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Start SubmissionArticle types | Structure | Citation & Style | Editorial Process | Figures & Tables | References
Submissions should be made electronically through this website. Once submitted, the author can track the submission and communicate with the editors via the online journal management system.
Please ensure that you consider the following guidelines when preparing your manuscript. Failure to do so may delay processing your submission.
Full length research articles should be between 6,500 to 8,000 words, including a 200 word abstract, footnotes, and references.
Comments and Reflections including Book and Event Reviews should be brief and topical, between 3,000 and 4,000 words including a 200 word abstract, highlighting trends in communication, media culture and society. As much as possible they should raise items for scholarly agenda.
All content must be original, not direct copies of work submitted elsewhere or for the receipt of a degree or professional certificate, though this can be form the basis of a new paper. There must be due regard for intellectual integrity with credit duly given for cited works.
Authors must be mindful of an international readership. Editors reserve the right to edit or alter contributions before and after peer review to ensure consistency with styles of expression. Authors will be notified and given the opportunity to review and accept or reject such edits.
Cover page
To ensure blind peer review, please only list the title and abstract on the submitted manuscript file.
A separate cover page should be sumbitted including:
Abstract
Research articles must have the main text prefaced by an abstract of no more than 200 words summarising the main arguments and conclusions of the article. This must have the heading ‘Abstract’ and be easily identified from the start of the main text.
A list of up to six key words may be placed below the abstract (optional).
The Abstract and Keywords should also be added to the metadata when making the initial online submission.
Main text
The body of the submission should be structured in a logical and easy to follow manner. A clear introduction section should be given that allows non-specialists in the subject an understanding of the publication and a background of the issue(s) involved. Methods, results, discussion and conclusion sections may then follow to clearly detail the information and research presented.
Up to three level headings may be present and must be clearly identifiable using different font sizes, bold or italics. We suggest using Headings 1, 2 and 3 in MS-Word’s ‘Style’ section.
Supplementary Files (optional)
Any supplementary/additional files that should link to the main publication must be listed, with a corresponding number, title and option description. Ideally the supplementary files are also cited in the main text.
e.g. Supplementary file 1: Appendix. Scientific data related to the experiments.
Note: additional files will not be typeset so they must be provided in their final form. They will be assigned a DOI and linked to from the publication.
Ethics and consent (if applicable)
Research involving human subjects, human material, or human data, must have been performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Where applicable, studies must have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee and the authors should include a statement within the article text detailing this approval, including the name of the ethics committee and reference number of the approval. The identity of the research subject(s) should be anonymised whenever possible. For research involving human subjects, informed consent to participate in the study must be obtained from participants (or their legal guardian).
Experiments using animals must follow national standards of care. For further information, click here.
Acknowledgements (optional)
Any acknowledgements must be headed and in a separate paragraph, placed after the main text but before the reference list.
Funding Information (optional)
Should the research have received a funding grant then the grant provider and grant number should be detailed.
Competing interests
If any of the authors have any competing interests then these must be declared. A short paragraph should be placed before the references. Guidelines for competing interests can be found here. If there are no competing interests to declare then the following statement should be present: The author(s) has/have no competing interests to declare.
Authors' contributions
A sentence or a short paragraph detailing the roles that each author held to contribute to the authorship of the submission.
References
All references cited within the submission must be listed at the end of the main text file.
Referencing and Bibliographies
Follow any of the following recognised formats (APA sixth, Harvard, MLA) providing they are clear, consistent and complete. These formats are preferred to avoid the use of footnotes. Consider using the Endnote function in Word
Format
Papers should be in Times New Roman, font 12 and double spaced. Alignment should be justified. Paragraphs may be separated by additional spaces or indented.
Where a paper includes tables, and visual illustrations, the author should reference these in the text, and submit a version of the paper in Word document with the tables and figures in place. They should also submit another with the written document and illustrations separated to facilitate the production process.
All authors must give adequate attention to established ethical principles, mindful of the quality of the research, integrity of their claims, and protection of their subjects. Ensure that there is informed disclosure and adequate anonymity of the subjects as necessary.
Journal reserves the right to verify data and request redress in cases of perceived breaches of ethics prior to publication.
Endnotes (not Footnotes) are to be used for ease of page formatting
Where quotations are less than 40 words or four lines they should be included in the text and marked out – with single inverted commas, and double inverted marks, for quotes within quotes. Quotes that are longer than 40 words or up to four lines should be indented without the use of quotation marks.
Titles of books and journals, films should be italicised, including in the Bibliography.
Authors must be consistent in spelling using either British English (preferred) or American English.
Though the convention on the use of numerals is shifting, it is still pragmatic that writers spell out low numbers between 1- 10 (e.g. five, nine) and present larger numbers (along with dates and percentages) in numeric forms.
Papers will be previewed by the editor before the full editorial screening commences. Authors may be required to make preliminary changes at this point prior to the review.
Papers will be sent to subject appropriate reviewers. Under normal circumstances this will be within six weeks.
Where revisions are required as is often the case, authors will be given up to four weeks for this prior to publication.
Authors will reserve the copyright for their contributions. They may republish is they wish but such work must be properly acknowledged as a prior publication of the CCA.
As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.