Publication Process

JSOMER applies a structured process to protect scholarly quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, editorial independence, and transparent communication from submission through post-publication oversight.

Process overview

Submission, administrative screening, initial editorial assessment, handling-editor assignment, independent double-blind peer review, editorial decision, revision where required, final checks, production, proofreading, publication, and post-publication oversight.

Submission does not guarantee external peer review, acceptance, or publication.

Key targets: 5 business days screening · 10 business days initial assessment · 21 days reviewer report · 14 days minor revision · 30 days major revision · 25% absolute endogeny ceiling

1Manuscript Submission

Manuscripts must be submitted through JSOMER’s online submission system. Submissions sent directly to editors or reviewers are not normally treated as formal submissions.

The submitting author is responsible for ensuring that:

• all authors approved the manuscript and its submission, and authorship and author order are accurate;
• the manuscript is original, is not under consideration elsewhere, and any duplicate, redundant, or related publication is disclosed;
• all required files, declarations, funding information, and conflict-of-interest disclosures are complete;
• applicable ethics approval, informed consent, and data-related information are included;
• the review manuscript is anonymized for double-blind peer review; and
• the submission complies with JSOMER’s author and formatting requirements.

The submitting author serves as the corresponding author unless another author is formally designated.

2Administrative and Technical Screening

After submission, the Editorial Office conducts an administrative and technical screening that may verify:

• submission completeness and manuscript or supplementary-file formats;
• the title, abstract, keywords, author information, affiliations, authorship, and contributorship;
• anonymization of the review manuscript;
• funding, conflicts of interest, ethics approval, informed consent, and data availability statements;
• applicable reporting requirements and similarity-screening results;
• copyright, licensing, and article-type information; and
• compliance with JSOMER’s Artificial Intelligence Policy.

An incomplete or technically noncompliant submission may be returned for correction before editorial assessment. Administrative correction does not mean that the manuscript has passed scholarly or editorial evaluation.

3Initial Editorial Assessment and Desk Rejection

The Editor-in-Chief or an assigned editor assesses whether the manuscript falls within the journal’s aims and scope, treats social media as a substantive component, presents a potentially meaningful contribution, meets basic methodological, reporting, and ethical standards, and is sufficiently clear and complete for external evaluation.

Specialized disciplinary or methodological advice may be obtained before deciding whether to proceed to external review.

A manuscript may be declined without external peer review when it:

• is outside JSOMER’s aims and scope or treats social media only incidentally;
• lacks a sufficiently identifiable scholarly contribution;
• contains a fundamental methodological, design, ethical, or reporting problem;
• contains substantial duplication or redundant publication;
• is primarily promotional, commercial, or nonscholarly;
• is not sufficiently clear for reliable academic evaluation; or
• remains noncompliant after an opportunity for correction.

Editorial rejection without external review does not imply that the research has no value or cannot be suitable for another journal. Where practicable, the decision letter states the principal reason.

4Assignment to a Handling Editor

A manuscript that passes initial assessment is assigned to a handling editor with relevant academic or methodological expertise. The handling editor is responsible for:

• assessing suitability for external review;
• identifying qualified and independent reviewers;
• managing peer review and evaluating reviewer reports;
• assessing author revisions and responses;
• identifying ethical or methodological concerns;
• making a reasoned editorial recommendation; and
• maintaining confidentiality and impartiality.

The handling editor must disclose relevant conflicts of interest. When a conflict exists, the manuscript is reassigned to an independent editor. The Editor-in-Chief may serve as handling editor only when appropriate and free of relevant conflict.

5Reviewer Selection and Double-Blind Peer Review

Research manuscripts sent for external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two qualified and independent reviewers with appropriate subject or methodological expertise.

Reviewer selection considers expertise, research and publication experience, methodological competence, independence, conflicts of interest, previous review quality and timeliness, and appropriate institutional or geographic diversity. Reviewers are normally external to the editorial team. An Editorial Board member may review only when suitably qualified and free of relevant conflict; JSOMER does not rely exclusively on Board members.

Authors may suggest reviewers or identify individuals they prefer not to review the manuscript. Such requests are advisory and do not bind the editor.

