MediArXiv FAQs

What is MediArXiv?

MediArXiv is a free, community-led digital archive for media, film, and communication research (hosted on the Open Science Framework). We provide a nonprofit platform for media, film, and communication scholars to upload their working papers, pre-prints, accepted manuscripts (post-prints), and published manuscripts. The service is open for articles, books, and book chapters. The mission of MediArXiv is to open up media, film, and communication research to a broader readership and to help build the future of scholarly communication. We launched in the winter of 2019, and are now open for submissions.

How is MediArXiv funded?

MediArXiv is run by the volunteer members of the Steering Committee, as an incorporated nonprofit in Pennsylvania, USA. (See our bylaws.) The foundation-funded nonprofit Center for Open Science hosts the underlying preprint platform that MediArXiv—and many other field-specific archives—run. Beginning in 2020, MediArXiv and the other archives have been asked to pay a fee, based on the number of accepted submissions, to sustain the cost of operating the infrastructure. MediArXiv is exploring a plan to raise those modest funds through an institutional Membership Circle. MediArXiv was initiated by the volunteer-run, nonprofit Open Access in Media Studies site.

What is the Center for Open Science? And Open Science Framework?

The Center for Open Science (COS) is our technology partner and the owner of OSF Preprints, the platform on which MediArXiv runs. OSF Preprints is a part of the Open Science Framework (OSF), which “provides free and open source project management support for researchers across the entire research lifecycle.” The OSF not only hosts MediArXiv papers, but also allows you to link your papers to other components of your research projects, such as data, code, and media files.

How do I upload a work?

You can go straight to mediarxiv.org and click on “Add a Preprint,” and follow the instructions. (If you haven’t yet, you will need to create a free account on the Open Science Framework as part of that process.) Our sister archive SocArXiv maintains a useful guide to the submission process.

How are papers moderated?

Papers are moderated before they appear on MediArXiv, a process we expect to take less than two days. Our policy involves a five-point checklist, confirming that papers are (1) scholarly, (2) in research areas that we support, (3) are plausibly categorized, (4) are correctly attributed, and (5) are in languages that we moderate. In addition, we seek to accept only papers that authors have the right to share, although we do not check copyrights in the moderation process. For details, view the moderation policy.

What can I post to MediArXiv?

We encourage submissions across all domains of media, film, and communication studies, along with cognate fields like information science and science & technology studies. Although MediArXiv is part of the Open Science Framework “Preprints” service, we host research works at a number of stages in the research process:

  • In-progress works: Any draft of a work that is ready to share with interested parties, but has not yet been peer reviewed. If you are sharing your work with a group of colleagues, a conference, or a journal, this may be the perfect time to widen the circle and post it on MediArXiv.
  • Preprints: Most people use this term to refer to completed works that have not yet been peer reviewed (like working papers).
  • Postprints: After a work has been published by a journal, this is a version that you elect to share on our open platform. It may be a version that does not include the publisher’s formatting or other changes, or it may be the publisher’s copy (or “version of record”) if you have the right to distribute it. This is the version you share when you’ve published something but it’s behind a paywall and you want anyone to be able to read it.

Accepted formats include, but is not limited to, papers, book chapters, and reviews, essays, critiques and comments on other work, systematic reviews, hypotheses, ‘negative’ results, and data and methods papers. Work on MediArXiv is either research or engages with research.

Are multimedia submissions allowed?

Not currently, though we are committed to working with our platform host, the OSF, to expand acceptable scholarly work submissions in a variety of non-traditional media formats. Many files, including most media formats, can be linked to an a published MediArXiv submission as part of an OSF “project.” More details are available here).

Does MediArXiv accept data-only submissions?

No, MediArXiv is intended for scholarly works. But data and other files can be uploaded and linked to a MediArXiv submission. Every paper on MediArXiv is automatically associated with a “Project” on the Open Science Framework platform. Researchers can attach data, code, or other research materials to their papers by including them in the associated “project.” We also encourage sharing data and code on the Open Science Framework in the spirit of openness and transparency. (See OSF’s guide for creating and managing projects.) for detailed instructions on how to associate data and other files with a MediArXiv work.)

Will publishing a preprint mean I can’t publish in a journal?

In most cases, the answer is ‘no’. Use of preprints has been ongoing in other disciplines for, in some cases, a few decades. As a result, many publishers have preprint-friendly policies already in place for their journals. Be sure to check your journal’s policy on the Sherpa/Romeo database.

MediArXiv is preparing a data sheet with journals in the field of media and communication studies and their policies on preprints. The data sheet is work in progress and can be found here.

Some prominent media studies publishers still discourage preprints. One of MediArXiv’s core aims is to help the fields’ scholars change publisher policies, especially those operated by scholarly associations.

What license should I choose?

We offer three options:

The CC-0 and CC-BY licenses are both excellent choices that allow reuse, adaptation, copying, and distribution, including commercially. A CC-0 option is a donation of the work to the public domain (no permission required), whereas CC-BY allows the author to retain copyright, and requires the reader to give credit to the source and to provide a link to the license terms. Both licenses promote openness, efficiency and progress by providing certainty to the user as to what reuses or adaptations can be made. SocArXiv provides a more in-depth discussion.

Does Google Scholar index MediArXiv?

Yes, Google Scholar is successfully ingesting and linking to MediArXiv works (and other papers on the OSF Preprints server).

Do papers that are uploaded to MediArXiv receive a Digital Object Identifier (DOI)?

Yes. In addition, if a paper previously has a DOI from a different publisher, that information can be included when uploading it to MediArXiv, which will allow the paper to link to the latest published version. Note also that the OSF platform on which MediArXiv runs creates a persistent URL for every paper.

What are the benefits of using MediArXiv?

  • Stable, persistent URL to use in your CV, professional portfolio, citations, etc.
  • Download statistics
  • Getting your work out faster than traditional publishing
  • One place to store many outputs and materials for each project
  • Promote media scholarship without walls by supporting open access, open source, public goods research infrastructure.

Further Reading

These FAQs are adapted from SocArXiv and PaleorXiv.