Intercom — Brazilian Journal of Communication Sciences Version revised in July 2026 and aligned with the current requirements of SciELO (2024 Criteria and DEIA/IDEIA 2026 Principles), Scopus, DOAJ, CNPq Regulation No. 2,664/2026 on the use of Artificial Intelligence, Brazil’s General Data Protection Law (LGPD), and current ABNT technical standards. |
Brief Background
Revista Intercom - Brazilian Journal of Communication Sciences is a publication of the Sociedade Brazileira de Estudos Interdisciplinares da Comunicação (Intercom). Published since 1978, it has steadily improved as a scientific journal and has been published regularly and uninterruptedly since its foundation. Revista Intercom is the oldest of the Communication journals currently in circulation. Since the 1980s, when it was one of only four journals in existence at the time, it has been an important space for scientific dissemination and the democratization of knowledge, contributing to advances and debates in and about the field of Communication. It is currently one of the main publications in the field, and the first to be accredited by the main international indexing databases. In order to guarantee its qualification as a journal, which is a requirement for entry and permanence in indexing databases such as SciELO and Latindex, among others, Revista Intercom has a qualified and diverse Editorial Board, in terms of geography and gender. It also has careful evaluation and editorial processes, prioritizing good practices and ethics in scientific research. The abbreviated title of the journal, which should be used in bibliographies, footnotes, references and bibliographic strips, is Intercom |
Open Access
| This journal follows the Open Access model, allowing unrestricted virtual access (including no financial barriers) to all scientific texts published by the journal. Open Access is a condition whereby the copyright holder of an academic work grants usage rights to third parties through an open license (Creative Commons Attribution, CC-BY), permitting immediate free access to the work and authorizing any user to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose. |
Open Science Compliance
Intercom follows the Diamond Open Access model: all content is made freely available, with no submission, evaluation, publication, or reading fees charged to either authors or readers. The Open Science movement proposes guidelines for a collaborative, shared, and public scientific practice; in line with these guidelines, the journal adopts an open-access policy, a code of good practice for editors, and the use of social media to disseminate published work. The journal requires precise indication of each author’s role in multi-authored works (CRediT taxonomy) and encourages the sharing of analysis datasets, instruments, statistical analysis scripts, interview guides, and additional materials in open repositories such as Zenodo, Figshare, NADAC, QDR, OSF, and SciELO Data. When the data underlying the research cannot be published in full, this must be indicated in the manuscript: articles reporting research results must always indicate and reference the availability (or the reason for the unavailability) of the content underlying their preparation. Intercom encourages the prior publication of articles on public preprint servers, such as SciELO Preprints and EmeRI, allowing for open discussion before final publication. In keeping with Open Science practices, the journal offers authors and reviewers the option of opening up the peer-review process, with or without disclosure of their names. Authorization to disclose a name may be given by authors at the time of submission, and by reviewers on the Review Form. Should the reviews underlying an editorial decision be published, they may be edited by the journal’s editorial team. Section editors' contributions are duly credited in the published article. Reviewers receive formal acknowledgment of their review activity, which may also be automatically recorded on their ORCID profile through system integration. |
Ethics in Publication
