The memoirs of Emmy award-winning screenwriter Stanley Rubin and an analysis of computer-generated poetry are featured in the first issue of the new online Journal of Media Studies, founded by Mark Williams, the chair of Dartmouth's film and television studies department. The journal, which debuted this month, will make peer-reviewed articles about electronic media available to the public free of charge and provide a forum for readers to discuss the articles.
Williams said he hopes the journal, which focuses on electronic media, will bring prominence to Dartmouth's department of film and media.
"[E-media] might mean early sound in motion pictures; it might mean a computer interface," Williams said.
An online journal can publish articles more cheaply and easily than a print journal, making the journal more accessible to the public, said David Seaman, associate librarian for information management.
"It is an open-access journal that everyone can read, which has two implications," Seaman said. "It allows a non-scholarly audience to find it and take part in the discussion, and it also means that it is available across the developing world because there are many parts of the world that find it difficult to buy printed journals."
Since the journal is online, articles can be published immediately after the editors have reviewed them and articles do not have to be held until an entire issue has been completed. The online format also allows authors to embed graphics and film clips into their articles, which would be impossible in a print medium, Seaman said.
The journal also allows readers to comment on a "feedback blog" for each article.
The new journal will not compete with pre-existing e-media journals because it serves a different purpose, Williams said. "Happily, [the other journals] work in a very complementary way -- some are based on a very quick turnaround. Others are based on extremely time-extensive graphic design and we want to be a blind, peer-reviewed journal in the traditional sense."
Writers can submit articles in electronic or print form. Williams then alters the articles to hide the authors' identity before the journal's editorial board can review them, Williams said. Authors' names are then restored for publication.
Although the journal was founded as a "professional archive of e-media articles," anyone can submit entries and Williams said he hopes the journal will appeal to a variety of people, including Dartmouth students and alumni.
"We've designed the features of the journal to be not solely devoted to academic research, but also open to significant professional memories of people who worked in the industries and more conversational pieces with figureheads in the world of electronic media," he said.
Williams said at least one of his former students is considering submitting a piece.
"We hope that graduate students and faculty members and researchers and people who are part of the broader media studies community will think of this as an outlet for their research," he said.
Williams said he hopes the journal will continue to explore the wide range of subjects evident in the first issue.
"It features a piece about Chris Marker, who's one of the great avant garde filmmakers, but it also has a long conversation with Horace Newcomb, who is an intrinsically important figure in the development of film studies," he said. "Having that kind of scope of content is very exciting to me."
