Platform is an open-access, refereed journal. All full articles considered for the main issues of the journal, as well as any special issues, will be sent for double-blind peer review by experts in their relevant field.

Note: All manuscripts submitted to Platform must be original work and not under consideration by any other publication.

The following guidelines are to assist authors in preparing and submitting a manuscript for consideration to Platform. Please read them carefully before submitting work, as we may return submissions to authors that are not in house style and/or do not follow our guidelines for referencing and citation.

Submission process

Platform accepts submissions all year long. All submissions should be from early career researchers (defined as being within a few years of completing their PhD) or current graduate students undertaking their Masters, PhD, or international equivalent. The process is as follows:

1. Authors submit an article, ensuring that it closely follows the ‘General Guidelines for Submission’ below and is written in house style.
2. The current editor-in-chief reads the article and decides whether or not it is suitable for the journal. They then inform the author that the article will be considered for the upcoming issue and sent for peer review, or that it is not suitable for the journal.
3. The peer review coordinator contacts two suitable referees from our list of people who have agreed to act as peer reviewers to see if they are willing to review the article in the allocated time (usually 4-6 weeks).
4. The article is sent to each referee (with all references to the author removed from the document) to be independently assessed for its theoretical soundness, methodological rigour, quality of writing, and relevance to the field of media and communications.
5. Authors are notified if their papers have been accepted, accepted with amendments, or declined. If the article is accepted, the author is sent a copy of the reviewers’ comments and (if necessary) asked to resubmit the article with any amendments as requested by the editor on the reviewers’ advice.
6. Once the revised article is returned it will be edited by the Platform editorial team in negotiation with the author until it is ready for publication.
7. The final articles will be reviewed by the editorial and advisory boards before publication.

Note: After examining a final copy of their paper, authors must sign a licence agreement stating that they grant publishing rights to the University of Melbourne as the publisher of Platform and inform the editors of which creative commons licence they wish to use (see ‘Copyright’ section).

Read the Guidelines and style page for further detail