Publication Cycles and the Impact of Academic Research on Current Events

Abstract

As we begin a new academic year, I would like to thank the dedicated services of past associate editors Carolyn Kitch and Wilson Lowrey and past book review editor Ron Rodgers. I would also like to introduce several new faces in our editorial team. First are our new associate editors, Randal Beam of University of Washington and Lana Rakow of the University of North Dakota. Next is our new book review editor, Daniel C. Hallin of University of California, San Diego. With his immense international research experience and expertise in book authorship, our journal will have more reviews of foreignlanguage books of our scholarly interest in the field. My competent editorial assistant, Dhiman Chattopadhyay, has also completed his 2-year term for the journal in August. Our new editorial assistant is a first-year PhD student Alyssa Fisher. Together, we will continue to provide our readers with the best research articles in the field.The passing away of Guido Stempel III, Professor Emeritus of Ohio University and the former editor of our journal from 1973 to 1990, on May 31, 2016, is a very sad news to me personally and the journal. He is one of my unofficial mentors. He was my very first article discussant as a doctoral student at a conference in Ohio University. I was one of the early contributors to his Web Journal of Mass Communication Research. After I accepted the editorship of the Quarterly, he shared his precious experience with me on editing the journal and the art of balancing reviewers' input with independent editorial judgment. He always accepted my review request whenever I needed him to review in a rush or fill in for reviewers that declined the invitation. Even in April when I was working on collecting archive journal issues to complete digitizing all issues of the journal, he still graciously helped me find information. Although he is no longer with us, his love for and contribution to the Quarterly will be remembered.All eyes are now focused on the U.S. presidential elections; people across the world are debating how the new U.S. President will affect them. I do not need to reiterate the roles that media are playing in politics and how the candidates utilize media to achieve their campaign goals. For this type of current event, how can academic research contribute to the understanding and advancement of knowledge? With its 93 years of history, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly (JMCQ) has a rich collection of research articles addressing how news media affect voting behavior in the United States and other countries. We took advantage of the online medium by compiling a virtual theme collection on media and voting. Editor Tom Johnson's introductory review essay of the collection titled, Media and Voting: Building Upon the Foundations of Journalism, explains how previous JMCQ authors examined traditional and non-traditional news media's influence on the voting behavior and their theoretical models from the 1960s to present times. These articles have long-lasting impact on our understanding of the topic of media and voting. I hope our readers who are either teaching or researching this topic will find this collection handy and useful.In addition to the virtual theme collection, we also have several upcoming articles on contemporary political communication research. Online publishing has increased the timeliness and short-term effects of research scholarship. Thanks to the efficient production team of SAGE, several articles have already been published online first such as Jason Turcotte's Who's Citing Whom? Source Selection and Elite Indexing in Electoral Debates, Lindsey Meeks's Aligning and Trespassing: Candidates' Party-Based Issue and Trait Ownership on Twitter, Sung Woo Yoo's Cognitive Benefits for Senders: Antecedents and Effects of Political Expression on Social Media, and Jay Hmielowski, Myiah Hutchens, Bruce Pinkleton, and Michael Beam's A Spiral of Skepticism? The Relationship Between Citizens' Involvement With Campaign Information to Their Skepticism and Political Knowledge. …