Aims and Scope

The Asian Journal of Media and Culture (AJMC) is a peer-reviewed, open-access scholarly journal dedicated to advancing critical, empirical, theoretical, comparative, and research synthesis scholarship on the intersections of media, culture, technology, and society. The journal provides an international academic forum for examining how media institutions, technologies, digital platforms, representations, communication practices, and cultural production shape—and are shaped by—cultural identities, social relations, political power, knowledge production, and broader societal transformations.

AJMC places Asia at the center of its intellectual and geographical orientation, while recognizing that contemporary media and cultural processes increasingly operate through transnational, cross-regional, and South–South connections. The journal therefore gives particular attention to scholarship concerning Asia and the Global South, including media and cultural relations connecting Asia with Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and other regions. Research from other geographical contexts is also welcome when it offers meaningful comparative perspectives, transnational connections, theoretical contributions, or insights relevant to broader debates in media and cultural studies.

AJMC particularly encourages scholarship that connects locally grounded empirical contexts with broader scholarly questions and international debates. Studies focusing on particular countries, communities, platforms, media industries, audiences, or cultural practices should move beyond descriptive accounts and demonstrate how their findings extend, test, challenge, refine, or develop existing knowledge in media and cultural studies.

The journal prioritizes manuscripts that articulate a clear scholarly problem, critically engage with relevant literature, employ rigorous and appropriate methodological or analytical approaches, and make an identifiable theoretical, conceptual, methodological, empirical, comparative, or research synthesis contribution.

Thematic Scope

AJMC welcomes scholarship in media and cultural studies, including, but not limited to, the following areas:

1. Digital Media and Platform Cultures — social media, digital platforms, streaming media, algorithms, artificial intelligence, creator cultures, digital communities, platformization, datafication, and emerging media technologies.
2. Media, Culture, and Representation — media representation, cultural identity, gender, ethnicity, race, religion, social class, minorities, popular culture, visual culture, and the construction and negotiation of identities through media.
3. Media Industries and Cultural Production — journalism, film, television, music, publishing, creative industries, political economy of media, cultural labor, content production, and transformations in the production, circulation, and distribution of culture.
4. Political Communication, Power, and Public Culture — political communication, media and power, propaganda, media regulation and censorship, misinformation and disinformation, digital activism, resistance, conflict, social movements, and mediated public spheres.
5. Transnational Media and Cultural Flows — cultural globalization and localization, cultural hybridity, diasporic media, cross-border media circulation, fan cultures, audience reception, cultural flows, and South–South cultural exchange.
6. Media, Religion, and Society — digital religion, mediated religion, religious communication, representations of religion, religious authority in digital environments, religious identities, and transformations of religious practices and communities through media.
7. Cultural Heritage, Memory, and Indigenous Media — cultural heritage, local and Indigenous knowledge, traditional media, collective memory, cultural archives, digital preservation, and the relationship between cultural traditions and contemporary media transformations.
8. Media Technologies and Social Transformation — artificial intelligence, algorithms, automation, platformization, datafication, digital inequality, digital citizenship, and the social and cultural implications of technological change.

Types of Scholarly Contributions

AJMC welcomes original empirical research, theoretical and conceptual studies, comparative and transnational research, historical media and cultural studies, and rigorous review and research synthesis scholarship. The journal is open to qualitative, quantitative, mixed-method, historical, comparative, ethnographic, digital, computational, textual, visual, and interdisciplinary approaches, provided that the chosen approach is appropriate to the research question and generates a clear scholarly contribution.

Regardless of methodological approach, manuscripts should demonstrate originality, analytical rigor, methodological transparency, and relevance to contemporary debates in media and cultural studies.

Review and Research Synthesis Scholarship

AJMC recognizes rigorous review and research synthesis as important forms of original academic contribution. The journal welcomes systematic literature reviews, scoping reviews, integrative reviews, critical reviews, theoretical reviews, bibliometric studies, and other methodologically robust forms of research synthesis relevant to media and cultural studies.

Review articles should move beyond descriptive summaries of existing literature. They are expected to employ transparent and appropriate methodological and analytical procedures consistent with the type of review undertaken, critically evaluate existing scholarship, identify theoretical and methodological developments, examine patterns, debates, and areas of convergence or contestation, reveal significant research gaps, and generate original conceptual, theoretical, comparative, or methodological insights.

AJMC particularly encourages research synthesis addressing emerging media phenomena, underrepresented scholarly traditions, and knowledge production across Asia and the Global South, including studies that foster dialogue between regional scholarship and wider international academic debates.

Out of Scope

AJMC generally does not consider manuscripts that are primarily descriptive, lack a clearly articulated scholarly problem or identifiable academic contribution, provide generic literature summaries without transparent analytical procedures, or address social, political, economic, educational, religious, or other issues without media and/or culture constituting a substantive component of the research object, analytical framework, or central argument.