Intercom is committed to good practice and follows the standards and recommendations on ethics and responsibility in scientific communication established by leading national and international institutions, including: the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), FAPESP, the SciELO Guide to Good Practice for Strengthening Ethics in Scientific Publishing, and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (version 4.0, 2022), a joint document by COPE, DOAJ, OASPA, and WAME. The journal is committed to standards of ethical conduct for all parties involved in publication — authors, editors, and reviewers — and encourages them to study and follow good practice standards in scientific research. All articles reporting research involving human subjects are expected to present relevant information on the ethical procedures adopted, with proof of approval by a Research Ethics Committee attached at the time of submission, in accordance with regulations governing research with human subjects. No form of unethical conduct, including plagiarism in any instance, is accepted by the journal. By submitting an article, authors declare that the content is original and guarantee that the work has not been published or is not under evaluation at any other journal. To promote the originality of texts, the journal uses textual similarity verification software. Options for Post-Publication Discussion Duties of the Editors-in-Chief
Duties of the Executive Editors
Duties of Reviewers
Duties of Authors
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Focus and Scope
Intercom focuses on Social Communication, respecting the interdisciplinarity and thematic breadth that characterize the field. It publishes original articles, experience reports, work in progress, interviews, and reviews related to Communication Sciences. The editorial process adopts blind peer review as standard practice, sending submissions to specialists for analysis in accordance with the criteria of the editorial policy. Mission Objectives
Continuous flow Previously, the journal was published every four months, in January, May and September. In the new format, the articles no longer have successive and sequential pagination and now have an elocation-id, a unique electronic identifier for each article in the volume. |
Digital Preservation
| This journal follows the standards defined in the SciELO Program's Digital Preservation Policy. The journal is also part of IBICT's Cariniana Digital Preservation Services Network, which provides preservation for any Open Journal System [OJS] journal in Brazil. |
Indexing Sources
Bibliographic Journal Information
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Websites and Social Media
Preprints
Revista Intercom accepts the publication of preprint articles and encourages them to be published on public platforms, such as Preprints, SciELO Preprints and EmeRI, so that, where appropriate, they can be discussed openly before being published. A preprint is a manuscript ready for submission to a journal, deposited on reliable preprint servers before or in parallel with submission to a journal. The use of the preprint is at the author's option, and it is assumed that when the article is submitted to the journal, using the "Open Science Compliance Form", the name of the preprint server and the DOI of the preprint will be informed. The articles submitted to preprints share with the journals the unpublished nature of the publication and the evaluation process will not use the double anonymization procedure, since the authorship will be known.
This information is important so that the editors can assess the originality and relevance of the work submitted, as well as to avoid duplication or redundant information in subsequent publications. |
Peer Review Process
Submitted originals are first analyzed (desk review) by the Editorial Team, for compliance with editorial standards, internal textual coherence, fit with the journal’s editorial line, and contribution to the advancement of knowledge. Reviews are analyzed by the Editorial Team for compliance with publication standards, content, and relevance, and are then sent to the authors with an indication of acceptance, revision, or rejection. In the event of a significant delay at any stage of the review, the Editorial Team will inform the authors of the reason for the delay, communicating the option of withdrawing the manuscript, should they wish to do so. After approval, the article is returned to the authors for review and translation into the second language. Following this step, authors must forward the final versions to editorial production — which includes receipt of the translated article, copyediting, XML, PDF, and HTML typesetting, final proofreading and checking by the editorial team, and submission to databases. Transparency and Optionality Policy in Peer Review Intercom publishes, in the final article, the names of the editors responsible for the review, reinforcing its commitment to the integrity of the editorial process.