JSOMER uses a double-blind peer-review model. Reviewers evaluate scope, originality, significance, theoretical or conceptual quality, methodology, analysis, ethics, reporting, literature engagement, and the relationship between evidence and conclusions.

6Review Timeline and Evaluation of Reports

Reviewers are normally requested to submit reports within 21 days after accepting the review invitation. A reasonable extension may be granted when requested promptly and when it does not cause unnecessary delay. The editor may replace a reviewer who declines, does not respond, cannot complete the review, becomes conflicted, or creates unreasonable delay.

The 21-day period is a target rather than a guaranteed decision time. JSOMER does not prioritize speed over the quality, independence, or completeness of peer review.

Reviewer recommendations are advisory. The editor evaluates reviewer expertise, report quality and completeness, supporting reasoning, seriousness of concerns, consistency with the manuscript, feasibility of requested revisions, and reviewer conduct. Editorial decisions are not made by simply counting reviewer recommendations.

When reports conflict or are inadequate, the editor may request clarification, invite a third reviewer, obtain statistical, methodological, ethical, clinical, scientific, or technical advice, or make a reasoned decision from the available evidence. A third reviewer is not appointed automatically merely because recommendations differ.

A report may be disregarded when it involves an undisclosed conflict, confidentiality breach, abusive or discriminatory language, unsupported allegations, coercive citation, inadequate evaluation, inappropriate AI use, or another serious reviewer-responsibility breach.

7Editorial Decision Categories

Following editorial assessment and, where applicable, external peer review, JSOMER may issue one of the following decisions:

The final decision is made by the Editor-in-Chief or an authorized independent editor on the basis of scope, contribution, methods, ethics, reporting, evidence, reviewer reports, author responses, and journal policies. The publisher does not direct or influence acceptance or rejection.

8Revision and Further Review

When revision is invited, authors must normally submit:

• a revised manuscript;
• a detailed point-by-point response to editor and reviewer comments;
• a clear indication of where changes were made; and
• a reasoned explanation for any recommendation not followed.

Authors should respond respectfully and substantively. They are not required to accept every recommendation when another approach can be justified through appropriate scholarly, methodological, or ethical reasoning.

Minor revisions are normally requested within 14 days and major revisions within 30 days. The decision letter controls the actual deadline. Extensions should be requested before the deadline; otherwise, the submission may be closed.

Revised manuscripts may be assessed by the handling editor, original reviewers, new reviewers, specialists, or a combination of these. Minor revisions may be assessed editorially; major revisions may be returned to reviewers when external reassessment is necessary. JSOMER does not guarantee a fixed number of revision rounds and seeks to avoid unnecessary cycles.

9Final Acceptance and Prepublication Checks

Acceptance requires completion of the necessary editorial assessment and independent peer review, adequate responses to required revisions, resolution of ethical and methodological concerns, complete declarations and documentation, compliance with applicable reporting standards, and approval by the Editor-in-Chief or an authorized independent editor.

The recorded acceptance date should correspond to the final scholarly decision. Acceptance may be reconsidered before publication if serious ethical, legal, authorship, originality, or research-integrity concerns arise.

Before production, the Editorial Office may verify:

• authorship, author order, names, affiliations, corresponding-author details, and ORCID iDs;
• title, abstract, keywords, article type, and acknowledgments;
• ethics approval, informed consent, conflicts of interest, funding, and data availability;
• reporting checklists, references, tables, figures, and supplementary material;
• similarity, originality, copyright, licensing, and Creative Commons information; and
• any required editorial independence statement.

10Production, Proofreading, and Publication

Production may include copyediting, language and style consistency, reference formatting, layout, table and figure review, metadata preparation, DOI assignment or validation, and license and copyright presentation. Copyediting must not alter intended meaning, data, analysis, or conclusions without author consultation.

The corresponding author reviews the proof for names, order, affiliations, title, abstract, figures, tables, equations, references, disclosures, licensing, metadata, and production errors. Proofreading is primarily for production corrections; substantive changes require explanation and editorial approval.

