Retraction, Withdrawal, and Correction (R-W-C) Policy

Research Integrity & Scholarly Record

A retraction may be issued when published findings, analyses, interpretations, or evidence are considered unreliable, invalid, or seriously compromised by error or misconduct.

• Fabrication, falsification, manipulated data, major analytical error, or serious miscalculation;
• Redundant or duplicate publication;
• Plagiarism, manipulated authorship, or other serious ethical violations;
• Research involving human participants conducted without required ethical approval or informed consent;
• Manipulation of peer review or other publication processes;
• Fabricated interviews, quotations, survey responses, media data, communication records, or research sources; or
• Serious misrepresentation of communication data, digital-media evidence, audience data, or research findings.

Retraction notices identify the affected article, explain the reason factually, remain publicly available, and are linked to the original article. Where possible, the original article remains accessible with a clear indication that it has been retracted.

Withdrawal is generally limited to manuscripts that have not yet become the final Version of Record (VoR).

Before Publication

An accepted but unpublished manuscript may be withdrawn in exceptional circumstances, such as duplicate submission, major errors that invalidate the results, serious ethical or authorship violations, unresolved copyright concerns, or significant problems involving participant confidentiality or communication data.

After Publication

Removal of a Version of Record is strongly discouraged and considered only in exceptional circumstances involving legal requirements, privacy or participant-safety concerns, defamation risks, serious copyright or intellectual-property violations, confidential communication materials, or other circumstances in which continued public availability would create substantial harm. A withdrawal notice and relevant bibliographic metadata will normally remain available.

An Expression of Concern may be issued when serious questions have been raised about a published article but sufficient evidence for a correction or retraction is not yet available. This may occur while an investigation involving data reliability, authorship, ethical approval, participant consent, media evidence, communication records, digital data, or other research-integrity matters is ongoing, inconclusive, or delayed. The notice may later be updated or replaced following the outcome of the investigation.

Corrections are published when an error affects the accuracy, interpretation, attribution, or discoverability of an article but does not invalidate its principal findings.

• Minor factual, numerical, coding, or data-presentation errors;
• Incorrect author, affiliation, title, citation, DOI, or other metadata;
• Errors in tables, figures, captions, communication models, media examples, or statistical outputs;
• Missing acknowledgments or funding information;
• Missing or incomplete ethical, consent, data-availability, or conflict-of-interest declarations; or
• Errors in descriptions of communication datasets, participant characteristics, media content, or analytical procedures that do not invalidate the main conclusions.

Articles already assigned to an issue normally receive a separate correction notice linked to the original publication. Minor typographical changes that do not alter meaning generally do not require a formal correction.

Record Integrity: Amendment notices are designed to preserve transparency in the scholarly record. The journal will avoid silently removing or materially altering published content when a formal correction, retraction, withdrawal, or Expression of Concern is more appropriate.