About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Mediascapes Journal is an open access online journal published twice a year by Sapienza Università Editrice committed to the advancement of media studies.

Born in 2013, the journal is a forward-thinking forum that explores communication and mass communication phenomena within a wide range of disciplinary perspectives. It emphasizes the publication of original investigations that increase theoretical and empirical advancements in fields of media studies.

Mediascapes Journal is structured into three sections: a monographic section, an analysis section, and Mediascenari.

The monographic section is devoted to thematic calls for papers and gathers contributions that address a shared topic from different theoretical and methodological perspectives.
The analysis section, by contrast, hosts submissions not linked to a specific thematic call, focusing on the analysis of phenomena, practices, or objects within contemporary media. All articles published in these two sections undergo a double-blind peer review process.

Mediascenari is dedicated to critical reflections, explorations of emerging fields, and more experimental contributions, aimed at observing ongoing transformations in the media landscape.

Mediascapes Journal accepts contributions in Italian and English.

Mediascapes Journal does not charge authors any fees. There are no Article Processing Charges (APCs) and no Article Submission Charges (ASCs).

Peer Review Process

All submissions to the journal undergo a preliminary evaluation by the Editorial Board, aimed at assessing their consistency with the journal’s scientific scope and objectives, as well as compliance with the basic scientific and editorial requirements. Only manuscripts that successfully pass this initial screening are admitted to the review process.

Contributions submitted to the monographic and analysis sections, if deemed suitable after the preliminary evaluation, are subject to a double-blind peer review process, involving at least two independent and external anonymous reviewers.

Contributions submitted to the Mediascenari section are not subject to anonymous peer review and are evaluated exclusively by the Editorial Board, in accordance with the journal’s editorial policy.

In order to ensure a timely publication process, reviewers are generally requested to complete their evaluations within an indicative period of one month.

On the basis of the reviewers’ reports, the Editorial Board determines the final decision, which may result in the acceptance of the manuscript (with or without revisions), a request for revision and resubmission, or the rejection of the submission.

Publication Frequency

The journal is biannual.

Open Access and Copyright Policy

Mediascapes Journal is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author.

Open Access is the condition where the copyright holder of a scholarly work grants usage rights to others using an open license (Creative Commons or equivalent) allowing for immediate free access to the work and permitting any user to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose.

Articles are published under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) License to support maximum dissemination and use. Authors are also permitted to post the final, published PDF of their article on a website, institutional repository or other free public server, immediately on publication.

Journal History

Mediascapes Journal, the first journal committed to the media studies in Italy, was created in 2013. The making of the journal was notably promoted by Alberto Abruzzese (IULM Università di Milano) who took over the Editor role during a three-year term (2013-2015), publishing the first four issues (all of which are currently available in the Archives section of this website).

On January 2015 Giovanni Boccia Artieri (Università di Urbino Carlo Bo) was appointed new Editor of Mediascapes Journal supported by a new Executive Board and a renewed international Scientific Committee.