1. General Principles

The International Journal of Media and Communication Studies – MEDIAJ is committed to adhering to the highest scientific publication ethics standards. In this direction, it adopts the following principles based on the recommendations, principles, and guidelines put forward by The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) organization:

• Articles sent to MEDIAJ should not have been published before and should not be included in the evaluation process of any journal for publication.
• After the articles sent to MEDIAJ pass the pre-evaluation process, they are taken to the double-blind refereeing process and sent to the referee evaluation process to protect the authors’ and referees’ confidentiality.
• In case of detection of violations of publication ethics and abuse, such as reproduction, plagiarism, fake data, fake authorship, copyright violation, etc., in the submitted and/or published articles, the flow in the publication ethics schemes created by COPE (https://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts) is followed, and the articles in question are removed from the publication.
• MEDIAJ defines the ethical principles that editors, referees, and authors are obliged in cases of conflict of interest that may arise regarding the submitted articles and suspends the evaluation process of the article until the conflict is resolved by acting with sensitivity to ensure that the process is carried out in accordance with ethical standards.
• MEDIAJ acts sensitively about publishing content such as correction, explanation, apology, and denial.
• MEDIAJ conducted double blind-peer review reviewing process for all submitted manuscript.

2. Publisher’s Responsibilities

The publisher of MEDIAJ is the Dean of the Faculty of Communication on behalf of Aydın Adnan Menderes University. The publisher is responsible for the following aspects of the journal:

• Implementation of publication ethics principles among stakeholders,
• Providing open access to journal content free of charge and continuously,
• Archiving and preserving publications,
• Clarifying and resolving suspected cases of violations of scientific publication ethics.

3. Responsibilities of Editor and Assistant Editors

Editor and assistant editors are responsible for all publications published within MEDIAJ. In this context, the relevant people’s main responsibilities are to ensure that the journal operates in line with intellectual property rights and ethical standards and take all kinds of measures related to the subject.

In the event of a suspicion about plagiarism or other ethical standards in the publications published or sent to them for publication, they act according to the business schemes determined by COPE (https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Flowcharts) in their investigations to resolve the aforementioned concerns. Besides, other roles and responsibilities of the editor and assistant editors are listed below:

• Protection of personal data within the scope of the journal’s publishing policies and ethical principles,
• Ensuring the academic integrity of the journal and improving its quality,
• When deciding the publications sent to MEDIAJ with the request for a publication, acting transparently and impartially in accordance with the formal criteria determined by the journal, the purpose and scope of the journal, and international scientific and ethical rules,
• Paying attention to the protection of human and animal rights, determining the studies requiring ethics committee approval and requesting this approval from the author,
• Meeting the information needs of readers and writers and ensuring freedom of thought and diversity in the studies published in the journal.

4. Responsibilities of Reviewers/Referees

The referees’ opinions are taken as a basis in the decision processes regarding the publication of articles sent to MEDIAJ. In this context, all publications sent to MEDIAJ are evaluated according to the double-blind review system in line with the principles of impartiality, independence, and reliability. The roles and obligations of the referees who evaluate for MEDIAJ are listed below:

• To make the evaluation processes faster and healthier, the referees who feel insufficient to evaluate the subject covered in the articles directed to them, who think that the subject is not related to their field of expertise and/or who do not have enough time for evaluation, should immediately inform the editors and refuse to review the article, so that editors can contact alternative referees and offer a review.
• Whether they accept the review or not, they do not share the articles or information about the articles with third parties because the articles sent to them are classified as confidential documents, they do not use the information they obtain during the review process for their personal interests, and in this sense, they comply with the principle of confidentiality.
• When they think that they are faced with a conflict of interest, they declare this clearly and inform the editors by refusing to review the relevant article,
• Being objective and constructive while evaluating the studies submitted to them, using polite language, making comments only on the text regardless of authors’ personality, and explaining all their arguments with supporting discourse and sources,
• Evaluating the articles, they reach within the journal’s publishing policies and ethical principles, informing the editor of the journal about the scientific and ethical problems they encounter.

5. Responsibilities of Authors

In publications sent to MEDIAJ, authors are expected to comply with the following ethical responsibilities:

• Authors are obliged to send their publications within the application dates of the relevant issue. Studies submitted outside the specified dates will not be evaluated.
• Authors cannot send papers that are previously published and/or in the evaluation process of any journal for publication to MEDIAJ.
• Authors are responsible for the compliance of the articles they submit to scientific and ethical principles.
• Authors are responsible for ensuring the originality of the articles they submit. If other sources are used, it is the author’s responsibility to state this in line with academic and ethical practices. If ethical violations related to this are detected, the journal rejects the article.
• In the studies sent to MEDIAJ, if the authors include the ideas and statements in their previously published works, they should refer to these parts. Authors are obliged to fulfill their responsibilities regarding the correction of the conflicts detected by the editors.
• In cases in which the submitted studies are prepared with more than one author’s contribution, the authors must make a joint decision on the order of the names and apply in this way. In the studies whose evaluation process continues, the author’s responsibility is to apply with the justification to request a change in order of the authors’ name.
• Persons who do not contribute actively to the study should not be included among the authors. The responsibility in this matter belongs to the author.
• Authors are obliged to explain the situations and contents that may create a conflict of interest.
• Authors are required to inform the editors of the journal to make corrections, explanations, apologies, and denials regarding the errors detected after the publication of the paper.

The author has copyright on his/her own study and the right to publish his/her article for the first time belongs to MEDIAJ. The journal allows the sharing of the work by citing the author and the Journal in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution principles. MEDIAJ considers that potential conflicts of interest among stakeholders would harm scientific publication ethics. The journal defines its obligations for all stakeholders in order to detect and prevent conflicts of interest. When submitting a letter to MEDIAJ, the author must sign the Copyright Transfer and Conflict of Interest Form and upload it to the system.

Principles on Possible Misconduct Allegations

MEDIAJ adopts COPE’s measures against “possible abuse” situations against abuse and misconduct. Accordingly, it explains in detail the liabilities of the publisher, editors, referees, editorial board and authors against possible abuse before, during and after the publication process in the Ethical Principles and Publication Policy section.

• In cases in which the same study is submitted to different publications, it aims to provide benefits such as comparing different versions of the same studies submitted to different journals, comparing the statements compiled from authors and investigators regarding the submitted study, cooperating and making efforts to investigate suspected fraud cases, acting together in studies for investigators/authors and/or their institutions.
• Considering the importance of confidentiality in the scientific publishing process, MEDIAJ shares information about authors and referees only to prevent and respond to suspected misconduct in the research.
• Journal editors and theme editors should make initial inquiries before sharing information in doubtful situations. Information sharing only occurs when it is thought that the author has not responded, the response is insufficient, or that more than one journal will be affected by possible abuse.
• When deemed necessary, information is shared only with editors who are believed to have information on the subject, and the information shared is limited to factual content only.
• Editor and theme editors are committed to protecting communication confidentiality to the fullest extent possible.

All forms of quotation and reference should be made as shown at https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/iuchkd/page/5573.