About the Journal

Focus and Scope

The Journal of Public Interest Communications is an open-access, interdisciplinary journal that publishes peer-reviewed research in the emerging field of public interest communications. JPIC does not require a fee for publication and is free for readers. We welcome submissions from all disciplines and utilizing a variety of qualitative and quantitative methods. Although our primary focus is expanding the empirical and theoretical underpinnings of public interest communications, we also seek submissions with a strong applied element.

Public interest communications is an academic discipline that seeks to help communicators working on social, political, and environmental issues impacting society. It draws from multiple disciplines such as public relations, political science, sociology, social psychology, and marketing--among others--to conduct research that contributes to the best practices for those seeking to create positive change. It embraces all social science research methods including quantitative, qualitative, historical, critical, and legal.

To this end, JPIC publishes four types of articles:

  • Academic research: Research findings are written primarily by academic researchers working in fields relevant to public interest communications. These articles are designed to offer empirically-based suggestions for communicators and activists working on campaigns or to contribute substantially to the theoretical basis of the field.

 

  • Practitioner reports: These articles are written primarily by practitioners of public interest communications and analyze strategies and tactics used by the field. Practitioner reports can take the form of best practices, approaches to avoid, and calls for additional analysis of a particular aspect of public interest communications.

 

  • Campaign reviews: Campaign reviews are analyses of specific public interest communications campaigns, either past or in progress. These articles are designed to analyze the constituent components of campaigns and offer a critical look at what worked and what did not work within the campaign.

 

  • Commentary: Commentary pieces offer a place for practitioners, researchers, activists, and others invested in public interest communications to engage in a dialogue with one another, offer constructive criticism, and suggestions for future research. 

Peer Review Process

All scholarly submissions to the Journal of Public Interest Communications undergo an initial screening by the journal editor as to fitness for publication. Submissions that pass this initial screening are then subject to double-blind peer review by two or three reviewers. The editor of the Journal of Public Interest Communications then takes into consideration recommendations by the reviewers in deciding whether to publish the article.

Our goal is to provide reviewer feedback within three months of submission. However, contingencies may arrive that necessitate the extension of this period. All communication with the Journal is conducted through the OJS site. We do not accept manuscripts submitted through other means. 

Publication Frequency

The Journal of Public Interest Communications is published biannually. The Journal occasionally publishes special issues in partnership with various scholarly organizations.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. There are no publication charges, and all content is freely available without charge to the user or their institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author for non-commercial purposes. Nonetheless, reproduction, posting, transmission or other distribution or use of the article or any material therein requires credit to the original publication source with a link to both the article and the license. This open access policy is in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative's (BOAI) definition of open access.

Copyright to Your Publication

As described in the author agreement, authors retain copyright to their publications. As an open access journal, we disseminate all content under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 (CC BY-NC 4.0) International License.

Preservation Policy

Content published in JPIC will be preserved by the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida. The Libraries are committed to long-term digital preservation of all materials in UF-supported collaborative projects. Redundant digital archives, adherence to proven standards, and rigorous quality control methods protect digital objects. The UF Digital Collections provide a comprehensive approach to digital preservation, including technical supports, reference services for both online and offline archived files, and support services by providing training and consultation for digitization standards for long-term digital preservation.

Content will be preserved indefinitely, unless a specific request for removal of a specific item is directed to the journal managers. If you believe that your copyrighted material has been deposited into this journal without consent, please contact the journal manager at jradice@ufl.edu.

Content is also preserved in the PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN) and CLOCKSS.

Plagiarism Statement

JPIC does not accept articles containing material plagiarized from other publications or authors.

For the purposes of this policy, plagiarism is defined as copying of or reliance on work — including text, images, and data — by others or yourself without proper attribution. Please be aware that you can plagiarize yourself; you must provide proper attribution in all cases where your previously published material or previously used data or images are included in your manuscript.

Plagiarism detected prior to publication will cause rejection of your manuscript. Plagiarism detected after publication will cause the published article to be amended to state that it contains plagiarized material; in extreme cases of plagiarism, the publication will be removed at the Editors’ discretion, and the reason for removal stated on the journal's website.

JPIC does not consider the following situations to be plagiarism when proper attribution is made:

  • Translations into English of a previously published paper not in English;
  • Publication of all or part of a revised thesis or dissertation;
  • Publication of a paper previously made public as a conference presentation, white paper, technical report, or preprint

JPIC follows workflows developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) to deal with cases of plagiarism.

Use of Third-Party Copyrighted Materials

When submitting your manuscript, please be mindful of copyright laws in the United States and (if outside the United States) your home country. JPIC respects the intellectual property of scholars, students, and publishers, and we ask that you secure appropriate permissions or evaluate whether your incorporation of images, figures, charts, quotations, and other materials falls within the scope of fair use/fair dealing.

If you are incorporating published materials that you have previously authored, be aware that in many cases your publisher may now own the copyright and you may need to seek permission to reprint your own work.

The University of Florida George A. Smathers Libraries provides resources on copyright and fair use, with an emphasis on U.S. Copyright Law: https://guides.uflib.ufl.edu/copyright

Statement of Ethics

Public interest communications is a growing academic discipline that transcends the institution. The field utilizes strategic communications in an effort to drive behavioral change that advances the human condition. As such, The Journal of Public Interest Communications is open-access and interdisciplinary because we believe that everyone should have access to valuable research and insights that are accessible to a range of audiences who share a common mission that promotes social change.

