About the Journal

Focus and Scope

CINEJ Cinema Journal is a free, online and print, open access, peer-reviewed and refereed journal of film studies. It is published by the University Library System, University of Pittsburgh -- cosponsored by University of Pittsburgh Press. CINEJ Cinema Journal is committed to publishing fresh and original research in the fields of film and screen studies. The journal publishes essays on global cinemas and emerging national/transnational filmmaking practices, films, new authors from previusly understudied cinemas of the world. Our board members are represent that diversity in emerging reseach areas in film studies such as global cinemas, queer cinemas, film festival studies, cinemas of the Global South, and (star/genre/historical analysis of) minor cinemas. The goal of CINEJ are to promote these areas of cinema studies to encourage and reward excellence in scholar writing. In addition, CINEJ also values committment to promoting original research and the preservation of film, television, video, and other media heritage and would encourage submissions of original scholarly articles related to this area. Another key objective of CINEJ is to ensure that the journal is made available to the widest range of readers across the world through open access publishing. CINEJ views cinema/film studies as part of Arts and Humanities scholarship. Studies that tend to be on the communication studies and overly quantitative approach to film practices are recommended to refer to other journals that are more in line with their methodology.

Peer Review Process

Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement

Cinej Cinema Journal follows the best practices set out by COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) for behaviour of all parties involved in the publication of an article, available at http://www.publicationethics.org.

Editors

Duties and Responsibilities

Publication decisions
Editors have full authority over the entire editorial content of the journal and the timing of publication of that content. Editors are responsible for deciding which of the manuscripts submitted to the journal will be published, based on the validation of the work in question, its importance to researchers and readers, the reviewers’ comments, and such legal requirements as are currently in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. Editors may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.

Relations with authors
Editors must ensure that the authors have access to clear instructions about submission and what is expected from them. Editors are responsible for requiring all contributors to disclose relevant competing interests and publish corrections, if competing interests are revealed after publication. Editors must respect requests from authors that an individual should not review their submission, if these are well reasoned.

Integrity of the double blind peer review process
Editors are responsible for:
1) the initial selection of manuscripts and for guaranteeing that each selected manuscript is being subsequently forwarded to blind peer review by, at least, two reviewers, who will make a recommendation to accept, reject or modify the manuscript;
2) guaranteeing that appropriate reviewers are selected (i.e. individuals who are able to judge the work and are free from disqualifying competing interests);
3) guaranteeing that guest editors, authors and reviewers are full aware of the procedures of the peer review process;
4) ensuring the confidentiality and integrity of the blind peer-review, guaranteeing that, every effort should be made to prevent the identities of the authors and reviewers from being known to each other;
5) ensuring that all manuscripts receive a fair review and that manuscripts are evaluated based on their intellectual content without regard to race, ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Relations with reviewers
Editors are responsible for providing clear advice to reviewers and for requiring reviewers to disclose any potential conflicting interests before agreeing to review a submission. Editors guarantee that the reviewers are encouraged to ensure the originality of submissions and be alert to redundant publication and plagiarism. Editors should monitor the performance of peer reviewers and take steps to ensure its high quality. Editors are responsible for rejecting any review that consistently presents discourteous, poor quality or non-sustained commentaries.

Fair play and editorial independence
Editors evaluate submitted manuscripts exclusively on the basis of their academic merit (importance, originality, study’s validity, clarity) and its relevance to the journal’s scope, without regard to the authors’ race, ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, citizenship, religious belief, political philosophy or institutional affiliation. Decisions to edit and publish are not determined by the policies of governments or any other agencies outside of the journal itself.

Confidentiality
Editors and editorial board members will not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Editors and editorial board members will not use unpublished information disclosed in a submitted manuscript for their own research purposes without the authors’ explicit written consent. Privileged information or ideas obtained by editors as a result of handling the manuscript will be kept confidential and not used for their personal advantage. Editors will recuse themselves from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships/connections with any of the authors, companies or institutions connected to the papers; instead, they will ask another member of the editorial board to handle the manuscript. Editors are not allowed to submit their own research to the specific issue they are responsible for. Editors are not allowed to manipulate the citations by pressuring authors to cite previous papers from the journal.

