May 31, 2011
Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
Re: Political Communication
As Chair of the Political Communication Division of the International Communication Association (ICA), I am writing on behalf of our membership to express the division’s strong dissatisfaction with the current terms of our contract with Routledge Taylor & Francis for the journal Political Communication. This is a journal that we sponsor alongside the Political Communication Section of the American Political Science Association (APSA).
Our division's annual business meeting was held in Boston on May 27,2011, and was very well-attended by 149 of our 756 members. Prof. Patricia Moy, Chair of the ICA- APSA Joint Publications Committee, reported to the membership on the current terms of our contract for the journal and the numerous conversations she had with Taylor & Francis last year. This started a very heated discussion regarding whether or not the division should renew this contract which we see as grossly unfair.
I am not sure you realize the amount of hard work, dedication and intellectual skill that our members devote to the journal. It takes years of tremendously hard work to write an academic research paper in the field of political communication. Reviewing these papers takes an enormous amount of time as well. Our editor, Prof. Shanto Iyengar, volunteers almost half of his time to running the journal. This involves many hours of reading manuscripts, locating reviewers, soliciting their assessments and then evaluating the quality of the submissions. Our Joint Publications Committee relentlessly works on developing the journal and selecting prominent academics to serve as editorial board members. We are very proud that the hard work invested in the journal has raised its reputation and that it is now very highly ranked both in political science and communication.
We recognize that sponsoring a leading journal is important for the division, but the level of dissatisfaction among members led to a very lengthy discussion regarding actions to pursue. Several members advocated that the division end its contract with T&F. Some harsher measures – like calling for our editor and editorial board members to resign from the journal while at the same time initiating a new open-access online title – also were proposed.
We are eager to continue working with Routledge T&F on building an even stronger, more highly ranked journal. But for the long term, this is not possible unless a contract that demonstrates that the publisher appreciates our hard work and intellectual skill is negotiated. Given the overlap in membership between ICA and APSA's political communication divisions, APSA's Political Communication Division undoubtedly will champion a similar if not harsher resolution in its forthcoming meeting.
If I may add, my personal impression (based on conversation with dozens of members at the meeting) is that this discussion is already hurting the reputation of Routledge T&F as a fair publisher among communication scholars in general. There is a significant overlap between our membership and that of related professional organizations on whose RFPs you recently have bid or tried to renegotiate the terms of existing contracts.
We are looking forward to receiving an offer that not only increases our royalties, but also considerably raises your support for the hiring of an editorial assistant for the journal. Please forward your response to me as well as to Joint Publications Committee Chair Prof. Patricia Moy.
At the same time, the division has asked me to let you know that we have decided at the meeting to cancel our online subscription for the journal, given the relatively high costs combined with the fairly low use. We see your online subscription rates for our member as part of a larger financial plan for the journal that does not advantage us.
Sincerely,
Dr. Yariv Tsfati, Chair Political Communication Division, International Communication Association Department of Communication, University of Haifa, ISRAEL http://hevra.haifa.ac.il/~comm/en/staff/show_details.php?UserID=645
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