General Considerations
The ethical policy of the Journal of Social Communication Sociology is based on the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and complies with the codes of conduct of the Editorial Board of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.
Readers, authors, reviewers, and editors collaborating with this journal must adhere to these ethical policies.
When submitting an article to the Journal of Social Communication Sociology, authors must commit that their article is the result of original research and has not been published elsewhere in any language or submitted to another journal for review.
For information on publication ethics and ethical guidelines, please visit: http://publicationethics.org
Publisher's Commitments and Responsibilities
The publisher commits that the decisions of the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board regarding all articles are final.
The publisher commits that the journal's final decisions are made solely based on professional judgment and will not be influenced by any conflicts of interest.
The publisher is responsible for continuously monitoring and controlling the adherence of the Editor-in-Chief, editors, Editorial Board members, reviewers, authors, and readers to ethical principles.
The publisher is responsible for publishing and announcing corrections, transparency principles, and retractions of published articles whenever necessary.
Commitments and Responsibilities of the Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Team
The Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Team have full authority to reject/accept articles.
The Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Team make final decisions regarding acceptance or rejection of articles based on the opinions of reviewers and Editorial Board members.
The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of submitted articles under review until their publication.
The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for ensuring confidentiality and anonymity of reviewers' and authors' information in accordance with the journal's peer-review policy (Double-Blind).
The Editor-in-Chief must strive to prevent any conflicts of interest and disclose them if they exist.
The Editor-in-Chief consistently investigates issues related to plagiarism and fabricated data and, if necessary, takes action to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies.
The Editor-in-Chief must not disclose information and content of articles to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, and, if necessary, other editorial editors.
Commitments and Responsibilities of Reviewers
Confidentiality of article information must be maintained in all respects, and the review process must be conducted anonymously.
Reviewers should evaluate articles in a timely manner and assist the Editorial Team in deciding whether to accept or reject the article.
Reviewers' recommendations regarding submitted articles should be provided by completing the review form and also by providing comments and suggestions in the comments section for the author and editor.
Reviewers should refrain from judging articles where they have a conflict of interest and report any conflict of interest as soon as possible.
Reviewers' judgments about the quality and content of articles should be based on expert and objective opinions.
Commitments and Responsibilities of Authors
Adherence to basic principles of writing and research in article writing is essential, and articles must be written and formatted according to the journal's template (Article Formatting Guide).
Before submitting an article, all authors must read the author guidelines and the terms and conditions of article submission in this journal (Terms and Conditions of Article Submission).
The corresponding author must confirm and submit the consent and awareness of other authors of the article in this journal through the Authors' Commitment Form (Journal Forms).
All authors whose names appear in the article and on the commitment form must have made a significant contribution to the writing and preparation of the article.
Acknowledgments and authors' organizational affiliations must be mentioned in the article, and any conflict of interest between authors or organizations must be stated.
For the sustainability and development of the peer-review process, qualified authors are invited to participate in the review process of other articles in this journal.
Authors must clearly report the research sponsor (if any).
Authors are obligated to inform the Editor-in-Chief as soon as possible if they notice an error or inaccuracy in their published article so that the article can be corrected or retracted.
All authors should note that articles submitted to this journal are checked by Samim Noor text similarity detection software to prevent scientific misconduct.
Authors must properly and appropriately cite and reference all sources and references they have used directly or indirectly.
Authorship Criteria
Every author whose name appears in the article must have performed one or more of the following:
Research design, data collection or analysis and interpretation of data;
Writing the article or substantive/critical revision;
Final approval for publication of the article.
Generally, must have made a significant contribution to the design and writing of the article to be able to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.
Authorship Principles and Responsibilities of Authors
At the time of submission, during the review process, and during preparation for publication, the corresponding author is responsible for communication with the journal and its staff and must communicate with the journal's executive staff to ensure compliance with all administrative requirements, such as adhering to the terms and conditions of the article, making revisions requested by reviewers, providing clinical trial registration documents, and submitting necessary forms such as the commitment form and conflict of interest disclosure.
Also, during the review process, the corresponding author must respond promptly to questions from the Editor-in-Chief and Executive Manager and, after publication, cooperate with the journal if necessary.
After the article is accepted and in the publication stage, adding a new author's name or changing author responsibilities is not permitted. Moreover, if an author wishes to be removed from the author list, a letter signed by that author and all other authors must be submitted, indicating their agreement to the removal from the author list.
Any change in the order of authors requires a signed letter by all authors indicating their agreement.
