Submissions

Author Guidelines

1. Estudios sobre el Mensaje Periodístico (Studies about the journalistic message) is a quarterly scientific and university journal. It consists of the following sections:

• Studies. They are included only in monographic issues that propose a topic of general interest appropriate to the scientific field of the journal, chosen by the Editorial Board (see, regarding monographic proposals, point 18 of these guidelines).
• Investigations and documents. It accepts articles of free thematic choice as long as they fit the scientific and informative objectives of this publication.
• Essays. They will be texts requested by the Editorial Board from prestigious authors. The objective of the "EMP Essays" will be to promote dialogue and reflection on certain issues of special relevance to journalism or communication.
• Reviews. Section dedicated to presenting or evaluating works of special scientific value for the area.

2. Estudios sobre el Mensaje Periodístico (EMP) publishes articles in Spanish, English, French and Portuguese, the most widely used languages ​​in our cultural and informative environment.

3. EMP accepts original and unpublished articles, and not sent to another journal, that analyze any question about the social, political, educational and communicative aspects of Journalism and Social Communication that are considered of interest by the Editorial Board, after external evaluation “blind". Originals must be sent in a WORD document (using the templates offered by the journal) through the OJS platform: https://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/ESMP/about/submissions

4. Articles must address the topics from a research perspective that provides their own vision or theoretical construction. Works based on theoretical syntheses will not be accepted, without critical review by the author or without original contribution. These materials are appropriate for the preparation of lessons or teaching projects, but they are not considered appropriate for the informative and university interest of the journal.

5. Each article should be between 6,000 and 8,000 words. EMP will only accept larger articles if the need is adequately justified. In any case, the effort to construct texts without unnecessary lengths will always be valued.

6. EMP, in addition to prioritizing works that provide knowledge through the highest methodological quality, will strive to publish correct, clear and understandable texts. The articles must not be prepared exclusively for specialists in very specific subjects: they must be accessible to any researcher or teacher in the field of communication or journalism. In general, the regulatory criteria of the Royal Spanish Academy and the recommendations of the Fundación del Español Urgente (Fundéu) will be followed. Anglicisms will be avoided, except when they are essential. The use (or abuse) of gerunds, often used only to unite different ideas in an unnecessarily long and complex sentence, is also discouraged.

7. Each article or collaboration must contain all the data requested in the templates. Among them, the full name and surname of each author; the emails from him; institutional affiliation; the ORCID code; a brief professional review; assignment (if applicable) to a specific research project; the contribution of each author to the preparation of the articles (in accordance with the criteria established by the CRediT taxonomy). All this data will appear published. In the anonymized template, any element that allows the authors to be identified will be avoided, even in the file properties. In self-citations (which should only be used when essential) the "Author" formula will not be used. This alteration of the citation or bibliographic reference not only does not hide the authorship, but rather usually gives clues about it.

8. Whoever signs an article (in the "Studies" or "Research and Documents" section) will not be able to publish another one again for a period of 18 months. This rule also applies to co-authorships. It is recommended that articles have a maximum of four authors. EMP will consider whether in some works the signature of a greater number of authors is justified, although it will always warn the first signatory of this issue.

9. Research articles must present the usual structure of scientific works: introduction, theoretical framework, objectives, methodology, results, discussion or conclusions, financing and support, contribution of each signing author and, finally, bibliographic references.

10. Each article must be preceded by a title in Spanish and English. In addition, a summary of between 225 and 275 words in Spanish will be included. Below is its English translation (abstract). After the summary, keywords related to the content of the article will be added, with a maximum of 5 terms. The same will be done after the abstract (keywords).

11. Citations will be made following the APA 7th edition standard (https://biblioguias.ucm.es/estilo-apa-septima). This method (Author, year, p. 22) lightens the text, saves space, avoids unnecessary repetitions and provides rigor. No citation may lack a complete bibliographic reference. When several works by a single author are cited, they will be ordered chronologically. When several works by different authors are cited, they will be ordered alphabetically separated by a semicolon: "(Gómez-Rubio et al., 2022; Martín-García, 2019; Sosa, 2017)". The Latin expression "et al." will always be in italics. Bibliographic references (which, by extension, will include newspaper and cybergraphic references) will only indicate works cited in the text. They will be arranged alphabetically and will include the elements that appear marked in the templates, in accordance with the provisions of APA standards. "And" (“y”) will be used before the last author. Only «&» will be used in articles written in English. Except in exceptional cases (which will require justification), no more than four self-citations are accepted. Whenever possible, the DOI of the cited articles will be provided. Hyperlink shorteners will not be used.