In the case of preprints, when the anonymity of the authors cannot be guaranteed, review may be single-blind or open. Opening up the process always depends on agreement among the associate editors and reviewers involved. On Manuscript Processing Times Intercom continuously works to improve its internal management processes, with the aim of reducing manuscript processing time. The interval between receipt and initial screening (desk review) is 30 days. For approved manuscripts, the time between receipt and publication ranges from six to twelve months. |
Open Data
Revista Intercom is committed to the guidelines of the Guia para promoção da abertura, transparência e reprodutibilidade das pesquisas publicadas pelos periódicos SciELO (Diretrizes TOP), with the aim of improving the quality and transparency of published research. These guidelines emphasize the importance of clarity in the evidence supporting the conclusions of studies. To align with these principles, Intercom Journal requests that all datasets associated with submitted manuscripts be accompanied by the "Open Science Compliance Form". This form should be completed in detail by the authors, highlighting how the research adheres to Open Science standards, and submitted as a Supplementary File with the manuscript. This practice ensures that all relevant data is available for review and analysis, contributing to the integrity and reproducibility of scientific research. Adherence to these guidelines reinforces the journal's commitment to transparency and excellence in scientific publishing. All data must be properly cited, including the attributions of each author in co-authored articles, program and method codes using digital object identifiers (DOIs), journal citations or other persistent identifiers. Exceptional situations requiring different treatment, such as confidential information under non-disclosure agreements, must be communicated to the editor no later than the manuscript review stage and clearly mentioned in the Acknowledgements (see guidelines for authors). All the data used in the analysis must be accessible to any researcher with the aim of reproducing or expanding the analysis. The data must be present in the article or deposited in specialized community repositories or in general-purpose repositories. Examples include Zenodo, OSF and the SciELO Data repository. Special situations, such as the protection of privacy or the acquisition of data from third parties, should be discussed with the editor as soon as possible and clearly indicated in the acknowledgements. |
Fees
Intercom does not charge any fee (Article Processing Charge — APC) for published texts, nor for texts submitted for evaluation, review, publication, distribution, or download. Publication is entirely free of charge and open access, at every stage of the editorial process. Because no fees are charged under any circumstances, the journal does not operate a fee-waiver policy: this free-of-charge model is complete and applies equally to all authors, regardless of institutional affiliation, nationality, or source of funding. |
Ethics and Misconduct, Correction and Retraction Policy
Revista Intercom complies with the main guidelines of international and national organizations that serve as a reference of principles and good practices on ethics and negligence for scientific publications and is guided by the main ethics practices of Cope, the “Guia SciELO de Boas Práticas para o Fortalecimento da Ética na Publicação Científica” and the “Princípios de Transparência e Boas Práticas em Publicações Acadêmicas” recommended by Cope, Doaj, Oaspa and Wame. Adopting the guidelines helps editors to detect possible fraud and bad publishing practices. By submitting articles to Revista Intercom, authors automatically declare that the content of the articles is original and unpublished. They also declare that the article has not been published, complete or incomplete, in another journal, even in another language, nor has it been submitted to another journal at the same time. Authors must submit the "Declaration of Submission" as a supplementary file (other) with the manuscript. They also undertake to inform the journal when they detect any errors or inaccuracies in their work (published, under evaluation or being edited) and to collaborate with the editors so that the article can be duly retracted or corrected. The editors and reviewers undertake to evaluate the work submitted to the journal objectively and for its intellectual content, without discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, geographical origin or political thought. They also undertake to treat authors' collaborations confidentially while they are under evaluation and if the work is rejected. Papers will only be evaluated or discussed with third parties with the permission of the journal's editors. Likewise, when there is substantial similarity or evidence that the article under evaluation has already been published in another journal, the evaluators should alert the editors that the article violates the journal's ethical principles. Any deviations or other cases not provided for in this statement should be reported to the journal's editors-in-chief, who will take the appropriate steps to remedy the problem. Cases of plagiarism or similarity will be dealt with in accordance with the guidelines recommended by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). For example, depending on the seriousness of the occurrence, in the event of suspected plagiarism or duplication, the authors will be contacted and the journal may request corrections or even reject the publication. If irregularities are detected after publication, the editors will take the appropriate steps to publish an errata or a retraction, as appropriate.