Studies Involving Humans and Animals
All articles reporting results of experimental research involving human subjects must contain a statement confirming that informed consent was obtained from each subject or their guardian. All animal or human studies must have been conducted after approval of the experimental protocol by the local ethics committee.
Principles of Transparency
Appropriate Research Design
Good research has logical order and appropriate research design and must have observed research ethical standards. Conducting research with lower standards may constitute research misconduct. Authors are responsible for the entire scientific content as well as the accuracy of bibliographic information.
Data Analysis
Data must be analyzed appropriately; inappropriate analysis does not necessarily mean misconduct, but falsification and manipulation of data constitute misconduct.
Data Access
Data used to support the study's findings should be available from the corresponding author upon request.
Conflict of Interest
Conflicts of interest may not always be completely obvious and may potentially affect the judgment of authors, reviewers, and editors.
These matters, once revealed, could mislead or deceive a reasonable reader.
Instances of conflict of interest may be personal, commercial, political, academic, or financial. "Financial" interests may include employment, research funding, stock or share ownership, payment for lectures or travel, consulting, and company support for staff.
Peer Review Process
This journal uses double-blind peer review, meaning that both the identity of the reviewer is anonymous to the author and the identity of the author is anonymous to the reviewers.
To facilitate this, authors must ensure their articles are prepared in a way that does not reveal their identity.
Authors have the right to communicate with the Editor-in-Chief if they do not want their article to be reviewed by a particular reviewer due to a potential conflict of interest.
No article is rejected unless negative opinions are received from at least two reviewers.
Archiving Policy
The Journal of Social Communication Sociology ensures long-term preservation and sustainable access to published content through an electronic backup and archiving policy. This policy specifies how authors can deposit versions of their articles in personal repositories, university archives, and subject-based repositories.
The Journal of Social Communication Sociology operates under an Open Access model, meaning all articles are freely available immediately upon publication under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International (CC-BY 4.0) . Authors are encouraged to share the final published version rather than the accepted version to ensure accuracy of citations and scientific credibility.
Self-Archiving Policy
Authors are permitted to archive different versions of their articles under the following conditions:
Submitted Version (Pre-print): Authors may publish the original version of their article (prior to peer review) in personal repositories, university archives, and pre-print servers without any embargo period.
Accepted Version: Authors may archive the reviewed and accepted version of the article on personal websites, university archives, or subject-based repositories.
Published Version: Authors may share the final published version of the article through the journal's website and other platforms in accordance with the journal's Open Access policy.
Authors are encouraged to share their articles through social media (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, ResearchGate, etc.), provided that proper citation is made and the link to the journal website is included. It is recommended that the shared version includes the article's Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to facilitate citation and scientific tracking.
The Journal of Social Communication Sociology also participates in the following databases to ensure long-term preservation of journal content and to provide access to articles in the event of any digital loss:
National Journals Database (Magiran)
Conference and Scientific Journals Articles Center (CIVILICA)
Humanities Articles Database
Noor Specialized Journals Database
Scientific Journals Reference
Publication Schedule
The Journal of Social Communication Sociology is published quarterly and releases 4 issues per year. All articles published from the beginning until now will be available on the dedicated website (https://jsc.daneshpajoohan.ac.ir).
Privacy and Confidentiality
Confidentiality must be observed throughout all article review processes and by all roles.
All articles must be reviewed with confidentiality maintained.
Reviewers also have confidentiality rights that the Editor-in-Chief must respect. If dishonesty or fraud is suspected in an article, confidentiality may be breached, but otherwise must be maintained.
In addition to authors and reviewers, editors are prohibited from disclosing information about articles (including receipt, content, status in the review process, reviewer critiques, or final outcome).
Editors must explain to reviewers that manuscripts sent for review are the private property of the authors and that reviewers and editorial staff must respect authors' rights by refraining from public discussion or appropriating authors' work before article publication.
Reviewers are not permitted to make copies of the article for themselves and are not allowed to share it with others unless permitted by the editor or Editor-in-Chief.
Editors should not keep copies of rejected articles.
Review comments and evaluations should not be publicly published without permission from the reviewer, author, and editor.
Copyright and Publication License
The Journal of Social Communication Sociology provides open and immediate access to its content. All articles in this journal are published under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International (CC-BY 4.0) , which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original author(s) and source are properly credited. Under the open access license, authors retain copyright for their article content but allow others to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, and/or copy the content (as long as the original authors and source are properly cited and credited). In this journal, authors retain all rights (including copyright) indefinitely.
Advertising
The Journal of Social Communication Sociology has no policy for accepting advertisements.
