Code of Ethics

This Code of Ethics establishes the principles to ensure the integrity of the editorial process. It follows the  Code of Ethical Conduct of the University of Minho 2025 and the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), promoting transparency, accountability, and impartiality at all stages of the editorial process. Editors and reviewers are also encouraged to consult and base their practices on COPE’s Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers.

1. Guiding Principles
Editorial decision-making: all decisions regarding the publication of manuscripts must be based solely on their academic relevance. Commercial considerations shall not influence editorial decisions.
Impartiality: editorial decisions must be free from biases of a personal, political, religious, gender, sexual orientation, national, or ethnic nature. To ensure compliance with this principle, peer review is double-blind.
Confidentiality: material submitted for editorial review shall be treated confidentially and shared only with those necessary to carry out the review process. Editors must ensure that reviewers adhere to the same requirement.
Conflict of interest: all participants in the publication process (authors, reviewers, and editors) must disclose any financial, academic, or personal conflicts of interest that could affect their judgment.
Prevention of plagiarism and undeclared use of artificial intelligence: to prevent and detect plagiarism and undeclared artificial intelligence (AI) use, all manuscripts accepted for publication will be screened using a plagiarism detection tool and subjected to editorial review.
Human responsibility: authors, reviewers, and editors are responsible for the scientific content, in accordance with their respective roles in the editorial process.
Retractions: retractions will be published whenever justified (for example, when an error significantly compromises the validity of the work due to serious mistakes or misconduct). Scientific errors identified by authors, readers, reviewers, or editors must be reported to Comunicação e Sociedade via comunicacaoesociedade@ics.uminho.pt. Any retraction will be prominently displayed on the same landing page as the manuscript.

2. Responsibilities of Editors
Eligibility: evaluate whether manuscripts submitted in response to a call for papers meet the quality standards required to enter the editorial process.
Management of the peer review process: ensure that all manuscripts undergo a fair, transparent, and impartial peer review. This includes documenting each stage of the process and providing consistent feedback to authors.
Selection of reviewers: appoint at least two reviewers with appropriate expertise who have no conflicts of interest with respect to the manuscript or its authors.
Ethical considerations: where applicable, editors must ensure that the research underlying published manuscripts has undergone ethical review and received approval, including a positive ethics opinion issued by the appropriate body or bodies (Ethics Council/Committee/Board).
Editorial decisions: editorial decisions are made by the directors/editors, informed by reports from accredited reviewers.

3. Responsibilities of Reviewers
Objectivity: reviewers must provide evaluations that are objective, evidence-based, and constructive, excluding any personal criticism directed at the authors. Constructive feedback may include, for example, suggestions for methodological adjustments or additional references.
Timeliness: reviewers must inform the editors if they are unable to complete the review within the agreed-upon timeframe. Failure to do so may affect overall publication schedules.
Confidentiality: reviewers must maintain the confidentiality of the manuscripts they review and must not use them for personal purposes.
Conflict of interest: reviewers must disclose any potential conflicts of interest or any inability to review a manuscript before accepting the request. Information provided by reviewers regarding conflicts of interest will be treated confidentially and used solely to determine the appropriateness of the review.

4. Responsibilities of Authors
Comunicação e Sociedade follows the authorship guidelines established by the ICMJE in the Recommendations on Authorship and Contributor Roles, available here.
Author status: only individuals who meet all four criteria for authorship are considered authors: (a) have made a substantial intellectual contribution to the conception and design of the article; (b) participate in the analysis and interpretation of data; (c) participate in drafting the manuscript, revising versions, critically reviewing the content, and approving the final version; (d) agree to take responsibility for the accuracy and integrity of the entire work.
All other contributors to the manuscript who do not meet the authorship criteria above should be acknowledged in the “Acknowledgements” section, with their specific contributions clearly indicated.
Credit and collaboration: properly recognise all significant contributions to the work, listing only those who meet the criteria for authorship. Individual author contributions must be included in the submitted manuscript metadata, using the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT), which identifies 14 specific roles.
Artificial intelligence: AI tools (e.g., large language models, chatbots) cannot be credited as authors, as they are not legal entities and cannot assert conflicts of interest or establish copyright or licensing agreements (COPE statement). If AI tools are used, authors must explicitly disclose this in the manuscript and in the “comments to the editor” field at submission, specifying the tool’s name, version, and purpose (e.g., translation, editing, formatting support).
Citations of content generated by generative AI must be referenced as a non-recoverable source or as equivalent to personal communication, following current APA standards, for example: OpenAI. (2025). ChatGPT (Version 4) [Large language model].
Originality: submit only original work and avoid all forms of plagiarism, including self-plagiarism. Redundant publication, also known as self-plagiarism, occurs when an author publishes the same work, or a substantial part of it, more than once. This can occur even if the original and subsequent publications are in different media or languages.
Accuracy and transparency: ensure that data are accurate and that methods are described in sufficient detail to allow replication.
Conflict of interest: disclose any relevant conflicts of interest that could influence the submitted work, including funding sources or personal relationships.
Retraction and correction: cooperate with the retraction process in cases of error or misconduct.
Corresponding author: unless otherwise indicated, the corresponding author is considered the primary author and has the authority to represent the co-authors. They bear primary responsibility for all communication with Comunicação e Sociedade during the editorial process and must remain available to address queries or resolve any issues.
Marketing and communication: authors are encouraged to promote their research through digital channels such as email or social media. Promotion must be conducted responsibly, ensuring that the integrity of the content, authorship, data, or any stage of the publication process is never compromised.

5. Transparency and Integrity Practices
Open access: all manuscripts published by Comunicação e Sociedade are open access and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright: authors retain copyright while granting Comunicação e Sociedade the right of first publication.
Funding and sponsorship: Comunicação e Sociedade clearly discloses all sources of funding or sponsorship, whether provided to authors for the development of the research underpinning the submitted manuscripts or to the journal for their publication.
Policy statements: instructions for authors are available at https://revistacomsoc.pt/index.php/revistacomsoc/about/submissions. The peer review process is described at https://revistacomsoc.pt/index.php/revistacomsoc/review. Comunicação e Sociedade encourages authors to deposit the research data necessary to validate published results in a reliable repository with a preservation plan and persistent identifiers. The portal re3data.org is recommended for identifying an appropriate repository. University of Minho authors may use DataRepositóriUM, while general repositories such as Zenodo are suitable otherwise.
Scientific integrity: generative AI tools must never replace authors’ intellectual contributions. Authors remain responsible for the originality, veracity, accuracy, and integrity of their work.
Research involving humans and animals: editors should ensure that published research complies with recognised international guidelines, such as the Declaration of Helsinki for clinical research, or AERA and BERA guidelines for educational research. Authors must provide a statement confirming compliance. Where applicable, research must be approved by an appropriate body (e.g., an ethics committee or an institutional review board). Approval does not automatically guarantee that the research is ethical.

6. Updating and Maintaining the Code
This Code will be reviewed as necessary to reflect best practices and developments in the field of scientific communication. Revisions will be documented and made publicly available on the Comunicação e Sociedade website. Suggestions for improvement may be submitted to the journal for consideration in future updates.