JSOMER publishes quarterly in March, June, September, and December. Acceptance does not guarantee publication in the immediately following issue. Publication priority is not determined by payment, personal relationships, institutional influence, or anticipated citations.

Published scholarly articles should display, as applicable, the article type; submission, revision, acceptance, and publication dates; DOI and citation information; funding, conflict, data, ethics, and consent statements; copyright and license information; editorial independence statements; and links to post-publication notices.

A forthcoming or early-published article must have completed peer review, final acceptance, editorial and production checks, stable bibliographic information, a DOI, and a clear publication-status statement. Accepted manuscripts must be distinguished from final versions of record.

11Editorial Endogeny and the 25% Limit

Editors, Editorial Board members, reviewers, and the publisher may submit manuscripts, but their roles provide no preferential treatment, expedited review, guaranteed review, or advantage in decision-making.

An article is counted once when at least one internally affiliated person appears in the author group, regardless of author position, institutional affiliation, number of internally affiliated co-authors, or whether the service concerned the same issue or manuscript.

The limit applies separately to each of the two most recently published issues; a combined average is insufficient if either individual issue exceeds 25%. Editorials, corrections, retractions, Expressions of Concern, publisher notices, and other nonresearch content are not ordinarily included. Classification must reflect actual content and article type.

The 25% figure is an absolute maximum, not a target or reserved quota. An article must not be included in an issue if publication would exceed the limit. Acceptance, delay, acceleration, transfer, or scheduling must not be used to manipulate compliance.

12Independent Handling of Journal-Affiliated Authors

When an editor, Editorial Board member, reviewer, or the publisher is an author, that author must have no role in:

• administrative or initial editorial assessment;
• appointment or influence of the handling editor;
• reviewer selection, approval, suggestion through the editorial process, or contact;
• access to reviewer identities, reports, internal discussions, or confidential decision records outside the normal author interface;
• evaluation of revisions, editorial discussion, or the final decision; or
• publication scheduling involving the manuscript.

The manuscript must be assigned to an independent editor with appropriate expertise and no relevant conflict, undergo the same double-blind process as other research manuscripts, and normally receive at least two independent reviews. The complete record must remain in the submission system.

When the Editor-in-Chief is an author, the Editor-in-Chief is completely excluded and the independent editor exercises full authority over reviewer selection, review management, revision evaluation, and the final decision. That authority is not subject to approval or reversal by the Editor-in-Chief.

When the publisher is an author, ownership, financial support, technical platform control, or administrative position must provide no access to or influence over confidential evaluation. If the Editor-in-Chief is also conflicted, responsibility is transferred to an independent external editor.

A reviewer’s previous or current service, certificates, acknowledgments, or performance must not provide publication credit or favorable treatment. Review service must never be exchanged for favorable treatment of a submission.

13Editorial Independence Statements

A published article authored by an editor, Editorial Board member, reviewer, or the publisher must identify the relationship and the safeguards used.

General editorial independence statement: One or more authors of this article have an editorial or professional relationship with the Journal of Social Media Research. The authors had no involvement in the editorial assessment, reviewer selection, peer-review process, or decision-making concerning this manuscript. The manuscript was handled independently by an editor with no relevant conflict of interest and was evaluated by independent reviewers in accordance with the journal’s standard peer-review procedures.

Editor-in-Chief statement: The Editor-in-Chief is an author of this article and was completely excluded from the editorial assessment, reviewer selection, peer-review process, evaluation of revisions, and final decision. Full editorial responsibility was assigned to an independent editor with no relevant conflict of interest.

Publisher statement: The publisher is an author of this article and had no involvement in the editorial assessment, selection of the handling editor or reviewers, peer-review correspondence, evaluation of revisions, publication scheduling, or final decision. The manuscript was handled independently in accordance with the journal’s standard peer-review procedures.

14Special Issue Manuscripts

Special issue manuscripts follow the same submission, ethical, methodological, peer-review, and publication standards as regular submissions. Guest Editors must not guarantee acceptance, bypass external review, handle their own manuscripts, decide manuscripts involving close collaborators or other relevant conflicts, or accept unsuitable work merely to fill an issue.

