Critical Contemporary Culture is a student-led online journal that envisions an alternative cultural-intellectual public space. In our contemporary moment, the combination of theoretical reflection with engaged cultural practice is as important as ever. CCC is committed to re-imagining, cultivating and supporting such work and their alternative public spaces.
CCC CONSTITUTION
Editorial organisation and procedures
The Journal shall be available free to use, as a web-based Journal. Copyright will remain in all cases with authors, who may republish materials published in the Journal, although the Journal requires that authors fully acknowledge prior publication in Critical Contemporary Culture in any subsequent republication. Since the Journal will be available in full-text format at all times, it should not be necessary for users to print multiple copies. However, no barrier will be erected to the printing of copies for the purposes of study and use.
The Journal will be produced under the direction of an Editorial Board of no less than four people, composed of four MPhil/PhD students. The Board may also where appropriate include people located in non-HE institutions. The Editorial Board shall determine the overall policy and development of the Journal, including determining the broad character of particular Journal issues. The Editorial Board shall normally meet at least three times a year. Membership of the Board shall be on the principle that a person is likely to be able to attend meetings of the Board. Membership of the Board shall also be on the principle that members are willing to play an active role in some aspect of the Journal’s production or development. The Board, once established, shall be free to invite new members.
The following roles at least shall be filled by members of the Editorial Board.
Editor: The Editor shall be an MPhil or PhD student. The Editor will have responsibility for the overall management of the production of the Journal.
Editor (Production Co-ordinator): The Production Co-ordinator shall be an MPhil or PhD student. They shall have overall responsibility for the shape and maintenance of the Journal’s web site (although s/he may not necessarily undertake all the tasks of maintenance), for ensuring all submissions approved for publication are in appropriate format, for ensuring archiving of past issues is appropriately done, and that external links with related websites are maintained.
Chair of Editorial Board: The Chair of the Editorial Board shall be an MPhil or PhD student registered at the London School of Economics and Political Science. They shall have responsibility for calling meetings of the Board, and arranging that the business of the meetings is prepared; liaising with the Editor to ensure proper progress of the Journal; overseeing development of Journal policy and documentation of policy in all areas; having oversight of the development of public presence of the Journal and, with the Editor, acting as spokesperson for the Journal in public forums.
Editor (External Liaison): developing and keeping up links with other Journals and cognate organisations; registering our operations with external bibliographic organisations; creating and maintaining our presence within search engines, indexing and citation guides, and other equivalent web systems.
All roles to be filled for one year in the first instance, thereafter renewable on an annual basis. The Editorial Board to determine its own procedures for appointing or electing people to these roles. The Editorial Board has power to create new posts and designate new responsibilities as necessary for the running and development of the Journal. All members of the Editorial Board will have responsibility for promoting the Journal, encouraging submissions, seeking friendly relations with other publications and cognate organisations.
Advisory Board
There shall also be a wider editorial Advisory Board, made up of those with demonstrable interest and experience within the study, research, or production of contemporary culture, in the broad sense in which it is understood here. The Advisory Board will be composed from as wide an array of countries, fields of study, and traditions of work as possible, and will normally include all those willing to play a role in sustaining and developing the Journal. The Advisory Board will be kept informed on a regular basis of developments within and affecting the Journal, including all decisions made by the Editorial Board, and will be given opportunities on all substantive issues of policy to comment and contribute to debates before decisions are reached. Members of the Advisory Board will be welcome at all meetings of the Editorial Board, whose meeting dates and places will be publicised – although it is accepted that geographical distance will make attendance unlikely on most occasions. Members of the Advisory Board will be assumed to be willing to take part in refereeing processes, and to encourage submissions to the Journal, as well as more broadly assisting in its development.
