revisions, drafts, and galleys remain the intellectual property of the author(s). Except as stated in the agreed license, the author(s) retain the copyright to their work.
• Authors, reviewers, and editors agree to keep all communications, comments, or reports from reviewers or editors confidential.
• Reviewers and editors agree to keep all manuscripts, revisions, and drafts confidential, with the exception of the final published galley(s).

7. Correction, Retraction, Expression of Concern
• Editors may make corrections if they detect minor errors in the published article that do not affect the findings, interpretations, or results.
• Editors may retract the article in case of major errors/violations that invalidate the findings and results.
• Editors may issue a statement of concern if there is a possibility of abusive research or publication by the authors, if there is evidence that the findings are unreliable and the authors' institutions have not investigated the incident, or if the potential investigation seems unfair or inconclusive. COPE and ICJME guidelines are taken into account with regard to the correction, retraction, and expression of concern.

8. Publication of Studies Based on Surveys and Interviews
Aiming to establish ethical assurance in scientific periodicals, Media and Culture journal adopts the principles of the "Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors" and the "Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers" published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). In this scope, the following aspects should be adhered in the studies submitted to the journal:
• Ethics committee approval should be obtained for research conducted in all the disciplines that require ethics committee approval, and this approval should be stated and documented in the article.
• In studies that require ethics committee approval, information about the approval (committee name, date and issue number) may be included in the method section of the study. However, in case reports, information about the informed consent and the signed consent form should be included in the Article Information Form at the end of the article.

The studies that require ethics committee approval are as follows:
• All kinds of research conducted with qualitative or quantitative approaches that require data collection from participants through surveys, interviews, focus group works, observations, experiments and other interview techniques.
• Use of humans and animals (including material/data) for experimental or other scientific purposes,
• Clinical studies conducted on humans,
• Studies conducted on animals,
• Retrospective studies in accordance with the law on the protection of personal data,
Also;
• A statement confirming that an "informed consent form" has been received in case reports,
• Obtaining permission from the owners for the use of scales, surveys or photographs belonging to others,
• A statement confirming that copyright regulations are met for the intellectual and artistic works used.

9. Policy of Publishing Additional or Special Issues
A special issue can be published in our journal once a year upon the request of the Editorial Board. The publication processes of the articles sent to be included in the special issue are the same as the standard processes.
1. Additional or Special issue: An issue published in addition to the regular issues of a periodically published journal. It may consist of conference papers or a series of articles focusing on a specific topic.
2. Page numbering in the additional or special issue is different from the regular issues.
3. The print run of the additional or special issue cannot be more than one third of the regular issue. The special issues containing conference paper abstracts are not included in this scope.
4. Ratios of case reports, compilations and research articles (excluding conference paper abstracts) published in the additional or special issue will be included in the ratios of articles published in other issues.
5. The issues published as a tribute are not accepted as an additional or special issue. Their page numbering and organization are the same as the regular issues.

Actions that violate scientific research and publication ethics are as follows:
(Turkish Council of Higher Education [YÖK] Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Directive, Article 4)
https://www.yok.gov.tr/Sayfalar/Kurumsal/mevzuat/bilimsel-arastirma-ve-etik-yonetmeligi.aspx
Plagiarism: Showing others' original ideas, methods, data or works as their own work, partially or completely, without reference to scientific rules,
Forgery: Using data that does not actually exist or has been falsified in scientific research,
Distortion: Falsifying the research records or data obtained, displaying the equipment or materials not used in the research as if used, distorting or shaping the results of the research in the interests of the people and organizations that provide support,
Republishing: Presenting repetitive publications as separate publications in academic appointments and promotions,
Slicing: Dividing the results of a research into pieces in an improper way or in a way that disrupts the integrity of the research and publishing each one separately to increase total publication count for academic appointments and promotions,
Unfair Authorship: Including non-contributors in the author list or not including those who have contributed, changing the author's order in an unjustified and inappropriate manner, removing the names of contributors from the work in subsequent editions, using influence to include names among the authors despite not being contributors,

