JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies  

AS OF APRIL 19, 2022, OUR SUBMISSIONS PORTAL HAS MOVED TO AIRTABLE. 

PLEASE REVIEW THE GUIDELINES BELOW AND CLICK HERE TO COMPLETE YOUR SUBMISSION. 

JCMS (formerly Cinema Journal) is published by Michigan Publishing in cooperation with the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, and is always interested in exciting new work in the fields of cinema and media studies. JCMS is open to all areas of humanities-oriented scholarship in media studies. We welcome submissions on film, television, radio, sound, and digital media. Considered one of the top journals in media studies, our acceptance rate is about 15 percent. 

Submission Guidelines

• To be considered for review, manuscripts should be between 8,000 and 12,000 words. Word count includes endnotes.
• Submissions must include an abstract of approximately 100 words and approximately 6 keywords or terms (such as African Cinema, audience, Adorno) that will help us to ensure they are reviewed by an expert in the appropriate area.
• Submissions should follow the format specified by the Chicago Manual of Style (17th Edition). All bibliographic information should be in endnotes, and submissions should not include an additional bibliography. See our Style Guide for more specific guidelines.
• As JCMS seeks to publish critical inquiry into the global, national, and local circulation of a wide variety of media, we look for articles that foreground original interventions in current conversations within film and media studies. Articles that focus on the formal or textual analysis of a single or small number of case studies should clearly articulate what larger questions they ask and answer.
• JCMS receives a high volume of submissions, and each submission that meets our minimum requirements is sent out for expert, anonymous peer review. Because accepted articles are published in the order in which they are submitted, we cannot accommodate requests to accelerate publication for job market or promotion cases. However, the editors are happy to write a letter for authors affirming that the article is accepted and is in queue or in press.
• We are able to run three to six images per feature article. Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to publish images in cases where Fair Use does not apply. Illustrations should be a minimum of 1,500 pixels wide or tall (or at least 3–4 inches when saved at 300 dpi) and have a minimum resolution of 250–300 dpi. Uncompressed TIFF files are best, but other common formats are also acceptable. Do not save your images with compression.
• For the sake of peer review, please embed low-res images in your manuscript while also uploading the high-res versions separately. The high-res versions are usually too large to send out over email; this will expedite our getting your manuscript out for review. 
• JCMS only accepts electronic submissions. If for some reason you cannot submit electronically, please contact the editor directly. Please note that JCMS does not accept manuscripts in PDF format. 
• For questions regarding manuscripts submitted to JCMS for review, please consult the information in our editorial wiki.