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Both conflict and communication are the subjects of a great variety of social-scientific, intellectual and cultural disciplines and fields of praxis which approach them from their own perspective and focus. The problems they formulate span a spectrum ranging from social-psychological small-group research to research on internal strife and wars between states, from the analysis of interpersonal communication to research on mass communication and from conflict management to journalism and the new information technologies. The task adopted by the journal conflict & communication online is to bring about a dialogue among these varied perspectives and professional experiences which will reach beyond the topics of current fields of conflict and strive to establish basic research on peace science. Publications in conflict and communication online will include theoretical contributions and empirical research results, methodical discussions and practical reflections, reports of experiences and contributions on problematical areas. The criteria for accepting manuscripts are exclusively their quality and topical relevance. Simply due to the trans-disciplinary nature of its topic this will often mean that conflict & communication online will publish contributions which would have at best limited prospects of acceptance by conventional mainstream journals. This does not mean that mainstream research will receive no attention in conflict & communication online, but scholarly creativity and discarding disciplinary blinders will be welcomed. To reach this goal is a challenge not only for the authors, but also for the editor and the journal's interdisciplinary advisory committee. In order to successfully meet this challenge, conflict & communication online will employ an open review procedure which on both sides - author and expert reviewer - will waive anonymity; the relationship between participants implicit in the review model is understood as a constructive dialogue; in accord with the journal's trans-disciplinary aims, every manuscript submitted will be discussed and evaluated from (at least) two disciplinary perspectives. In the interest of both, authors and reviewers, the reviewing process will remain anonymuous, however, until the basic ruling that the manuscript will not be rejected completely but either accepted as it is or returned to the author for revision |