These policies are fundamental to maintaining the high ethical standards of scientific publication and guaranteeing confidence in the integrity of the content published by Revista Intercom |
Policy on Conflict of Interest
A conflict of interest may be personal, commercial, political, academic, or financial in nature, occurring when authors, reviewers, or editors have interests capable of influencing the preparation or evaluation of a manuscript. Reviewers and editors involved in the evaluation must also declare any conflict of interest in relation to the manuscript or its authors — such as affiliation with the same institution, a recent history of collaboration or co-authored publication, or a personal relationship — declining to review the manuscript when appropriate. |
Adoption of Similarity Software
| As part of its commitment to academic integrity and plagiarism prevention, Intercom has adopted, since issue 47 (2024), the Crossref Similarity Check (iThenticate) textual similarity identification service, natively integrable with OJS via plugin. Other tools and GenAI systems may occasionally be used to verify information (CopySpider, Justdone AI), in addition to AI-generated content detection tools such as ZeroGPT. Integrity checks take place at the start of the editorial evaluation process, prior to peer review, making it possible to identify and address originality issues early in the submission workflow. Manuscripts with a similarity level exceeding 30% relative to other published works, indicating plagiarism, will be rejected. |
Adoption of Software Using Artificial Intelligence Resources
Intercom holds that Artificial Intelligence tools do not meet the fundamental requirements for authorship of a scientific article. Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) tools and Language Models (LLMs) may not be listed as authors or co-authors of any work published by the journal. This policy complies with CNPq Regulation No. 2,664/2026, which established the Scientific Integrity Policy for research funded or supported by CNPq, and also follows the recommendations of the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) on ethical considerations regarding the use of these technologies in scientific manuscripts. Duties of Authors
Uses Considered Valid
In all cases involving the use of AI in writing, in the production of images or graphic elements, or in the compilation and analysis of data, the manuscript must detail, in the Materials and Methods section, how and which tool was used. The use of AI may not, under any circumstances, violate the journal’s plagiarism policy. Duties of Reviewers Reviewers must not use Generative Artificial Intelligence tools to draft, summarize, or otherwise assist in preparing their reviews, nor enter, copy, or share, in whole or in part, the content of the manuscript under review in any generative AI tool. Doing so constitutes a violation of the duty of peer-review confidentiality and of the copyright protections afforded by the blind review process |
Gender and Sex Issues
The editorial team of Revista Intercom, as well as the authors who publish in the journal, must always observe the guidelines on Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER). Intercom also observes the gender equity policy in the formation of its editorial board. The SAGER guidelines aim to promote the systematic reporting of sex and gender in research. To this end, they provide researchers and authors with a tool to standardize the reporting of sex and gender in scientific publications, where appropriate. They are also intended for reviewers and editors, as a tool for evaluating manuscripts and as a vehicle for raising awareness among authors and reviewers. We recognize that not all of the items included in the SAGER guidelines are applicable to every type of study. For this reason, SAGER encourages authors, editors and reviewers to consider whether sex and gender are relevant to the subject of the study and therefore to follow these guidelines where applicable. Distinction between Sex and Gender
What Manuscripts Based on Empirical Research Must Report
It is further recommended that data-collection forms and instruments avoid strictly binary categorizations when the object of study calls for greater social depth, including options for non-binary and transgender identities. Race, Ethnicity, and Inclusion When race and/or ethnicity are relevant variables to the object of study — as in research on media representation, reception, or content production — authors must state and justify the criteria and categories used for their definition and collection (for example, participants’ self-declaration or IBGE [Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics] classification), avoiding treating race as a biological attribute. Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Policy (IDEIA/DEIA) Intercom supports and adopts the principles of Open Science with IDEIA — Impact, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility — as set out in the Declaration formulated by the SciELO Network on the occasion of its 25th anniversary (2023) and detailed in the document “DEIA Principles — Guiding Directions for Journal Editorial Teams ” (2026). In this regard, the journal commits to:
Governance Voluntary Collection of Demographic Data
Accessibility |
Ethics Committee
| When an article involves research procedures with human subjects, or the processing of sensitive personal data under Brazil’s General Data Protection Law (LGPD, Law No. 13,709/2018), authors must attach, during the online submission process, a declaration of approval from the research ethics committee of the institution responsible for the research. |
