Photo by Talon McKendree
The Electronic Journal of Communication has named Penn State Altoona’s Associate Professor of Communications Shaheed N. Mohammed managing editor. He describes the journal as “everything to do with communication, from social to interpersonal to mass communication.” Publication had “lapsed during COVID-19,” he says, but is now gearing up to return in 2023.
EJC began in 1990 as “one of the first five peer-reviewed, electronically distributed scholarly journals in world history and the first ever in the social sciences,” according to the journal’s website, where all issues through 2019 are available. Over the years the journal has published themed issues with subjects as diverse as “Digital Interactions in Social Spaces: Proxemics, Digital Media, and Human-Machine Communication,” “Learning from the 2008-09 Global Financial Crisis,” and “Impact of Technology on Interpersonal Relationships.”
When Mohammed says the journal has “everything to do with communication,” he could be describing his own career. He has written numerous books (e.g., Distant Voices Near: Historical Globalization and Indian Radio in Trinidad and Tobago and The (Dis)Information Age: The Persistence of Ignorance) as well as articles on topics as diverse as “Muslim” horror movies, the carnivalesque atmosphere of the 2016 US presidential election (with Robert Trompbour), and Stephen Colbert as faux conservative.
The journal itself will cast a wide net in both authors and subject matters. “We invite people to submit articles and to volunteer as guest editors. They don’t have to be a communication scholar and authors get to keep their copyright,” Mohammed says. “We plan to go on line in June.”
As with the previous editions of this journal, “we’ll be publishing the abstract in English and French to make it more accessible. We’re an open-access journal so everything is freely accessible.” While most issues will have six articles on a theme and possibly two on any topic, there will also be some unthemed issues. The first call for papers is expected in June. Mohammed encourages prospective authors and issue editors to contribute—“it’s a great way to get exposure.”
—Therese Boyd, ’79