Virtual Communication and Social Networks is an interdisciplinary journal that publishes full articles, reviews, short communication articles and book reviews in Russian and English language.

Technical requirements for the manuscript

• Do not use formatting and page numbering, take into account the requirements for the manuscript structure.
• Font – Times New Roman, font size – 10, line spacing – 1.0. Do not indent a paragraph with tabulation or series of spaces.
• Submit the manuscript as a .doc, .docx, .rtf file.
• The journal publishes three types of articles:
• Original article: the volume is 15–30 thousand characters with spaces, 20–40 sources in the list of references.
• Review article: the volume is 50–80 thousand characters with spaces, 80+ sources in the list of references.
• Short communication article, book review: the volume is up to 6 thousand characters.
• Abstract, keywords, footnotes and a list of references count towards the volume of the article.
• Provide the title of the article, information about the author(s), abstract, keywords, figure and table captions in Russian and English language.
• The originality of the article must reach at least 75 %. The volume of borrowing from one source should not exceed 6 %. Plagiarism is prohibited.

Manuscript structure

1. Metadata in Russian

Type of manuscript (full article / review / short communication article / book review).
Title of the article. 
Full names of the authors. The full first name and patronymic are written before the last name.
The author's organization. It is necessary to provide the official name of the institution, the city and country it is located in, separated by a comma. If authors are from different institutions, correlate the names of institutions and the authors by adding upper case numeric indexes before the names of institutions and after the full name of the authors.
The e-mail of the correspondent author.
Abstract. Write informative, original abstract that includes all aspects of the article: subject, purpose, methods, results and conclusions in 150–250 words.
Keywords. Provide 6–10 words for the indexing of the article in search engines.

2. Metadata in English

• Type of manuscript (full article / review / short communication article / book review).
• Title of the article.
• The names of the authors. Write first name, patronymic (abbreviated), last name. The transliteration of the author’s name must be identical to the one presented in the ORCID profile, passport, or previously published articles.
• The author's organization. The official English name of the institution.
• The e-mail of the correspondent author.
• Abstract. The English version of the abstract must fully correspond to the Russian version and be correct from the point of view of the English language.
• Keywords. Keywords in English.

3. The manuscript

• Divide the text into sections following the IMRAD structure or into titled semantic parts.
  • Introduction describes the topic of the study, its objectives and relevance, presents a brief review of the scientific literature on the topic;
  • Methods and materials contain description of the research methods and materials as well as the analysis of the original experimental research. If the article is devoted to theoretical research, this section must contain its theoretical foundations;
  • Results present processed experimental or theoretical data obtained during the study as text and tables, graphs, diagrams, equations, photographs, drawings. The section can be divided into subsections with semantic titles. Examples from the research material (linguistic units, quotations from works of art) must be presented in italics without quotation marks.
  • Discussion correlates the obtained results with other studies.
  • Conclusion contains the main ideas of the article, comparison of the obtained results with expected ones, describes novelty and practical significance of results, provides conclusions and recommendations as well as the main directions for further research.
  • Visual materials. Include figures and tables that are adequate to the article and provide new information, not duplicated in the text. Visual materials should be designed for a clear, complete and structured presentation of information.
  • Place visual materials with captions in the body of the article and enumerate them if there is more than one.
• Reference visual materials in the text.
  • Provide figure captions in both Russian and English language.
  • Enclose graphs, diagrams, charts, figures made in MS Office as separate .xls, .vsd or .doc files.
  • Provide scanned drawings, photographs as separate .tif, .jpg, .png or .pdf files with a resolution >300 dpi.
  • Create tables that can be edited, do not include them as images.
• References to unpublished works, state documents (decrees, laws, etc.), historical documents, newspaper articles, Internet sources without authorship (forums, blogs, etc.), examples from fiction, encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc. are given as footnotes.
• Additional information
  • Conflict of Interests: this section indicates a real or potential conflict of interests. If there is no conflict of interests, you should write that “the author declares that there is no conflict of interests regarding the publication of this article”. Please make sure you have informed the Editor in advance about any kind of potential conflict of interests. Should the Editor reveal it during the initial check-up, your manuscript can be rejected.
  • Authorship and Contribution: specify the contribution of each author; CRediT may help you to define their roles in the project. 
  • Acknowledgments: This section is optional and contains an expression of gratitude to those who contributed to the research.
  • Funding: indicate the organization that supported your research and the publication of this article. Remember that by failing to indicate funding source you may cause a conflict of interests.
• List of references. It is a mandatory structural part, which reflects the scientific coverage of the topic and allows you to verify the reliability of the data used in the study. The list of references allows you to recognize and use the ideas of other authors, avoid accusations of plagiarism as well as demonstrate the scale and depth of research by quoting the works of other authors and their previous publications. References to the latest publications and foreign literature can highlight the relevance of a scientific publication.
  • The editorial office does not accept for publication manuscripts without a list of references.
  • Include in the list of references only the sources used to write the article.
  • Provide 20–40 sources for an original scientific article, for a review article – 80+.
  • Reference all sources in the body of the article by specifying the author / authors (if there are two) / the author et al. (if there are 3 or more), the year of publication and the cited pages within square brackets. Separate different sources by semicolons and arrange them alphabetically. When referencing a range of pages, use a dash (not a hyphen). For example: [Ivanov 2010: 78], [Ivanov, Petrov 2015: 403], [Sidorov et al. 2020: 7–8], [Ivanov 2010: 78; Ivanov, Petrov 2015: 403; Sidorov et al. 2020: 7–8].
  • If you need to cite two sources with the same author and year of publication, add a letter to the year of publication: 2010a, 2010b, 2010c.
  • Place the list of references after the body of the article in alphabetical order (first the sources in Russian, then in foreign languages), preceded by the words References.
  • Instead of including dissertations, abstracts of dissertations, educational and methodological manuals, it is better to reference articles from scientific journals, conference materials, monographs, etc., published by the same author.
  • Include 7–10 sources published in the last 5 years.
  • Limit self-citation to 10 % of references from the total number of sources. Use of self-citation should be justified.
  • Provide the description of the sources in accordance with Russian National Standard (GOST 7.05-2008 Bibliographic reference. General requirements and rules of compilation). The description of the source in Latin is based on the Chicago style citation. Replace slashes and hyphens used in GOST with commas and dots.
  • The bibliographic description of the publication includes:
    • the last name and initials of every author (regardless of their number),
    • the full title of the work,
    • title of the book or journal (if specified),
    • city, publisher's name, year of publication,
    • volume (for multi-volume publications); volume and issue (for periodicals),
    • for articles – the numbers of the first and last page; for monographs – the total number of pages.
  • If the source has DOI, add it to the bibliographical description.
  • When referring to a part of a book or collection (article, chapter, section, etc.), indicate its first and last pages in the list of references.
  • Provide a translation or transliteration of the source in square brackets after the Russian description.
  • Transliteration of the Russian authors’ last name should match the one provided in their other publications (in foreign language) or in their profiles (ORCID, Scopus). If there is no such information, use transliteration according to the LC standard (Library of Congress).
  • Do not transliterate the names of foreign authors, instead use their name as it is originally written (for example, J. Austin – J. Austen, not Dzh. Ostin).
  • If the title of publication is written in alphabet, other than Latin, translate it into English. If authors of the source material already provided a translation, use the author’s version translation. You can find this information on the website of a particular journal or in digital scientific library (eLIBRARY.RU).
  • Provide the names of journals written in alphabet, other than Latin, according to how the journals prefer to be quoted. If the journal has no such information, then use transliteration according to the LC standard. Italicize the name of the journal.
  • If the source text written in alphabet, other than Latin, then the language of the publication is indicated in parentheses at the end of the description, for example (In Russ.), (In Jap.), (In Ukr.), etc.