Copyright
Intercom adopts a copyright policy in compliance with the SciELO Criteria, essential for protecting authors’ interests while promoting the open and ethical dissemination of scientific knowledge. Authors who publish in Intercom retain the copyright to their work: intellectual property remains with the person who wrote it, even though the article is published under the journal’s imprint. Authors grant Intercom the right of first publication. Licensing under Creative Commons Correct Citation of the Original Work |
Intellectual Property and Terms of Use
Site responsibility: the copyright terms applied to content published by Intercom are stated separately and distinctly from the copyright terms applied to the website itself, ensuring transparency regarding rights and responsibilities. Author responsibility: the use of generic names, trade names, or registered trademarks in the publication does not imply that they are free of copyright restrictions. It is the author’s responsibility to secure the permissions necessary to reuse any protected material included in their manuscript. The opinions expressed in the articles are the sole responsibility of their signatories. Self-Archiving by Authors Privacy and Personal Data Protection Statement
Data Subject Rights: data subjects are guaranteed, at any time, the right to confirm the existence of processing, access, correction, anonymization, blocking, or deletion of unnecessary data, portability, information on who the data are shared with, and withdrawal of consent, without prejudice to the editorial history and the public record of already-published articles, which respond to the fulfillment of a legal and scientific obligation. |
Sponsors and Promotion Agencies
| Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) Intercom) |
Editors-in-Chief
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Executive Editors
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Associate Editor
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Section Editors
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Social Media
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Scientific Editorial Board
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Information updated in July 2026 Intercom — Brazilian Journal of Communication Sciences focuses on Social Communication and its interdisciplinary interfaces. Submissions that do not strictly follow these guidelines will be rejected at the initial screening stage and will not proceed to review |
Types of Documents Accepted
Revista Intercom publishes articles resulting from research, critical book reviews and interviews that make a scientific contribution to the field , submitted to the Articles, Arena, Interviews, Reviews, and Preprints sections.
Texts submitted to the Articles and Arena sections follow the double-blind peer-review process described below. Reviews and Interviews are evaluated directly by the Editorial Team for relevance, quality, and contribution to the field, given the more direct, biographical nature of these formats — this exception to the standard peer-review process is explicitly stated here, in accordance with international good practice regarding editorial transparency. Originality Language Articles in other languages may be submitted for review and, if approved, published following translation into Portuguese or Spanish, also at the authors’ expense |
Authors' Contribution
Authorship refers to credit for the published work and entails responsibilities related to it. Intercom uses the CRediT taxonomy; all authors must describe their contribution using the CRediT Form, available under the Submission Requirements. Authorship is recommended to be based on the following four criteria:
All persons listed as authors must meet all four criteria, and all who meet them must be identified as such. Contributors who do not meet all four criteria may be acknowledged in a note of thanks, with prior authorization. Submission implies tacit, public confirmation that all persons listed on the title page participated in preparing the manuscript. Intercom accepts only articles in which: (a) at least one author holds a completed doctoral degree; (b) doctoral candidates may be listed as first author, provided their advisor also signs the article; (c) master’s degree holders may be listed as second author on works signed by a doctoral degree holder. Articles authored or co-authored solely by master’s degree candidates, specialists, or holders/candidates of undergraduate degrees are not accepted. Authors who have already published in the journal must observe a 15-month interval before publishing again as author or co-author. Submission of only one article at a time is recommended, in light of this interval. The maximum number of authors per manuscript is four. |
Manuscript Preparation
| Intercom accepts online submissions through the Open Journal Systems (OJS) platform, available at revistas.intercom.org.br. Manuscripts or supplementary documents sent by email are not accepted. We ask that the requirements below be read carefully. |
Article Submission Format
