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The US-dominance in the field of communication is huge and much greater than in
other disciplines. While an analysis of SCI revealed that US-scholars authored one
third of all articles (Grupp, Schmoch & Hinze 2001), this analysis shows that scholars
from the US author more than two thirds of communication articles. While in all SCI
journals the US and the UK rank thirteenth and sixth if population size is taken into
account (Inögü 2003), in communication journals they rank first and third (see table
1).
We cannot tell whether the review process leads to a higher or lower national
diversity because information about the review process was missing. However, what
we can say is that 84 percent of all managing editors are from the US. With editorial
boards consisting of less than five percent international membership, nearly one-third
of all journals are not prepared to review international manuscripts, leaving out
possible external reviewers.
The analysis reveals that the international orientation of an affiliated
organization does not lead to national diversity. Only the age of journals and
international orientation affected the internationality. Older journals seem tied to a
more national context. Even if an explicitly stated international orientation had an
effect, the national diversity of most international oriented journals was low. One
explanation could be that the willingness or capability of non-US scholars to provide
enough manuscripts in English is, at the moment, limited.
Most of the ISI and so-called major international journals in the field of
communication are exclusively US journals and few are international. If ISI really
wants to become a serious worldwide-accepted currency for research output in the
field of communication, more journals have to be included. As in other disciplines—
e.g. political sciences, sociology or psychology—important national (not solely from
Convention