DMC: Digital Media and Communication is committed to maintaining high standards of publication ethics and scholarly integrity. This statement applies to all parties involved in the publication process, including authors, editors, reviewers, and the publisher. The journal follows internationally accepted principles of ethical publishing, including transparency, accountability, originality, fairness, and academic honesty.
Authors are responsible for ensuring that submitted manuscripts are original, accurate, and free from plagiarism. Manuscripts must not be under consideration or published elsewhere in any form. Authors must properly acknowledge all sources, data, ideas, images, and other materials used in their work. Any form of fabrication, falsification, duplicate publication, inappropriate authorship, or citation manipulation is strictly prohibited.
All listed authors must have made a meaningful contribution to the manuscript and must approve the final version before submission. Authors are also required to disclose any potential conflicts of interest, financial support, institutional affiliations, or other relationships that may influence the research and publication process.
For studies involving human participants, digital communities, online users, personal data, interviews, surveys, or netnographic observation, authors must ensure that ethical principles, privacy protection, informed consent, and data confidentiality are properly addressed.
Editors are responsible for making publication decisions based on the scholarly quality, originality, relevance, and contribution of the manuscript to the field of digital media and communication. Editorial decisions must be made fairly and objectively, without discrimination based on gender, ethnicity, religion, political view, institutional affiliation, nationality, or personal background.
Editors must maintain the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts and must not use unpublished materials for personal or professional advantage. Editors are also responsible for identifying possible ethical issues, including plagiarism, duplicate submission, data manipulation, authorship disputes, and conflicts of interest.
Reviewers play an important role in maintaining the quality and integrity of published articles. Reviewers are expected to provide objective, constructive, timely, and academically responsible feedback. Review comments should help authors improve the clarity, structure, theoretical relevance, and scholarly contribution of the manuscript.
Reviewers must keep all manuscript materials confidential and must not share, copy, or use the content for personal purposes. Reviewers should decline the review assignment if they have a conflict of interest or if the manuscript is outside their area of expertise.
All submitted manuscripts must be original and properly cited. The journal may use plagiarism detection tools to identify similarity, duplication, or unethical use of sources. Manuscripts containing plagiarism, excessive similarity, unattributed content, or improper paraphrasing may be rejected or returned to the authors for revision.
Authors may use artificial intelligence tools to support language editing, grammar correction, or technical formatting. However, AI tools must not replace the author’s intellectual responsibility, critical analysis, data interpretation, or scholarly argumentation. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, validity, and ethical integrity of the manuscript. AI tools cannot be listed as authors.
Authors, editors, and reviewers must disclose any conflicts of interest that may affect the objectivity of the publication process. Conflicts may include financial relationships, institutional connections, personal relationships, academic competition, or other circumstances that could influence judgment.
When errors or ethical violations are identified after publication, the journal may issue corrections, clarifications, expressions of concern, or retractions, depending on the seriousness of the case. Authors are expected to cooperate with the editorial team in resolving any ethical concerns related to their published work.
The publisher supports the editorial team in ensuring that the publication process is conducted ethically, transparently, and professionally. The publisher does not interfere with editorial decisions and is committed to protecting the integrity of the scholarly record.