Authors must proofread the text for spelling and grammar before submission. In case of questions, they may consult the Technical Screening Checklist. Submissions must include: Title Page, the original manuscript (in the journal’s template format), the Open Science Compliance Form, the CRediT Form, the Conflict of Interest Declaration, and the Declaration on the Use of AI and Language Models. Texts of original articles, including abstracts, notes, and references, must not exceed 40,000 characters with spaces. Critical reviews must not exceed 15,000 characters with spaces and must include the complete reference of the book reviewed, with the reviewer’s full name and institutional affiliation. Interviews must be between 20,000 and 30,000 characters with spaces, with a complete reference for the interviewee (full name and affiliation) and a high-resolution photograph (.tiff, .jpg, or .png). With the exception of the title page and supplementary documents, manuscript pages must be submitted without any information identifying the authors — name, email, affiliation, ties to research groups, titles of academic papers presented, or the names of advisors. Where necessary, redacted passages may be replaced with: “Passage removed to preserve blind review.” If the article is approved, this information may be reinstated in the published version. A) Title Page
B) Original Manuscripts — Structure Text Formatting Use of the journal’s official template, which already contains all required formatting, is mandatory. C) Supplementary Documents |
Digital Assets
Use of Illustrations, Tables, and Charts Tables Figures It is mandatory that, after each visualization and its source, Alternative Text (Alt Text) be added with a brief description of the image, essential for access to content via screen readers. This item will be checked by the Editorial Team during the article’s final check before publication, and manuscripts lacking this information will be returned for completion. Images must also be submitted as supplementary files, sized between 10×8 cm and 15×20 cm, with sans-serif text (size 8 to 12), a minimum resolution of 300 DPI, in jpeg, tiff, gif, eps, or bmp format. Charts |
Citations and References
Revista Intercom is obliged to use the following normative instructions from the Brazilian Association of Technical Standards (ABNT):
General recommendations We encourage the use of the full Digital Object Identifier (DOI) (in the format https://doi.org/…), which guarantees a permanent access link to the electronic article. For articles or texts published online without a DOI, provide the complete URL (without shorteners) and the date accessed. References and Citations Examples 1) Books 2) Book Chapters 3) Conference Proceedings 4) Journal Articles 5) Theses and Dissertations 6) Online Publications For further examples, consult ABNT-NBR-6023/2020. For electronic reference-management systems (Mendeley, EndNote, Zotero, or others), adopt the ABNT style as the default. |
Supplementary Documents
To submit a manuscript, use the online submission system available at revistas.intercom.org.br. The submission must include, attached separately:
Before starting, the person responsible for the submission must register in the system as an author and create or link their ORCID record — all authors must have an up-to-date ORCID record and, whenever possible, authenticate via login on the ORCID platform itself. All data and metadata requested by the system must be completed. Authors must also ensure that metadata are completed in the three languages used by Intercom. This includes data about the author, their affiliated institution, and the submitted manuscript. Incomplete author records will be rejected at the desk-review stage. After acceptance, authors must attach an Authors’ Declaration signed by all authors, along with separate high-resolution files of images, illustrations, and charts. Reviewed and translated files must also be attached through the system. |
Financing Statement
It is essential that authors provide detailed information on the sources of support for the work, including: identification of the sponsors (institutions, organizations, or individuals that provided financial or other support), contract or grant/process number details, and the role played by each source of support in the development of the work — study conception, data collection, analysis and interpretation, manuscript drafting, or the decision to submit. The statement must include, without exception: the funding agency’s name in full, the country of origin of the funding, and the grant or process number awarded. |
Additional Information
Once a manuscript is approved, the corresponding author will be notified and will have 30 days to submit the revised Portuguese version and the English translation. For the English version, Intercom will perform a check using the free AJE’s Grammar Check Tool (American Journal Experts — part of Springer Nature); only manuscripts with a language assessment score at or above the 75th percentile will be accepted. After the revised version has been checked, authors will receive a proof of the manuscript (.doc or .docx) with the team’s comments and changes, with a four-day deadline for review. After acceptance, they will receive the finalized version in PDF for approval; corrections at this stage must be limited to typographical errors, without altering content or the author list, with a turnaround of up to 48 hours. As a form of reciprocity with the academic community, Intercom reinforces its commitment to having authors of approved works serve as reviewers for other submissions to the journal. Advertising |
Contact
| INTERCOM - Sociedade Brasileira de Estudos Interdisciplinares da Comunicação AV. BRIG. LUÍS ANTÔNIO, 2.050 - CONJ. 36- BELA VISTA Zip code: 01318-912 - São Paulo - SP - Brazil Phone and WhatsApp: (+55 11) 9.4178-8528 revistaintercom@intercom.org.br |
Read our Open Access Statement