Publication ethics

The Journal Virtual Communication and Social Networks is guided by the principles of publication ethics based on the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Publishing Ethics Resource Kit (Elsevier), and the Decree on Ethical Principles of Scientific Publications issued by the Association of Science Editors and Publishers.

All those involved in the publishing process (the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer, the publisher and the editorial office) are to observe the abovementioned codes of publication ethics.

1. Duties of the Publisher

• The policy of the Journal is based on respect for the individual rights of the author and intellectual property rights.

• The publisher ensures independent and conscientious consideration of all submitted manuscripts, without prejudice against ethnic, religious, or social status of their authors and regardless of commercial interests and relations with the founder.

• The publisher shall work to ensure and improve the quality of published materials and meet the needs of readers and authors to make a significant contribution to the development studies of virtual communication and social networks.

• Our editorial principles involve relevance, importance, clarity, reliability, and validity of the published research material. Credibility, reproducibility, uniqueness, fullness, balance, and transparency are the main indicators of quality of the publications.

• The publisher strives to attract and recruit highly qualified professionals who can contribute to the development of the Journal.

• The publisher shall constantly improve the processes of reviewing and editing.

• The publisher shall guarantee that all submitted manuscripts are checked for image manipulation, plagiarism, and duplicate or redundant publications.

• The publisher shall take all necessary measures in case of conflict and publish improvements, clarifications, refutations, and apologies if necessary.

2. Duties of the Editorial office

• The editorial office publishes information for authors, including the formatting requirements, submission and review procedures.

• The editorial office ensures independent and conscientious consideration of all submitted manuscripts, without prejudice against ethnic, religious, or social status of their authors and regardless of any commercial interests and relations with the publisher.

• The editorial office has the right to reject a badly written manuscript that does not meet the formatting requirements or contains evidence of slander, plagiarism, or copyright infringement. The final decision on the publication of an article or refusal of such is taken by the editor-in-chief and is fair and unprejudiced.

• Manuscripts submitted to the editorial office are checked for borrowings from open sources (plagiarism). The check is carried out through the Internet resources (www.antiplagiat.ru and https://crosscheck.ithenticate.com). Should multiple unauthorized borrowings be detected, the editorial office follows the COPE algorithm.

