New Digital Journalism journal to launch in 2013

A new academic journal is to be launched in February next year which will focus on emerging trends in digital journalism. Digital Journalism will be edited by professor of journalism studies at Cardiff University Bob Franklin, who already edits Journalism Practice and Journalism Studies. The journal will be available three times year initially, with plans to increase issues in the future. The first issue will be available for free online. Speaking to Journalism.co.uk Franklin said the journal will aim to "catalogue" some of the rapid change experienced by the journalism industry. The journal's brief covers areas from social media and its influence on how journalism is reported and found, and the impact of mobile and tablet devices, to the explosion of data journalism, he added. The journal will be backed by an editorial board of international scholars within the field of journalism who will help to steer the editorial direction of the journal and peer review submissions. This includes Alfred Hermida, associate professor at the University of British Columbia School of Journalism. "One thing that's happening from the academic side is a lot of the new scholars are coming into this area and looking at what's happening in terms of the ability of the audience to now be a participant in news, the whole impact of social media, what happens in terms of business model when you have a digital framework that essentially disaggregates the traditional business models," he told Journalism.co.uk. He added that the journal is "essentially providing a space where this research can be showcased and really can focus on these issues". "What the journal does is go into a gap in the research market where you have journals that look at journalism that do publish some research into the digital aspects, you have journals that research digital but don't really focus on journalism and what this tries to do is bridge the gap saying 'well let's have a journal that looks at digital and journalism at the same time'." "Digital is not business as usual", he added. "Digital is calling into question the very fundamentals of journalism, even the question of how do we define who is a journalist and what is journalism and I think this provides a space for that kind of discussion."