In an effort to promote equity in the peer-review process, all of our original content is double-blind, peer-reviewed. We also aim to have a diverse editorial review board to ensure that all content published in the journal is mindful of bias. The editorial team strives to be transparent in our review process and provides clear guidelines for authors and reviewers. The editorial team reserves the right to edit unnecessarily negative comments before sending reviews back to authors. Our editorial team views the review process as a collaboration and learning experience for everyone involved.

The Journal of Public Interest Communications is committed to maintaining the highest standards of academic integrity. We expect all authors to adhere to the highest ethical standards in conducting and reporting their research. Plagiarism, fabrication, and falsification of data are strictly prohibited. We also expect authors to disclose any potential conflicts of interest that may affect the integrity of their research.

Correction, Retraction, and Removal of Articles

Correction. Despite the best of efforts, errors occur and their timely and effective remedy are considered the mark of responsible authors and editors. JPIC will publish a correction if the scholarly record is seriously affected (e.g., if accuracy/intended meaning, scientific reproducibility, author reputation, or journal reputation is judged to be compromised). Corrections that do not affect the contribution in a material way or significantly alter the reader's understanding of the contribution, such as misspellings or grammatical errors, will not be published. When a correction is published, it will link to and from the work. The correction will be added to the original work so that readers will receive the original work and the correction. All corrections will be as concise as possible.

Retraction. JPIC reserves the right to retract items, with a retraction defined as a public disavowal, not an erasure or removal. Retractions will occur if the editors and editorial board finds that the main conclusion of the work is undermined or if subsequent information about the work comes to light of which the authors or the editors were not aware at the time of publication. Infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submission, inaccurate claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data will also result in retraction of the work.

Removal. Some circumstances may necessitate removal of a work from JPIC. This will occur when the article is judged by the editors and editorial board to be defamatory, if it infringes on legal rights, or if there is a reasonable expectation that it will be subject to a court order. The bibliographic information about the work will be retained online, but the work will no longer be available through JPIC. A note will be added to indicate that the item was removed for legal reasons.

Data-Sharing Policy

Authors of research papers submitted for publication in JPIC are encouraged to make the data underlying their articles available online whenever possible. For the purposes of this policy, the term "data" is understood broadly and refers to both quantitative and qualitative research outputs, spanning observations and analysis of social settings (producing numbers, texts, images, multimedia or other content) to numbers attained through instrumental and other raw data gathering efforts, quantitative analysis, text mining, or citation analysis, as well as protocols, methods, and code used to generate any specific finding reported in the paper. The JPIC editorial board prefers that the data be submitted as supplemental files accompanying the article, or be archived in a secure repository that provides a persistent identifier, assures long-term access, and provides sufficient documentation and metadata to support re-use by other investigators. Acceptable solutions include institutional repositories; repositories specifically focused on data curation, or domain specific repositories. If there is no relevant public repository available, and the data cannot easily be included in a supplement, authors should describe how the data are being curated and made available or, in the case where they cannot be made available (e.g., IRB restrictions), why that is so. In any case, a citation to the dataset should be made in the article itself in accordance with the data citation principles of the FORCE11 "Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles", including an ORCID for the researcher(s) associated with the data. Finally, we recommend that whenever possible authors explicitly define the terms of re-use by assigning a license to their data, choosing, for instance, among Creative Commons or Open Data Commons licenses.

The JPIC data policy does not require data publication and citation at this time due to still-emergent standards for data peer review; the lack of sufficiently robust and distributed infrastructure to support the variety of disciplinary research occurring in our field; uncertainty whether JPIC should provide a third mode of data publication in the form of “data papers” or “data descriptors”; and insufficient preparation and notification to JPIC contributors to ensure datasets are properly curated with the aim of publication. Authors unable to share their data must provide written explanation of this circumstance in their cover letter at the time of submission.

Diversity and Inclusion Statement

The University of Florida is committed to creating a community that reflects the rich racial, cultural, and ethnic diversity of the state and nation. JPIC contributes to this mission by promoting inclusivity through supporting open access; actively encouraging greater representation across cultures, backgrounds, and viewpoints; and fostering transparency and openness throughout the publishing cycle.

To further our goals of diversity and inclusivity, it is recommended that authors, reviewers, and editors consider the following:

  • Encourage participation of people from underrepresented groups as authors, reviewers, and editors.
  • Include content from multidisciplinary scholars that fits publication scope.
  • Create an editorial board that reflects the diversity of a global academic community.
  • Maintain a clear and open process for article review and contribution.

Name Changes

The LibraryPress@UF is committed to supporting requests for author name changes and/or pronoun changes, with as few barriers as possible. Name changes and/or pronoun changes are available to authors upon request, with no legal documentation required. Upon receiving a name change request, the LibraryPress@UF will update all metadata, published content, and associated records under our control to reflect the requested name change. The LibraryPress@UF will not issue a notice of correction for the name change or notify co-authors or editors. While the LibraryPress@UF cannot control the use or appearance of an author’s name for external systems and publications administered by other editorial boards, and changes made to prior publications may not propagate to downstream environments, the LibraryPress@UF is committed to collaborating with other groups to support systemic changes to ensure name changes are fully supported.

Authors who wish to update or change their name should contact Chelsea Johnston, Scholarly Publishing and Repository Librarian at the University of Florida, at cjohnston@ufl.edu. Requests will be treated with respect and confidentiality, and addressed as quickly as possible. 

Journal History

The Journal of Public Interest Communications is a project of the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida. It was launched in 2017.