Involvement and cooperation in investigations
Editors (in conjunction with the publisher and/or society) will take responsive measures when ethical concerns are raised with regard to a submitted manuscript or published paper. Every reported act of unethical publishing behaviour will be looked into, even if it is discovered years after publication. CINEJ Cinema Journal editors follow COPE when dealing with cases of suspected misconduct. If, on investigation, the ethical concern is well-founded, a correction, retraction, expression of concern or other note as may be relevant, will be published in the journal.

Reviewers
Duties and Responsibilities

CINEJ Cinema Journal shares the view that peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication and lies at the heart of scientific endeavour

Contribution to editorial decisions
Reviewers should support the editor in making editorial decisions, as well as, assist the author in improving the manuscript, throughout the editorial process.

Promptness
The reviewers must notify the editor whenever he feels unqualified to review properly the research reported in a manuscript or is not available to make the review within the stipulated time, so that the manuscript could be sent to another reviewer for evaluation.

Standards of objectivity
Reviews should be conducted objectively and observations formulated clearly with supporting arguments so that authors can use them for improving the manuscript. Personal criticism to authors is inappropriate. Reviewers should evaluate manuscripts based only on its content, without regard to the authors’ race, ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, citizenship, or political philosophy.

Acknowledgement of sources
Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement, derivation or argument that has been reported in previous publications should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also notify the editors of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other manuscript (published or unpublished) of which they have personal knowledge.

Confidentiality
Any manuscripts received for review are confidential documents and must be treated as such; they must not be shown to or discussed with others except if authorized by the editor (who would only do so under exceptional and specific circumstances). This applies also to invited reviewers who decline the review invitation.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Reviewers must not use for personal advantage any privileged information or ideas contained in the submitted manuscript sent for peer review. Reviewers should not accept to review manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the submitted work. Unpublished material disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer’s own research without the express written consent of the authors. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for the reviewer’s personal advantage. This applies also to invited reviewers who decline the review invitation.

Duties of Authors

Submission standards
Authors should only submit original research to the journal, accompanied by an objective discussion of its significance. The submission guidelines of the journal should be followed (See author guidelines).

Peer review
Authors are obliged to participate in the peer review process and cooperate fully by responding promptly to editors’ requests for raw data, clarifications, and proof of ethics approval, and copyright permissions. In the case of a first decision of "revisions necessary", authors should respond to the reviewers’ comments systematically, point by point, and in a timely manner, revising and re-submitting their manuscript to the journal by the deadline given.

Originality and plagiarism
Authors should ensure that they have written and submit only entirely original works, and if they have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited. Publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the work reported in the manuscript should also be cited. Plagiarism takes many forms, from "passing off" another's paper as the author's own, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another's paper (without attribution), to claiming results from research conducted by others. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.

Multiple, duplicate, redundant or concurrent submission/publication
Papers describing essentially the same research should not be published in more than one journal or primary publication. Hence, authors should not submit for consideration a manuscript that has already been published in another journal. Submission of a manuscript concurrently to more than one journal is unethical and unacceptable publishing behaviour. The publication of some kinds of articles (such as translations) in more than one journal is sometimes justifiable, provided that certain conditions are met. The authors and editors of the journals concerned must agree to the secondary publication, which must reflect the same data and interpretation of the primary document. The primary reference must be cited in the secondary publication.

Acknowledgement of sources
Authors should ensure that they have properly acknowledged the work of others, and should also cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately (from conversation, correspondence or discussion with third parties) must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Authors should not use information obtained in the course of providing confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, unless they have obtained the explicit written permission of the author(s) of the work involved in these services.

Data access and retention
Authors should provide all necessary data relevant to support the ideas and conclusions of the research. Authors should be prepared to retain these data during the review process.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Authors should—at the earliest stage possible (generally by submitting a disclosure form at the time of submission and including a statement in the manuscript)—disclose any conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or their interpretation in the manuscript. Examples of potential conflicts of interest that should be disclosed include financial ones such as honoraria, educational grants or other funding, participation in speakers’ bureaus, membership, employment, consultancies, stock ownership, or other equity interest, and paid expert testimony or patent-licensing arrangements, as well as non-financial ones such as personal or professional relationships, affiliations, knowledge or beliefs in the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. All sources of financial support for the work should be disclosed (including the grant number or other reference number if any).