Article Corrections or Retractions
To maintain the integrity of scientific and academic records, the Journal of Social Communication Sociology may sometimes find it necessary to publish a correction or retraction of an article published in the journal. According to norms agreed upon by the academic community, this is usually done by publishing a "Corrigendum/Erratum" or "Retraction" without making changes to the original article and only by publishing a new article highlighted as a correction or retraction. The original article remains in the public domain and should usually be indexed in the subsequent Erratum or Retraction. In exceptional cases where the article content cannot be corrected, we may have to remove the content from our website and archives. It may be necessary for the original author(s) to make minor corrections to published articles by commenting on the published article. This will only be acceptable if the corrections do not affect the results or conclusions of the article.
Corrigendum/Erratum
Changes to published articles that affect the meaning or conclusion of the article, but do not invalidate the entire article, may be corrected at the discretion of the editor(s) by publishing an indexed Erratum linked to the original article. Changes in authorship of published articles are corrected through an Erratum.
Retraction
If the scientific information in an article is significantly compromised in rare cases, it may be appropriate to retract published articles. In such cases, journal decisions should comply with COPE Retraction Guidelines. Retracted articles are indexed and linked back to the original article.
Addressing Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the intentional use of others' ideas or other original material as if it were one's own.
Copying even one sentence from another person's manuscript or even one's own previously published work, without proper citation, is considered plagiarism by this journal.
Plagiarism is a serious violation of publication ethics, and all articles under review or published are checked using Samim Noor plagiarism prevention software.
Authors are expected to check their article for plagiarism before submission.
If plagiarism is detected during review, the article is rejected.
If plagiarism is identified after publication, we (the journal) reserve the right to correct or retract the article if necessary.
We reserve the right to inform authors' institutions about plagiarism that becomes apparent before or after publication.
Process for Identifying and Addressing Allegations of Research Misconduct
In the Journal of Social Communication Sociology, the Editor-in-Chief takes measures to identify and prevent the publication of articles involving research misconduct.
These measures include:
The Editor-in-Chief's first action is to inform the journal's editorial office by providing copies of relevant materials and a draft letter to the corresponding author requesting a non-judgmental explanation.
If the author's explanation is unacceptable and serious unethical behavior appears to have occurred, the matter is referred through the editorial office to the Publication Committee. After review, the Committee will decide whether the case is serious enough to warrant a ban on future submissions.
If the misconduct is less severe, the Editor-in-Chief, upon the Publication Committee's recommendation, sends a letter of reprimand to the author and reminds the author of the journal's publication policies. If the article has been published, the editor may request the author to publish an apology in the journal to correct the record.
A warning will be sent to the corresponding author, and any work by the violating corresponding author or any work by these individuals under review by the journal will be immediately rejected.
Authors are banned from membership on the journal's Editorial Board and from serving as reviewers for the journal. The journal reserves the right to take further action.
In serious cases of fraud leading to article retraction, a retraction notice is published in the journal and linked to the article in the online version. The online version is also marked with the retraction date.
Process for Handling Author Complaints
The Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Team of the Journal of Social Communication Sociology welcome logical and well-reasoned appeals against decisions made by the Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board. However, it is noteworthy that these requests must be supported by strong evidence and reasons. Authors requesting an appeal must provide strong evidence or new data/information in response to the comments of the Editor-in-Chief and reviewers. This journal always strives to ensure all final decisions are based on the careful opinions of the journal's reviewers and editors; therefore, the journal's editors rarely change their original decisions. However, if you have a complaint about the journal's final decision and believe there is a case for reconsideration, you can follow these steps:
Provide your logical, reasoned, and acceptable reasons to the journal office.
Clearly explain in your request why you disagree with the decision.
Provide any new information or data you want considered in the review process to the journal's editors.
If you believe reviewers made mistakes in evaluating your article, provide acceptable reasons and documentation.
If you believe there was a conflict of interest in the review process, provide your evidence.
Considerations
The editors of the Journal of Social Communication Sociology accept only one appeal request per article.
Upon receiving an appeal request, editors may consult with reviewers and editors who participated in the article evaluation process.
Decisions by the editors and Editorial Board regarding the appeal are final and may include rejecting the article, requesting further peer review, or requesting a revised version of the manuscript.
COPE Ethical Guidelines and Flowcharts
The Journal of Social Communication Sociology is committed to following and applying the guidelines and flowcharts of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in the review, publication process, and related issues.
