Submission guidelines

Aims and scope

Mediální studia / Media Studies (ISSN 2464-4846) is a peer-reviewed electronic journal, published in English, Czech and Slovak twice a year. Based in disciplines of media and communication studies, it focuses on analyses of media texts, media professionals practices and media audiences behaviour. We especially welcome papers covering media in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and support the  emphasis on the dynamics of local-global knowledge on media and its mutual connections.

Paper types

Studies are based on original research, solving the issue raised empirically, theoretically or methodologically. In other words, the studies may investigate various concepts or terminology of media and communication studies, or, they may corroborate upon accepted or innovative methodological procedures, or, they may examine different facets of media operation on empirical data. The recommended length of the studies is 6000-8000 words, including footnotes and references with an abstract of up to 150 words, up to 10 keywords, and brief information about the author up to 100 words.

Book reviews introduce and critically evaluate new books emerging within the field of study. The author may choose to review one monograph or approach more of them together, usually if close in its key topic, methodology or conceptual basis. The book reviews clearly sum up issues dealt with and they use such overview as a basis for further critical investigation. The recommended length of studies is 2000-4000 words, including footnotes and references.

Interviews introduce inspiring personalities within the media and communication field, both from academia and practical operation: researchers, pedagogues, but also journalists, editors, or media managers. The recommended length of the interview is 3000-4000 words including footnotes and references. The interviews include brief information about the interviewee.

Submission

All manuscripts should be sent to the editor at the following address: medialnistudia@fsv.cuni.cz.

Manuscripts aimed for peer review (studies and essays) should be delivered in an original and a blinded (anonymised) version. The editor-in-chief sends blinded copies for review, so please omit all references to your identity as the author in the text of the blinded copy (your name, institutional affiliation, file’s metadata – for MS Word please see Windows Support entitled Remove hidden data and personal information by inspecting documents, presentations, or workbooks).

The original and the blinded version should be accompanied with a covering letter with the author’s full name; institutional affiliation, and the contact email address.

Manuscripts not aimed for peer review (polemics, interviews, book reviews and reports) should be delivered in the original version only.

The editor-in-chief will acknowledge the receipt of the manuscript.

Review process

Studies and essays are subject to the review process, while other types of texts (polemics, interviews, reviews, and reports) are not – should they be accepted for publication depends on the decision of the journal’s editorial board.

Manuscripts aimed for peer review are first assessed by the journal’s editor-in-chief. She evaluates whether the manuscripts meet the aims and scope of the journal and also the basic requirements of research papers (clear and coherent use of terminology, convincing scope and quality of the literature cited, language and formal issues). If the texts do not meet these criteria, they are rejected (desk rejection). If they do, the editor-in-chief includes them in the review process.

Mediální studia / Media Studies Journal operates a conventional double-blind reviewing policy in which the reviewer’s name is concealed from the submitting author and vice versa. The submitted manuscripts are reviewed by two independent reviewers (in the case of a study) or by one reviewer (in the case of an essay). Reviewers who are experts on the topic of the article reviewed are selected and invited by the editor-in-chief after possible consultation with the journal’s editors. Commonly, the review process takes 2-3 months from the acknowledgment of the manuscript receipt. The editorial staff ensure the compliance with the deadline; however, it does not take responsibility for possible delays caused by the reviewers. Depending on the recommendations contained in the reviews, the editor-in-chief takes following steps:

1. If both reviewers recommend the manuscript for publication, it is accepted. One of the journal’s editors works on the final version of the text with the author.
2. If one or both reviewers have partial objections to the text and recommend minor revisions, the author is prompted to take them into account in the text. The editor-in-chief considers whether these adjustments are sufficient.
3. If one or both reviewers have more critical objections to the text (major revisions are recommended), the author is invited to take them into account in the text. Also, in this case, the author is asked to write a short and intelligible summary of changes made in relation to reviewers’ comments. The editor-in-chief considers whether these adjustments are sufficient. Should she have doubts, she sends the revised text to the original reviewers.
   1. If the reviewers agrees with the revised version or recommends minor revisions, the author is informed about their stance. The text is passed further to one of the journal’s editors who works on the final version of the text with the author.
   2. If the reviewers do not agree with the revised version, the text is returned to the author, thus returning to the starting point from point 3. In the case of uncertainty about the reviewer’s performance, the editor-in-chief may, after consulting other journal’s editors, request a review from the third reviewer.
4. If one reviewer does not recommend the publication and the other reviewer does recommend it (either he has no objections, or opts for minor or major revisions), the editor-in-chief may, after consulting other journal’s editors, request a third reviewer.
5. If one or both reviewers do not recommend accepting text, the manuscript is rejected.

The author is informed by e-mail about the result of the review process. If the author does not consider all or some of the reviewers’ recommendations to be substantively justified, they may explain their views in a letter addressed to the editor-in-chief. The final decision whether to accept or reject the manuscript is made by the editor-in-chief in cooperation with other journal’s editors. In the case of conflict, the editorial board is invited to make the decision.

The author of the manuscript returned for revision shall revise their text within the deadline specified by the editor-in-chief. The author tracks changes in the document, or makes them visible by colour highlight.

Simplified scheme of the review process

Preparing your manuscript for submission

Texts submitted should be readable in a text editor (e.g. doc or docx rather than pdf formats). Further recommendations include the line spacing of 1.5, standard borders of 2.5 cm on the sides, top and bottom, Times New Roman font, and12 point font size.

Images, tables, and graphs

Please insert images, tables, and charts directly into the text where they ideally should be placed; do not move them to the end of the text.

We recommend sending pictures and charts in the highest quality possible. If their insertion in original quality within the text file causes inappropriate increase in the text file’s size (above 10 MB), please paste the compressed version into the text file and send the original images and graphs in separate files (TIFF or JPG for images, EPS for charts and line art).

Language quality

The authors should ensure proofreading of their manuscripts before sending them to Mediální studia / Media Studies Journal. Otherwise, the manuscript could be turned down in the initial evaluation of the editor-in-chief.

Reference style

The submitted texts should comply with the APA reference style. Here, we only provide a list of the most common rules for quoting, for more detailed insights, we recommend that the authors see the following website: http://blog.apastyle.org/.