Fundamental errors in published works
When authors discover significant errors or inaccuracies in their own published work, it is their obligation to promptly notify the journal’s editors or publisher and cooperate with them to either correct the paper in the form of an erratum or to retract the paper. If the editors or publisher learns from a third party that a published work contains a significant error or inaccuracy, then it is the authors’ obligation to promptly correct or retract the paper or provide evidence to the journal editors of the correctness of the paper.

Instructions for completing a review for CINEJ

CINEJ encourages reviewers to respond to the manuscript in whatever way they find most appropriate but you may find the following questions helpful to consider:

Purpose: What are the author’s goals? What else do they need to do to achieve them?
Originality and Value: How does the article fit into contemporary debates in the field? What is the historiographic, critical, or theoretical significance of the article? Which readers—specialists, cinema and media scholars in general, students—will find this work most useful or rewarding?
Scholarship: Is the article well argued? Are claims well supported by evidence? Is the author’s methodology sound? What steps might the author take to improve their argumentation?
Audience: Who do you see as the primary audience for this article? How does the article address itself to interdisciplinary audiences? What fields does it contribute to? How might the author expand its impact?
Style and Organization: Is the presentation effective in terms of length, organization, and style? Is the writing clear and free of jargon? Would this article be improved by greater concision or expansion at certain points? (CINEJ aims to publish articles between 7,000-9,000 words, including notes.)

Please summarize your overall recommendation by including an appropriate statement at the end of your report along the following lines:

Reject: I do not recommend publication.
Revise and Resubmit: I recommend publication only if the revisions suggested in my report are satisfactorily made. I am willing provisionally willing to review the revised manuscript, unless I note otherwise.
Accept: I recommend publication. I offer some suggestions for revision, but adoption of these should be left to the discretion of the author. I do not need to review the revised manuscript.

CINEJ will share the contents of readers’ reports with the author. Your name will be held in confidence, unless you invite us to reveal it to the author.

If you wish to make comments directly on the manuscript, you may return it to CINEJ and we will pass it along to the author. Otherwise, please delete the manuscript when you are finished reviewing it. CINEJ asks that you keep both your review and the author’s work confidential.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content. Our publisher, the University Library System at the University of Pittsburgh, abides by the Budapest Open Access Initiative definition of Open Access:

“By “open access” to [peer-reviewed research literature], we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.”

Researchers engage in discovery for the public good, yet because of cost barriers or use restrictions imposed by other publishers, research results are not available to the full community of potential users. It is our mission to support a greater global exchange of knowledge by making the research published in this journal open to the public and reusable under the terms of a Creative Commons CC-BY license.

Furthermore, we encourage authors to post their pre-publication manuscript in institutional repositories or on their Web sites prior to and during the submission process, and to post the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version after publication. These practices benefit authors with productive exchanges as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.

There are no article processing charges, submissions fees, or any other costs required of authors to submit articles to this journal.

Print Issue

Feel free to contact for Print Issues On-Demand (available beginning on Nov.2012):

Greg Sciulli - University of Pittsburgh Book Printing Services
The University Store on Fifth
E-mail: gsciulli@bc.pitt.edu
4000 Fifth Ave., Pittsburgh PA 15213
412-648-1461 (phone)
412-624-0600 (fax)
Website: http://www.pittuniversitystore.com/SiteText.aspx?id=38847

Statistics

A new feature that we will soon be added to CINEJ. To document the impact and reach of the content of our journal, we will begin to offer metrics on the abstract page of every article that track traditional measures like citation counts in the published literature and also alternative metrics that track online activities involving the article. These metrics are pulled from dozens of publically available data points on the Web by our partners at Plum Analytics. They are grouped into five general categories:citations, usage, mentions, captures, and social media.

This new feature will start to appear for articles in CINEJ Cinema Journal within the next few weeks.

Policy of Screening for Plagiarism

Every article submitted to CINEJ Cinema Journal is screened by Turnitin software.

Journal History

Cinej is an interdisciplanary publication dedicated to open up new theoretical debates on film studies. There are no article processing charges. There are no submissions fees, or any other costs required of authors who want to submit articles to this journal.

Print ISSN: 2159-2411