Cinema Journal

Aims & Scope

The Journal of Cinema and Media Studies is the peer-reviewed, scholarly publication of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS).

The journal was renamed (from Cinema Journal) in October 2018.

JCMS’s basic mission is to foster engaged debate and rigorous thinking among humanities scholars of film, television, digital media, and other audiovisual technologies.

We are committed to the aesthetic, political, and cultural interpretation of these media and their production, circulation, and reception.

To that end, JCMS is dedicated to intellectual diversity of all kinds.

We publish critical inquiry into the global, national, and local circulation of a wide variety of media.

We seek to promote a range of approaches to film and media studies and attendant fields, including (but not limited to) digital media, sound studies, visual culture, video game studies, fan studies, and avant-garde and experimental film and media practices.

We do not adhere to any methodological approach to media studies, nor do we focus on particular emphases in the field.

The journal is open to all areas of humanities-oriented scholarship in media studies, including digital humanities.

Abstracting & Indexing

Journal is indexed in leading academic databases, ensuring global visibility and accessibility of our peer-reviewed research.

• Scopus
• Google Scholar

Subjects & Keywords

Journal’s research areas, covering key disciplines and specialized sub-topics in Arts and Humanities, designed to support cutting-edge academic discovery.

Most Cited Articles

The Most Cited Articles section features the journal's most impactful research, based on citation counts. These articles have been referenced frequently by other researchers, indicating their significant contribution to their respective fields.

• A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre

  Citation: 133

  Authors: Rick

• Pleasure, Ambivalence, Identification: Valentino and Female Spectatorship

  Citation: 99

  Authors: Miriam

• "Something's Missing Here!": Homosexuality and Film Reviews during the Production Code Era, 1934-1962

  Citation: 84

  Authors: Chon

• "Something Else besides a Mother": "Stella Dallas" and the Maternal Melodrama

  Citation: 80

  Authors: Linda

• The Politics of Film Canons

  Citation: 76

  Authors: Janet

• Crossing Wavelengths: The Diegetic and Referential Imaginary of American Commercial Television

  Citation: 63

  Authors: Mimi

• Reforming "Jackass Music": The Problematic Aesthetics of Early American Film Music Accompaniment

  Citation: 52

  Authors: Tim

• "The Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat": Carmen Miranda, a Spectacle of Ethnicity

  Citation: 51

  Authors: Shari

• When Is a Documentary?: Documentary as a Mode of Reception

  Citation: 50

  Authors: Dirk

• "Stop Reading Films!": Film Studies, Close Analysis, and Gay Pornography

  Citation: 49

  Authors: John