Abstract
Five communication journal editors, Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick and Jennifer Gibbs of Communication Research, Fuyuan Shen of Mass Communication and Society, Nick Bowman of Communication Research Reports, and Francesca Dillman Carpentier of Media Psychology, and myself gathered together this May in the International Communication Association (ICA) convention in San Diego. We met with a common goal: How to resolve some common ethical issues in submissions we encountered as journal editors. Although the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) has some general guidelines we could use, there are other gray areas that were not covered. We need to find common resolutions so that we can give a uniform message to our authors. A joint declaration will be prepared and more journal editors will be invited to join to make it a consensus and common standard at least in our field of communication.
Among the several topics we discussed, one of the most important issues is what we called data slicing or repurposing a study with minor variations. This is different from text recycling or self-plagiarism in which the authors used part of the previous work without proper attribution in the newly submitted manuscript. We understood that the high pressure to publish led some authors to try maximizing use of their data set and publishing opportunities by making multiple versions of the manuscripts submitting to different journals which use the same data set with almost the same or different set of variables, based on similar or different theories. Sometimes our reviewers caught this and reported it to us. Sometimes different journals may not have the same reviewers and we as editors may not realize it until those multiple versions of the manuscripts have been published. The burden of proof of manuscript contribution should be on the author. The editor should not play the role of the detective.
We understand that a good data set requires many efforts to collect and it may not need to be limited to be used in only one manuscript. However, for the true advancement of knowledge in the field and transparency purpose, the authors should inform the editor that one or more articles have been published or under review in other journals using the same data set on different topics. For the readers, those published articles should be cited in the manuscript as published studies with an explanation of how the current manuscript advanced the knowledge of the previously published article. Ultimately, only manuscripts with significant knowledge contribution should deserve the editorial space in high-quality journals.
Hence, in our manuscript submission process, we now require authors to provide information in the cover letter about previous articles using the same data set and other submissions to other journals using the same data set explaining the advancement of knowledge of this manuscript over previous and other manuscripts under review in other journals, or the manuscript is the first time the data set was being used. Such disclosure is to the editor only and will eliminate the need for investigation and suspicion. Even if reviewers report the “dual” submission of the manuscript to multiple journals or self-plagiarism, the editor will have the prior knowledge and can handle the situation appropriately. The author would not need to be in a defensive position with advance disclosure.
In addition, publishing ethics should be part of the graduate curriculum similar to discussing research ethics in teaching research methods. In any introductory course required for PhD and master students, I strongly recommend including principles of publishing ethics based on the guidelines issued by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) such as authorship attribution, importance of transparency, reviewer ethics, and showing students journal policies and the rationale behind those policies. This will develop students as aspiring scholars with good habits, knowledge of the boundaries, an understanding of the meaning and value of publishing in refereed journals, and prevent problematic manuscript submissions.
Another question is whether an author can submit a manuscript which is basically a translated version of what has been published in a non-English language outlet. Because our journal only publishes original articles, we are unable to publish articles that have been published in other languages because they are not considered “original” manuscripts. So the authors in non-English speaking countries need to make a choice whether they want to have their article first published in English as an “international” language to a more global audience and then subsequently translated into other languages. If the article will have a much more important immediate impact on their home country, perhaps then the author should publish their article in their home country, even though it may mean losing the chance to publish in English language journals that publish original articles only.
Once in a while, I received requests from authors to change their affiliations after their articles have been published OnlineFirst. Although it may seem easy to change information online, authors may not realize that an OnlineFirst article is already a published article with a digital object identifier (DOI) and enjoys the status and limitations as a published print article. It is not subject to an update of affiliation change or even name change of the author. Otherwise, there will be a never-ending update of the article because any of the author(s) can change their affiliation or names at different points in time. To allow readers to trace the latest status of the author, my advice to authors is to register their name at https://orcid.org/ with an ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) number which is a unique worldwide permanent identity registry and their name and affiliation can be updated in one location. Include the ORCID number in their manuscript submission and we will publish their ORCID online and in print so that readers can use it to find the latest affiliation and contact information of the authors.
