About the Journal

Focus and Scope

The Journal of Professional Communication is supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

The Journal of Professional Communication is housed in the Department of Communication Studies & Multimedia, in the Faculty of Humanities at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

JPC is an international journal launched to explore the intersections between public relations practice, communication and new media theory, communications management, as well as digital arts and design.

JPC publishes case studies, interviews, peer-reviewed academic articles, works of digital media art and design, and commentary on current trends in the field.

JPC is inclusive and exciting. JPC aims to capture the zeitgeist of professional communication in Canada and internationally.

JPC's scope is purposefully very broad, and its readership international, reflecting the broad, global nature of practice and research in field of professional communication. We invite you to become part of the JPC community.

Please contact either Alex Sévigny or Terry Flynn for more information, guidance or help concerning submitting a manuscript. We welcome your comments, your participation and your enthusiasm. We also welcome any ideas about how to improve JPC - it's your journal, after all.

Peer Review Process

All research articles, case studies and practical papers are strictly peer reviewed using a double blind process by at least two reviewers.

Publication Frequency

The JPC is published twice year, once in June and once in December.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Journal History

A Little JPC Folk History...

In 2009, Alex Sévigny and Terry Flynn had a very long conversation. Alex had co-founded (with Graham Knight) theCommunication Studies program in the Faculty of Humanities at McMaster University in 2001, and co-founded (with Philip Savage) the COMM-Lab: Communication Metrics Lab in 2010. Terry founded the Master of Communications Managementprogram in the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University. The conversation revolved around the need for a fully peer reviewed journal that linked academic researchers, academic artists and designers, professional communicators and creative professionals together in a scholarly forum. This forum should be a place of conversation and debate, inquiry and creativity and should be open and modern, yet meet the highest international academic standards. The forum should be based in Canada, but international in scope. We did a name-search on the Internet and found that there was no Journal of Professional Communication. Thus was born the idea for JPC.

In January of 2010, the JPC became a reality, with the generous financial and institutional support of McMaster's Dean of Humanities, Dr. Suzanne Crosta. Dr Alexandre Sévigny is Founding Editor-in-Chief and Dr. Terry Flynn is Founding Senior Associate Editor.

In October of 2014, JPC was awarded an Aid to Scholarly Publications grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).