How Media Scholars’ Attributes Affect Their Ratings of Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly

Abstract

This article examines how media scholars’ attributes affect ratings of Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly (JMCQ), based on the 2014 JMCQ readership survey. It compares the impacts of these attributes on five different types of subjective journal ratings. For instance, importance of journal impact factor in the respondent’s institution only affects the rating of the journal’s standing in the field. Attributes such as use and knowledge of the journal, research recognition received in the field, doctoral institution affiliation, and ethnicity consistently predict the rating of the journal’s standing in the field, overall ratings, and relevance to the respondents; but other attributes predict the ratings of the journal in serving the association members well and author-friendliness.