About the Journal

Focus and Scope

The journal ZER aims to promote research and disseminate scientific work carried out in the area of social communication. It is a biannual publication whose numbers are published in May/June and November/December each year. Exceptionally, the Editorial Board may approve the publication of special issues, at the proposal of the journal management.

It is published in print and electronically. Each article is identified with a DOI (Digital Object Identifier System).

ZER accepts articles from the field of social communication, as long as they are considered of interest by the management of the journal, with the supervision of the Editorial Board.

The submitted articles must be original and unpublished, and not in the process of being published in any other medium.

Peer Review Process

Any article that is not unpublished, because of having been published or broadcast online in whole or in part, will be automatically rejected. Each author is to present a responsible authorship and originality statement, which is to include ethical responsibilities assumed and if necessary any declaration of conflicts of interest. The authors who do not respect this rule will be penalised with the non-publication of any other article for a period of at least a two year (four issues) period since the discovery of the diffusion of the article in another medium.

ZER Journal of Communication Studies ensures the originality of the published works through the use of anti-plagiarism software tools. Contributions received will be analysed using this software (Turnitin software). If a submitted paper reports more than 20% of coincidence with previous works in the anti-plagiarism report, it will be sent back to the author together with the justification report for its correction.

The publication of articles in the ZER requires prior peer reviews by members of the Scientific Committee of the journal, composed of researchers and experts in the area of social communication, external to the University of the Basque Country.

Each author may not publish more than one article per issue, both individually and / or collectively. In addition, between the publication of an article and another there must pass at least two issues.

The management of the journal carries out a first review of each article received and values whether this fits the profile of the journal. The management may dismiss in a reasoned way contributions that are outside the area of social communication; which do not meet the scientific nature of the journal, do not meet the originality criteria or do not meet the formal requirements for the submission of originals.

In the maximum period of 30 days from receipt of each article, excluding holiday periods, if there were any, authors will receive an acknowledgment, stating whether the article is rejected or it is considered for evaluation by members of the Scientific Committee.

The date for publication of articles is conditioned by the date the article is received and the response time of referees. The referees have a period of 30 days for evaluation. After that time, the journal reserves the right to redirect the article and send it to a new referee.

Each article will be sent to two members of the Scientific Committee for the evaluation. During the review process the anonymity of the author and referees is maintained. In the event that the two reports do not agree, a third referee report shall be sought. Ultimately, the management of the journal will take the final decision.

Upon receipt of the reports, the journal will notify authors of the positive or negative decision on the publication of its original article, accompanied by the content of the reports. In the event that, at the request of the Scientific Committee, authors are required to modify the original version, they will return it duly revised in the period which is set-out in the letter of referral.

Publication Frequency

The issues are published in print in May/June and November/December each year. The articles are published online as soon as they are ready.

Open access policy

This journal provides immediate free access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public fosters greater global knowledge exchange.

The publication of papers in the ZER journal does not imply any payment or contribution to the journal by the authors.

Under the following terms:

Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
NoDerivatives — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.

Journal History

Six-monthly journal (published in May and December). It was first published in December of 1996.

Web of Scientific Journal