About the Journal

APRJA is an open-access research journal that addresses the ever-shifting thematic frameworks of digital culture. 

The journal’s title APRJA stands for “A Peer-Reviewed Journal About” and invites the addition of a research topic to address what is considered to be a key aspect of contemporary digital culture – and thereby to complete the title of each journal issue. We take a particular interest in aesthetic production and artistic research in relation to the broad field of software studies (including media archaeology, platform politics, and interface criticism).

APRJA takes a fresh perspective on digital culture by including the work of a younger generation of researchers as reflected in the workshop model that generates contents for each issue (see previous workshops and newspapers). The journal seeks to publish new research that promotes a culture based on sharing, open distribution and the on-going exchange of ideas, but without losing sight of rigorous academic conventions of peer-reviewed publication. Since 2014, all submissions are anonymized and distributed to independent qualified experts via our advisory board and extended networks.

APRJA believes that research remains a powerful force in shaping our understanding of the world and the institutions through which we operate. It has an ongoing collaboration with transmediale – festival for art and digital culture, berlin, and thereby places an emphasis on the work of researchers working both within and outside the academy. The annual festival themes act as a point of departure for each journal issue.

As an open-access research journal, APRJA is freely available without charge to the user and his/her/their institution. The author(s) retains the copyright to the published text, and unless stated otherwise, all articles are publshed under the CC license: ‘Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike’, meaning that users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or link to the full text of the articles in this journal for non-commercial purposes without asking prior permission to authors or the publisher (under a creative commons license).

APRJA does not charge authors for Article Processing Costs. 

Authors retain the copyright of their articles, and are allowed to deposit versions of their work in an institutional or other repository of their choice (both submitted, accepted, and published versions).

APRJA is archived by Tidsskrift.dk – the Royal Danish Library’s portal for the publication of professional, scientific and cultural journals in digital full-text. Tidsskrift.dk is also part of the Danish National Strategy for Open Access, which is supported by the Ministry of Education and Research in Denmark.

REVIEW PROCESS:
The review process is divided into three phases.

Firstly (fall), APRJA publishes an annual open call in collaboration with key partner institutions, including Digital Aesthetics Research Center, Aarhus University (the publisher of the journal); Center for the Study of the Networked Image, London South Bank University, transmediale festival for art and digital culture, Berlin, and shifting partner research institutions. Around 15-20 of ca. 60-80 submissions are accepted for the second phase.

Secondly (winter), all accepted participants are asked to share a 1,000 word essay. Both the accepted participants and researchers from the partner institutions respond to these essays online, as well as in person at a three-day common research workshop. At the workshop participants not only engage with key research questions, but also (as indicated in the titles of the journal issues) with the nature of producing research, including the hybrid nature of research (how it exists in written/oral/other/short/long formats), the nature of sharing and reviewing, its mechanisms of in/exclusions, its institutions, its infrastructures, and more. As part of this, the participants collectively produce a joint "newspaper" to be presented and launched at transmediale festival.

Thirdly (spring/summer), the participants are invited to submit full length articles for APRJA. This final stage of the review process ensures that all articles adhere to the highest academic standards for scholarship, and that they provide significant contributions to the journal's field of research. The articles are reviewed by APRJA's editors as well as by one external reviewer (in a double-blind review process) selected from the journal's list of external advisors/reviewers or their extended networks.

All reviewers of APRJA hold a PhD degree within the journal's subject area.