12. EMP journal will strive to promote equality, thus giving visibility to the scientific work of women. To do this, it will offer the full name of the authors whose works it publishes. Therefore, the use of initials, particles and abbreviations will be avoided in the information on authorship. Studies on the Journalistic Message recommends the use of non-sexist language (see the Guide prepared by the UCM), although it does not impose specific mandatory guidelines. It is also recommended to report on whether the results and conclusions of the published studies have taken the sex variable into account. To strengthen good practices in equality, this magazine will publish in each issue the percentages of women who sign as authors, who have reviewed articles and who are part of the Editorial Board.

13. EMP will use Latin, Spanish or angular quotation marks («»). English quotation marks will be used in texts written in English. In the rest of the languages, they will appear only in internal quotation marks («The journalist interviewed assured that it was not particularly "important" for his work»). Since they are used very frequently in this magazine, it is necessary to note that the titles or names of newspapers and magazines (periodical publications) must always be in italics. However, for the names of communication companies and publishers, the round shape will be used. Italics will not be used for quotes (they will be enclosed in quotation marks). Nor will bold, italics or underlining be used to give emphasis to content. Underlining will not be used in articles. It is worth remembering that, according to the RAE, the line to introduce a paragraph is represented "with a horizontal line (―) of greater length than the one corresponding to the dash (-)".

14. Each article may include a maximum of 6 tables, graphs or figures, except for exceptions that may be considered and which must be duly justified. Graphs and figures must be clear and of high graphic quality. They will be numbered in Arabic in separate graphic files (TIFF, PNG, GIF, JPEG, BMP, PICT or EPS formats are supported). The tables must be sent in the template itself. Graphs, figures and tables must have short and descriptive titles, as well as a precise identification of the source of information. As shown in the template, the title will be placed on the line above the graph, table, or figure. Information about the source will be located at the bottom of the illustrations. Authors must indicate the place of insertion in the article, which will be respected as long as the composition allows it. In the text, specific references to a graph, table or figure will be capitalized ("as seen in Graph 1" or "as can be seen in Table 3"). Notes, when essential, will appear at the foot of the page. They should be used for clarifications that are outside the main text, but not for bibliographical references.

15. All research articles published in this journal will be subjected to a rigorous review according to the "peer" and "double blind" system, based on the initial selection of the editor, the anonymous arbitration of expert reviewers and independent and the subsequent review by the authors of the article when necessary. The editorial team will assign the article to a minimum of two experts who will review the article and issue recommendations for improvement, as well as a verdict of acceptance or rejection of the article. For final publication, the positive evaluation of both will be required. If it does not have a positive evaluation by the two evaluators, it will be submitted to a third evaluation. The final result will lead to the acceptance of the manuscript without modifications; to acceptance of the manuscript with minor modifications that do not imply a new round of review; to the need to introduce significant corrections to the manuscript, which implies subjecting the article to a new round of peer review; or, finally, the rejection of its publication in the magazine. The review process will be carried out blindly, so that the experts will not know who the article belongs to, nor will the authors know which experts have evaluated their articles. Reviewers have a period of 7 days to confirm whether or not they accept to carry out the proposed review and one month to issue an evaluation if they accept the task. The time between acknowledgment of receipt and first evaluation is estimated to be approximately 4 months. Once the evaluators' reports are available, they will be sent to the authors for their information. If there are minor improvement suggestions, they will be required to be executed within a period of 20 days.

16. Any item that does not meet the requirements described here will be returned. During the text editing process, the EMP team may change expressions that are confusing, ambiguous or imprecise. These stylistic alterations will not imply essential modifications with respect to the original contents.

17. To publish in Studies on the Journalistic Message it will be necessary to complete the submission process through the magazine's platform. The following documents will be included: 1) Article in anonymized version (in its corresponding template); 2) Article in non-anonymized version (in its template); 3) Completed prior check form by the authors of the texts sent.

18. Proposals to edit monographic issues, which will be sent via the journal's email (revista.emp@ucm.es), must include the following information: 1) brief and precise title; 2) data of the authors of the proposal (names and surnames, email and institutional affiliation); 3) brief presentation (around 100 words) to outline the fundamental objectives of the monograph; 4) list of priority topics that can be addressed by authors interested in submitting texts for the monograph.”

19. EMP is an academic, university, scientific, informative and non-profit publication. The journal reserves the right to reproduce articles published in other printed or electronic media, always in the same university setting. The authors of the articles assume that they renounce any economic rights of authorship, although not the moral right over their contribution.

20. Articles published in EMP can be cited freely as long as their origin and authorship are fully indicated, for which each article includes its standardized reference on the first page. The authors are solely responsible for the content of their articles.