About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Public Journal of Semiotics publishes articles that are original, relevant for the field of semiotics (understood broadly as the systematic study of meaning and communication), and combine theoretical and empirical considerations in a productive combination.

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. It is also fully free of charge for authors.

The journal operates under the Creative Commons Licence CC BY-NC. This allows for the reproduction of articles, free of charge, for non-commercial use only and with the appropriate citation information. All authors publishing with PJOS accept these as the terms of publication.

Peer Review Process

The editor-in-chief makes an initial assessment if a submission meets the basic criteria of originality (the paper does not repeat what is already known within its specfic topic and the field in general), relevance (for the field of semiotics, gererally construed) and structure (with clear section divisions, from Introduction to Conclusion), and abides by the conditions given under Submission Preparation Checklist and Ethics and malpratice.

If so, the anonymised submission is sent to two anonymous reviewers that are experts in the field, i.e. a double-blind review procedure. The reviews should provide both general and specific comments, and recommendation on acceptance. They are expected within two months, and thus a decision on acceptance and if so, degree of revision needed, is normally made within 4 months from submission.

Indexing

The journal's publications are indexed in SCOPUS, as well as international databases and search engines like EBSCO and Google Scholar, as well as Swedish ones like Libris. 

Journal History

Public Journal of Semiotics (PJOS) was established in 2007 by Prof. Paul Bouissac, at Victoria University / University of Toronto, Canada, as "a nonprofit organization, ... available online free of charge. Its aim is to publish original research articles in domains relating to semiotics". Four volumes and 8 issues were published until 2012. From 2013 and Vol. 5 Prof. Jordan Zlatev, at Lund University Sweden, assumed the role of editor-in-chief, with the intention to follow the original aims of the project, interpreting "semiotics" broadly as the systematic study of meaning, in perception, cognition, communication, language and any kind of media. A number of people have served as assistant editors during the past years, including Mats Andrén, Johan Blomberg, Georgios Stampoulidis and Katja Woxell.