Other ethical violations include:
a) Not specifying the supporting individuals, institutions or organizations and their contributions in the publications made as a result of research conducted with support.
b) Using theses or studies that have not yet been submitted or have not been accepted as a source without the permission of the owner,
c) Not complying with ethical rules in research on humans and animals, not respecting patients' rights in publications,
ç) Violating the provisions of the relevant legislation in biomedical research and other clinical research related to humans,
d) Sharing the information in a work that has been assigned for review with others before it is published without the explicit consent of the author,
e) Misusing resources, spaces, facilities and equipment provided or allocated for scientific research,
f) Deliberately making a false and ungrounded allegation about ethical violation,
g) Publishing the data obtained from surveys conducted as part of a scientific study without the explicit consent of the participants, or without the permission of the relevant institution if the study is conducted in an institution,
h) Harming animal health and ecological balance in research and experiments,
ı) Failing to obtain written permissions from authorities that are required for starting research activities or experiments,
i) Conducting research activities or experiments in violation of the related legislation or the provisions on research and experiments in the international conventions to which Turkey is a party,
j) Disregarding the obligation to inform and warn the relevant authorities about possible harmful practices related to the scientific research.
k) Not using the data and information obtained from other individuals or institutions in scientific studies to the extent and as permitted, not respecting the confidentiality of this information and not ensuring its protection,
l) Making false or misleading statements regarding scientific research and publications in academic appointments and promotions.

• Studies must be original and based on research.
• It must be ensured that all the persons mentioned as authors/co-authors have contributed to the article. It is against scientific ethics to show persons who have not made any academic contribution as additional authors or to rank the authors by non-scientific criteria such as title, age and gender, regardless of the order of contribution.
• In the articles with multiple authors, it should be clearly stated to what extent the authors have contributed to which stage of the article.
• The article should not be sent to different journals at the same time and should not have been sent to another journal before. If it is found to have been sent to another journal, the publication process will be cancelled.
• It is assumed that the authors who submit articles to the journal have read and accepted the publication and writing principles of the journal, and the authors are deemed to have committed to these principles.
• The citations and bibliography should be complete.
• Plagiarism and fake data should be avoided.
• The similarity rate obtained as a result of the similarity checks should not exceed 20% in order to initiate the peer review process.
• An article may be included in a maximum of 2 PRE-REVIEW processes. The article will be rejected if the feedback conveyed to the author is not revised.

•Authors should not resubmit the same studies previously rejected in our journal. In such a case, the studies will be rejected.

• The corresponding author must inform the journal editor in case of any conflict of interest.
In this scope, WAME can be referred:
https://www.wame.org/conflict-of-interest-in-peer-reviewed-medical-journals 

• Peer reviewers should be aware that they play a critical role in the academic quality of the article to be published in the journal, and they should engage in the peer review process with the responsibility of improving academic quality.
• Peer reviewers should only accept to review articles for which they have the expertise to make an appropriate assessment. They should also respect the confidentiality of the blind peer review process and keep the details of the article confidential at all costs.
• After the review process, any information about the reviewed article should not be shared with others under any circumstances.
• Peer reviewers should only evaluate the accuracy of the content of the articles and their compliance with academic criteria. Any difference of opinions between the article's argument and the peer reviewer should not affect the review process.
• Peer review reports should be objective and measurable. Libelous, derogatory or accusatory expressions should definitely be avoided.
• Peer reviewers should avoid superficial or inaccurate statements in their peer review reports. In reviews with negative results, a complete justification should be presented on the aspects that led to the negative result.
• Peer reviewers should review the articles within the time period allotted to them. If they are not going to review the article, they should notify the journal within a reasonable time.

• Editors should accept articles that will contribute to the relevant areas specified in the journal policy.
• Editors should not have any conflict of interest with accepted or rejected articles.
• Editors have full responsibility and authority to accept or reject an article.
• It is editors' responsibility to keep the names of peer reviewers and authors mutually confidential.
• Only the articles that will contribute to the relevant field should be accepted.
• If an error is detected, editors should support the correction or retraction of the error.
• It is the duty of editors to complete the pre-review, peer review, editing and publishing processes of the articles submitted to the journal in a timely and appropriate manner.
• Editors should not assign people who do not contribute to the journal as editorial board members or associate editors.

                                                                                               

The average time during which the preliminary assessment of manuscripts is conducted: 3-7
The average time during which the reviews of manuscripts are conducted: 60
The average time in which the article is published: 90

• Media and Culture does not request any fees for article submission, reviewing and editing processes, page-layout and publication (page or color fees).
• Media and Culture does not pay any fees to authors, reviewers, editors and editorial board members.
• All papers on Media and Culture are free to read and download.
• Media and Culture sign on to the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), which promotes free access to research literature, and has adopted the Open Access Principles that clarified in this initiative.
• All papers on Media and Culture are archived with LOCKSS (Lots Of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) system through TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM DergiPark.
• Media and Culture does not accept announcements, advertisements, sponsorships, etc. due to its publication policy.
• Media and Culture is an open-access journal which does not request any subscription fees.
• We do not offer a reprint service for those requiring professional quality reproductions of papers
* All expenses of the Media and Culture journal are covered by Sakarya University.