A Guest Editor-authored manuscript must be handled by the Editor-in-Chief or another independent editor, undergo independent external review, receive no preferential treatment, be identified transparently, and remain outside the Guest Editor’s access and decision authority.

When the Guest Editor also belongs to JSOMER’s regular editorial structure, the article is considered under both the special issue limit and the journal’s general endogeny monitoring.

The Editor-in-Chief retains oversight and may appoint an independent handling editor, require additional review, reject an unsupported recommendation, remove a manuscript from the special issue process, or discontinue a special issue when editorial integrity is at risk.

15Monitoring, Recordkeeping, and Noncompliance

Before finalizing each issue, the Editorial Office should record:

• the total number of research articles;
• the number of articles with an editor, Editorial Board member, publisher, or JSOMER reviewer as an author;
• the combined number of unique internally affiliated research articles and the resulting percentage;
• the independent handling editor for each internally affiliated article; and
• confirmation that the required editorial independence statement appears.

The same article is counted only once in the numerator, even when multiple authors have journal relationships. Before publication, the Editor-in-Chief or an authorized independent editor verifies compliance.

If a limit is exceeded, JSOMER must document the cause, notify the Editor-in-Chief and publisher, assess whether inappropriate treatment occurred, determine whether correction or public clarification is required, adopt preventive measures, strengthen monitoring, and notify a relevant index or directory when required.

Exceeding the limit does not automatically invalidate scholarly findings, but it may represent an editorial-governance failure requiring transparent review and corrective action. Editorial or reviewing service creates no right or expectation of publication.

16Withdrawal and Editorial Rejection During the Process

Authors may request withdrawal before publication by providing a written explanation. The corresponding author should confirm all-author agreement. JSOMER may continue examining unresolved duplicate-submission, authorship, misconduct, ethics, legal, or editorial-manipulation concerns.

Before publication, JSOMER may withdraw a manuscript or reverse a provisional outcome when it identifies plagiarism or substantial duplication, fabrication or falsification, manipulated peer review, unresolved authorship, absent or invalid ethics approval, serious undisclosed conflicts, simultaneous submission, unreliable data, inappropriate AI use, material misrepresentation, or another serious breach.

Once an article is formally published, removal is not treated as ordinary withdrawal. Post-publication procedures apply.

17Appeals and Complaints

Authors may appeal when they believe that a material factual, procedural, methodological, or ethical error affected the outcome. An appeal should identify the manuscript and decision, state specific grounds, address the editorial and reviewer reasoning, provide supporting evidence, and comply with the Complaints and Appeals Policy.

An appeal is not a routine opportunity for another revision or a different decision merely because the authors disagree with the outcome. Where possible, an editor who did not make the original decision reviews the appeal.

Complaints concerning editorial conduct, peer review, conflicts of interest, or procedural fairness are handled under JSOMER’s Complaints and Appeals Policy.

18Post-Publication Oversight, Confidentiality, and Process Integrity

Editorial responsibility continues after publication. Credible concerns involving errors, authorship, conflicts, data reliability, ethics approval, plagiarism, duplication, image or data manipulation, inappropriate AI use, legal issues, privacy, or other integrity matters may result in correction, retraction, Expression of Concern, clarification, editorial notice, or another appropriate update linked to the original article and, where possible, reflected in metadata.

JSOMER protects submitted manuscripts, reviewer identities and reports, internal correspondence, ethical allegations, investigation material, and other nonpublic information. Access is limited to persons with a legitimate editorial, production, investigation, or administrative role. Appropriate submission, review, decision, revision, conflict, ethics, appeal, complaint, and post-publication records are retained.

JSOMER does not guarantee acceptance or unusually rapid publication, accept payment for editorial consideration, permit authors to select final editors or reviewers, decide by counting reviewer recommendations, waive peer review for journal-affiliated authors, prioritize institutional prestige or anticipated citations, or allow personal or commercial interests to override scholarly and ethical standards.

Timelines are targets, not guarantees. Manuscript complexity, reviewer availability, ethical concerns, specialist consultation, revision requirements, and author response times may affect the overall duration.