Article Editors
A critical role within the operation of the Journal is that of Article Editor. Every submission over 1000 words will be assigned an Article Editor, normally by the Editor but on occasion (depending on when meeting dates fall) by the Editorial Board. Article Editors are normally members of the Editorial Board, but may on occasion with their agreement be assigned to an MPhil/PhD student. It is the responsibility of the Article Editor, in consultation with the Editor, to select two appropriate referees from outside the Editorial Board who, along with the Article Editor, will be asked to read the essay.
Within two weeks of being assigned the article, s/he will make contact with the referees and, upon their acceptance of the task, transmit the essay to them, along with a copy of the guidelines for referees. It is the Article Editor’s task to ensure that referees’ comments are gathered, ideally within a further month to six weeks (maximum), and to prepare a report for the Editor, based on his/her own and the two referees’ responses. This report will not be a mechanical summation of the balance of opinion. Rather, in the light of the three referees’ response, it will seek to identify, and to summarise, the following:
• What are the main claims and purposes of the essay?
• To what area or aspect of contemporary culture is it intended to make a contribution?
• What is interesting, original and worthwhile about it?
• What are the perceived problems with it, if any?
• What, if anything, would need to be done to it to make it publishable?
• What, if anything, might be suggested to substantially improve it?
• What is the balance of opinion on its acceptance?
Where, for any reason, the Article Editor is unable to obtain one of the readers’ responses, a decision may be made on (not less than) two referee reports. Decisions on acceptance, request for revision or rejection will be taken either at an Editorial Board or through a process determined by it. Suggestions for change can take the form of a combination of requirements and recommendations, as appropriate. Once a decision has been reached, it is the responsibility of the Article Editor to communicate it to the authors, along with (a) the referees’ reports, and (b) a clear summary with explanation of any requirements for acceptance set by the Editorial Board. Any discussion or clarification between authors and the Journal will normally take place through the Article Editor. It will be his/her responsibility to examine any resubmitted version to identify to what extent it has met the Journal’s requirements and recommendations.
CCC PEER REVIEW PROCESS
There will be an advisory board composed of MPhil/PhD students currently registered at any UK HEI. Membership of the advisory board shall be based on the principle that a person has an interest in the study of contemporary culture. Members of the advisory panel will be asked to provide up to three areas in which they will be prepared to review essay submissions.
When prospective contributors submit essays their submission will be assigned an article editor by the editor. Article editors will be members of the editorial board unless the prospective contributor is a member of the editorial board, in which case the article editor assigned will be a member of the advisory board. The article editor will establish whether the submission is within the broad scope of the journal. If the article editor decides that the submission is not within the broad scope of the journal’s interest they will inform the editor of this. The editor will then make an independent assessment of whether the submission is within the scope of the journal. If the editor considers the article to be within the broad scope of the journal the article will be assigned to another article editor. If a second article editor decides that the article is not within the broad scope of the journal, or the editor agrees with an article editor’s decision that an article is not within the broad scope of the journal, the editor will inform the contributor of the the decision.
Once an article editor has established that a submission is within the broad scope of the Journal’s interest they will, in conjunction with the editor, select two reviewers from the advisory board. It is the article editor’s responsibility to contact potential reviewers to establish whether they are available to review submissions. Once reviewers are determined, the article editor will send the reviewers the submission along with the guidance for reviewers. The article editor will then independently review the submission. Reviewers will have four weeks to provide feedback on essays once they have received submissions. Once feedback is obtained from reviewers by the article editor, the editor in consultation with the article editor will decide whether the submission, if modified in line with the assessment of the reviewers, will be of sufficient quality for publication in the journal. If the editor considers the response of any of the reviewers to be insufficiently constructive or that it would offend the contributor, the editor will contact the reviewer requesting that they edit their response appropriately. The editor will inform the prospective contributor of the decision, providing the reason for that decision including the feedback of all three reviewers. Contributors of submissions that are considered potentially appropriate for publication will be asked to edit their submission in line with the assessment of the reviewers, and advised that they have six weeks in which to resubmit their edited submission. Contributors will not be informed of the identity of their reviewers, but will have recourse to a further explanation of a decision not to publish their submission from the editor. Once an edited submission is received it will be passed to the article editor to check the edited submission against the feedback from reviewers. The article editor will finally recommend to editor whether or not the edited article be published, based upon whether the contributor has sufficiently responded to the reviewers’ assessments. If the article editor recommends that the article not be published, the editor will inform the contributor that they have four weeks in which to respond to the assessors’ feedback. If a contributor does not provide a satisfactory response to the assessors’ feedback the editor will inform them of the decision not to publish their article and the reason for that decision, based upon the article editor’s recommendation. Once a contributor has sufficiently responded to the assessors’ feedback the editor will inform the contributor of the decision to publish their article.
