Scholarly Journals as a Process and Practice Mirror

Abstract

Our journals are varied in their purpose and their function within the journalism and mass communication education culture. Educator, of course, is our bible for examination of new pedagogy and critique of existing models, as well as empirical research on instruction. risk being overly simplistic, but it is the venue where often find the answer to my questions of What is the state of J/MC educational practice? or How would go about teaching that? Sometimes find myself saying I was wondering if that would or Boy, can use that approach next quarter. We have many other journals that collectively serve as venues for empirical and other types of research into processes and effects of journalism and mass communication. edit one, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, but there are many others produced outside the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, along with divisional and interest group publications within the association that reflect the diverse scholarship of the association's more than 3,400 members, seventeen divisions, and ten interest groups. While I've been reading Educator for more than a quarter of a century and have published my own work there, I'd like to focus on these research journals. Having submitted work to them and having it published there, having served as a reviewer for several, and having served as an associate editor and now editor for one in particular, can share my opinions reflecting my personal experience. On the one hand, our research journals are the symbols of our standing as an academic field. The fact that we have long-established research journals and a continuing stream of peer-reviewed scholarship published in them enhances our legitimacy as a field. Consider the fact that Quarterly is in its eighty-second volume, Journal of Communication is more than a half century old, and Newspaper Research Journal will publish its twenty-sixth volume in 2005. Once, when was a department chair, recall emphasizing that kind of historical information in a tenure case involving a dean of arts and sciences unfamiliar with journalism and mass communication. The candidate was awarded tenure and promotion. Similarly, to have published in those journals is a type of status indicator for members of the field. One homespun illustration: recall one year when a faculty member's child chose to dress as a college professor for the church Halloween costume competition. He donned a makeshift black robe and mortarboard, clenched a toy pipe between his teeth, and tucked a copy of Journalism Quarterly under his arm. No colleague of mine who saw him had even the briefest confusion about who or what he represented as he walked onstage to claim his prize. Both of these represent obvious contributions that our journals make to our field: journals are symbols of our status as a field, and publication within them by members of the field is something we value. On the other hand, our journals are collectively an agent of acculturation, a means by which new scholars are imbued with the values of the culture of scholarship in our field. I'm not talking about values indicated in a journal's title or subtitle (Devoted to Research and Commentary in Journalism and Mass Communication), or even its mission or purpose statement (providing leadership in developing theory and introducing new concepts), though all are important in communicating the values of the culture of scholarship. In this case, am speaking of a kind of orchestrated in a concrete sense by an editor, that takes place during the process of an author's seeking publication in a journal and having his or her work evaluated by anonymous reviewers. I've only come to appreciate it in recent years. But before discuss that conversation in greater depth, let me mention first an experience had as a young researcher that relates to my newfound appreciation for the conversation, and then discuss it in terms of the basic mechanical details of the submission and review process. …