For more information, please visit this page: (https://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts-new/translations)
COPE Codes of Conduct and Best Practice for Editors
(https://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf)
(https://publicationethics.org/files/2008%20Code%20of%20Conduct.pdf)
The scientific and ethical responsibility for everything published in the journal rests with the Editor-in-Chief. This means the Editor-in-Chief must always consider the following:
Striving to meet the needs of readers and authors;
Striving for continuous improvement of the journal;
Adopting procedures and processes to ensure the quality of published material;
Upholding freedom of expression;
Maintaining the integrity of the scientific record in the journal;
Preventing intellectual and ethical standards from being compromised by commercial interests;
Being always ready to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when necessary.
Best Practice for Editors Includes:
Actively seeking the views of authors, readers, reviewers, and Editorial Board members on ways to improve journal processes.
Encouraging and being aware of the latest methods and research related to peer review and reevaluating journal processes in light of new findings.
Supporting initiatives designed to reduce misconduct in research and publication.
Supporting innovation to raise awareness and educate researchers about publication ethics.
Evaluating the impact of journal policies on author and reviewer behavior and revising policies, if necessary, to encourage responsible behavior and prevent misconduct.
Best Practice for Editors in Relation to Readers:
Ensuring that all published articles have been reviewed by qualified reviewers, including statistical reviewers/advisors where relevant.
Adopting processes that encourage accuracy, completeness, and clarity of research reporting, including technical editing and the use of appropriate guidelines and checklists.
Developing a transparency policy to encourage maximum disclosure of the origin of non-research and non-ethically-compliant articles.
Adopting policies and establishing systems to promote appropriate authorship and co-authorship practices (e.g., clearly indicating who did what) and prevent misconduct (such as ghost or guest authors).
Informing readers that articles submitted by Editorial Board members will also undergo a rigorous and impartial review process.
Readers have the right to be clearly informed about who funded the research or other scholarly work for each article and whether the funders had any role in the research and its publication.
Ethical Responsibilities of the Editor-in-Chief and Journal Editors in Relation to Authors:
Editors' decisions to accept or reject an article for publication should be based on the article's importance, originality, clarity, and the study's validity and relevance to the journal's scope.
Editors should not reverse decisions to accept submissions unless serious problems are identified with the submission.
New editors should not overturn decisions to publish submissions made by the previous editor unless serious problems are identified.
Journals should have a declared mechanism for authors to appeal against editorial decisions.
Editors should publish guidance for authors on everything expected of them. This guide should be regularly updated and should refer or link to this code.
Editors should provide guidance on authorship criteria and/or who should be listed as contributors, adhering to the standards of the relevant field.
Best Practice for Editors in Relation to Authors Includes:
Reviewing author guides and instructions for authors regularly and providing links to relevant guidelines.
Publishing relevant conflicts of interest for all contributors and publishing corrections if conflicts of interest become apparent after publication.
Ensuring that suitable, expert, and relevant reviewers are selected for all articles (i.e., individuals who can review the work without bias or any conflict of interest).
Respecting author requests that a specific individual should not review their article, if these requests are well-reasoned and practicable.
Publishing details of how to handle suspected misconduct cases.
Publishing submission and acceptance dates for articles.
Ethical Responsibilities of the Editor-in-Chief and Journal Editors in Relation to Reviewers:
Editors should prepare comprehensive guides for reviewers. This guide should be regularly updated and should refer or link to this code.
Editors should ask reviewers to disclose any potential conflicts of interest before agreeing to review an article.
Editors should have systems in place to ensure that the identity of peer reviewers is protected, unless they use an open review system that has been communicated to authors and reviewers.
Best Practice for Editors in Relation to Reviewers Includes:
Encouraging reviewers to comment on the originality of submissions and be vigilant about redundant publication and plagiarism.
Providing reviewers with tools and strategies to identify relevant articles (e.g., links to cited references and bibliographic searches).
Sending reviewers' comments in full to authors, unless they contain offensive or defamatory statements.
Endeavoring to acknowledge the contribution of reviewers to the journal.
Encouraging academic institutions to recognize peer review activities as part of the scientific process.
Monitoring reviewer performance and taking steps to ensure it maintains a high standard.
Establishing and maintaining a database of suitable reviewers and updating it based on reviewer performance.
Ceasing to use reviewers who consistently provide rude, poor-quality, or late reviews.
Using a wide range of sources (not just personal contacts) to identify potential new reviewers (e.g., author suggestions, bibliographic databases).
Following the COPE flowchart in cases of suspected reviewer misconduct.
Sociology of Social Communication