Highlights of Autumn Issue Articles
We begin this issue with an invited blind refereed review essay on mass communication law and policy research by Ed Carter. By reviewing the different types of past mass communication law articles published in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly (JMCQ) in theory contribution, Carter proposes that values of free expression should be the common theme addressed in mass communication law research to increase relevance and significance of the mass communication law research, and increasing international and comparative research should be the future direction of mass communication law research.
We have a pair of articles on how news media affected the participation of the most significant political protests in Hong Kong and Taiwan in recent decades. Michael Chan’s representative survey study of adults in Hong Kong on the Occupy Central (Umbrella) Movement supported the social identity model of collective action, demonstrating that online alternative news use stimulates identity and anger which lead to higher protest intention, while social media use stimulates anger and efficacy which lead to higher protest intention. Ven-Hwei Lo, Ran Wei, and Hung-Yi Lu’s survey study of Taiwanese college students’ participation in the Sunflower Student Movement revealed how issue importance and the first-person effect determine the protest participation of the students, showing the limitation of the third-person effect.
Drawing on two-wave U.S. survey panel data, Alberto Ardèvol-Abreu and Homero Gil de Zúñiga’s study found that trust in social media and citizen media positively predicts use of news via social media, but trust has no effect on traditional or citizen news use. Perceived media bias is associated with decreased news use overall, which reinforces the importance of media trust on news consumption.
Hanna Pincus, Magdalena Wojcieszak, and Hajo Boomgarden’s experimental study compares the effects of embedded multimedia, traditional multimedia, and text-only format on readers’ knowledge gain, emotional reactions, and narrative transportation. They found that multimedia did not yield significantly higher cognitive or affective benefits than text-only format news, challenging the industry’s assumption that multimedia reporting is better and more effective than text-based stories.
Sei-Hill Kim and Matthew W. Telleen’s article examined TV and print newspapers’ coverage school bullying and found that victims and their families were most often blamed as being responsible for the bullying. Schools and teachers were seen by media as the key to solve the problem. Ironically, the bullies and their families—the direct source of the problem—were mentioned the least often in news media.
Pamela C. Laucella, Marie Hardin, Steve Bien-Aimé, and Dunja Antunovic’s national survey of sports editors found that the editors believe readers’ interest in women sports to be low and do not believe that coverage of women’s sports needs to be improved. Despite their negative view on women’s sports, they showed change in values and beliefs in hiring more women journalists and to eventual improvements of gender equity in sports journalism.
We have several articles using innovative approaches to examine health issues. Yiyi Yang, Lu Tang, and Bijie Bie’s article compared how mental illnesses were portrayed differently in men and women’s magazines. They found women’s magazines tend to present a more positive coverage of mental illnesses by citing patients, adopting human interest discourse, and show more hope for patients than men’s magazines.
Carlos Brenes Peralta, Magdalena Wojcieszak, Yphtach Lelkes, and Claes de Vreese’s experiment contributes to the theory of selective exposure to climate change and health care by demonstrating that members of issue publics are more likely to select balanced content and numerical evidence because they wish to reinforce their desired opinions and gather accurate information, refuting the echo chamber motivation assumption of selective exposure.
Robert McKeever, Brooke Weberling McKeever, and Jo-Yun Li’s survey of mothers with young children revealed that speaking up on breastfeeding is not just caused by hostile media perception but other factors such as outspokenness and past breastfeeding experience. Mothers who are currently breastfeeding are more likely to speak up when they perceive media coverage is hostile to breastfeeding than those who breastfed their children a while ago.
This issue concludes with two articles on political partisanship from very different angles. The two online experiments by Brian McLaughlin, Douglas McLeod, Catasha Davis, Mallory Perryman, and Kwansik Mun based on self-categorization theory show how media coverage affects the functioning of democracy in the United States and why partisans are unwilling to compromise. It is because the party leader’s views influence the partisan participant’s position on the policy issues as elite cues and party norms. Caroline Fisher’s qualitative interviews with 21 Australian parliamentary media advisers who were former journalists challenged the common perception of their role as simply spin doctors for the politician they worked for. Their roles vary from being a “true believer,” a “committed expert,” to a “legal advocate” for the parliamentary member.
Happy Reading!