CCC SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Critical Contemporary Culture is a fully-refereed Journal, seeking to publish genuine advances in knowledge and understanding, and original contributions to debate and dialogue. All submissions of over 1,000 words, other than book reviews, will be scrutinised by at least three referees who will be asked to report in detail on the suitability for publication of submissions against a published checklist of criteria. One of the three will be a member of the Editorial Board, whose task it will be to collate responses and bring a recommendation to the Editor/Editorial Board, as appropriate. It will be the Journal’s policy that, wherever possible, authors will receive responses within three months of submission. Shorter submissions will normally be considered by two referees, one of whom will be a member of the Editorial Board.
There are no restrictions on the length of submissions, although the Editorial Board reserves the right to advise authors that a submission is unnecessarily long, and to suggest where cuts might be made.
Articles should be submitted as e-mail attachments, formatted as follows:
• in 12 point, in a standard font, in Word 6 (or in a format which can be converted into Word 6);
• they should be headed by a summary of 100-150 words, setting out their main thrust;
• submissions should be headed by a title, and the author(s)’ name(s), along with any institutional location;
• paragraphs should not be indented, but separated by an additional line;
• titles and equivalents should be given in italics;
• quotations of less than 40 words should be included in the text with single inverted commas, and double inverted commas for quotes within quotes.
Quotations of more than 40 words should be indented, instead of being placed in quote-marks;
• numbers should usually be spelt out rather than presented as numerals, except for numbers over 100, percentages and dates;
• submissions which include materials from interviews must make clear either that people have been anonymised, or that interviewees have given their permission for quotations to be used;
• you may, if you wish, include a means by which you can be contacted (normally, your email address) at the end of your main text;
• endnotes (not footnotes) may be used;
• a bibliography, broadly using the either the MLA or Harvard mode of presentation, should be supplied, as sketched below;
• all images should be sent as separate files, preferably as jpegs it is authors’ responsibility to ensure that no copyright issues attach to the images they submit.
Upon acceptance of any submission for publication, a CONTRIBUTOR CONTRACT will be sent as a PDF file, which should be printed, signed and returned to the Editorial address (which will be on the form).
Bibliographic references
Please use the following system for references:
Books
Handel, Leo, Hollywood Looks At Its Audience, Urbana : University of Illinois Press, 1950.
Articles within books
Bobo, Jacqueline, ‘The Colour Purple: black women as cultural readers’, in E. Deidre Pribram (ed), Female Spectators: Looking at Film and Television, London: Verso 1988, pp.90-109.
Journal articles
Gomery, Douglas, ‘Movie audiences, urban geography and the history of American film’, Velvet Light Trap, 19, Spring 1982, pp. 23-9.
On-line materials
Plantinga, Carl (1994) ‘Movie Pleasures and the Spectator’s Experience: Toward a Cognitive Approach’ [WWW document] URL http://www.hanover.edu/philos/film/vol_02/planting.htm [visited 02/09/03]
Ephemeral materials – please give enough information to enable location of any materials cited, e.g.
Hodgkinson, Will, ‘Monster Deal’, Guardian, London, 8 February 2002.