• The editorial office ensures confidentiality, which means that the submitted manuscript cannot be demonstrated to anyone other than the respective authors, reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher.

• The editorial office ensures that the materials of the rejected manuscript will not be used in the board members’ own research without the written consent of the author.

• The editorial office shall promptly examine each complaint about any possible unethical behavior of the authors of submitted and published articles and undertake appropriate measures. Should the unethical behaviour be proved, the editorial office has the right to refuse to publish the article, cease further cooperation with the author, publish a retraction, or take other necessary measures to further curb unethical behavior of the author in question.

• Should an error be detected, amendments shall be provided as soon as possible. When the online version of the article is corrected, it is provided with the correction date and a reference to the errata published.

3.Duties of Authors

• Authors guarantee that the manuscript they submit meets the formatting requirements.

• Authors guarantee that the submitted manuscript contains authentic results that have never been published and are not being reviewed by other journals.

• Deliberately erroneous or forged data and conclusions are unacceptable.

• Authors are free to post the initial draft of their manuscript on such public preprint servers as bioRxiv, arXiv, or in the related repository. In this case they should inform the Journal about it and provide a link to the preprint. However, they cannot post their article on preprint servers if it has already been published by the Journal or improved to meet the requirements of the editorial board or reviewers, as it might be regarded as a duplicate publication. When citing an article published in the Journal, please make sure that the link leads to the official page of the article on the Journal's website.

• Authors are required to refer to other studies as correctly and accurately as possible by specifying the original source in the references. A word-for-word citation or periphrasis of the author’s own publications is unacceptable: they can only be used as a basis for new findings.

• Authors must follow the applicable laws on copyright protection. Materials protected by copyright, e.g. tables, figures, or large citations, may be reproduced only with the permission of their respective owners.

• Authors cannot copy references from other publications if they are not familiar with the original source. Quotes and references must be accurate and formatted in accordance with the requirements.

• Authors ensure that the list of authors includes only those individuals who have made significant contributions to the work, and that no researcher deserving authorship has been excluded from the list of authors.

• In determining the authorship and contributorship, the editorial office follows the CRediT authorship criteria.

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND.

2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND

3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND

4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

• All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged. These authorship criteria are intended to reserve the status of authorship for those who deserve credit and can take responsibility for the work.

• The corresponding author shall guarantee that all the co-authors have seen the final version of the manuscript, approved it, and agreed to its submission for publication in the Journal.

• Authors must disclose any conflicts of interests that could affect the evaluation and interpretation of their manuscript.

• The sources of financial support for the project (grants, state programs, projects, etc.) are to be indicated in the manuscript.

• Authors are required to immediately notify the editorial office in the event of an error in any work filed by them for publication, accepted for publication, or already published, and contribute to its correction. Should the editorial office be informed about an error by third parties, the authors are to promptly correct the error or justify it.

• Authors retain exclusive rights to the published material, which is marked with Copyright © on the title page of the Journal.

• All papers published in the Journal fall under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC BY 4.0). The online version of the Journal is published in open assess, which means that you are free to read, download, copy, forward, print, and make reference to the complete texts provided you mention the author’s name. 

4. Duties of the Editor-in-Chief

• The editor-in-chief promotes the Journal, improves the quality of published materials, meets the needs of readers and authors, and contributes to the development studies of virtual communication and social networks.

• The editor-in-chief uses the following criteria to accept a manuscript for publication: compliance with the profile of the Journal; relevance, novelty, and significance; clarity of presentation; reliability of results and completeness of conclusions. The decision is based on all the comments provided by independent reviewers. The main criteria are the quality of research and its relevance.

• The editor-in-chief (in his absence – deputy editor-in-chief) shall guarantee an independent and conscientious consideration of all manuscripts without ethnic, religious, or social prejudice and regardless of any commercial interests or relations with the founder or publisher.

• Manuscripts are private property of their authors and cannot be subject to disclosure. They cannot be used for personal purposes or transferred to third parties without the written consent of the author.

• The editor-in-chief (in his absence – deputy editor-in-chief) has the right to reject the publication with evidence of slander, insult, plagiarism, or copyright infringement.

• The editor-in-chief (in his absence – deputy editor-in-chief) selects independent experienced reviewers with no conflict of interest.

• The editor-in-chief (in his absence – deputy editor-in-chief) shall decide on the acceptance or rejection of an article for publication on the basis of all the comments provided by independent reviewers. The final editorial decision and the reasons for its adoption are reported to the authors. The editorial office shall take all necessary measures in case of conflict.

5. Duties of Reviewers

• The expert evaluation of the manuscript promotes the adoption of editorial decisions and also helps the author improve the manuscript. Based on the reviews, the editor-in-chief (in his absence – deputy editor-in-chief) makes a decision to accept the manuscript for publication, return it to the author for revision, or reject it.

• To be published, a manuscript has to be recommended by two independent reviewers appointed by the editor-in-chief (in his absence – deputy editor-in-chief). The double blind peer review can be conducted by the members of the editorial board or by acknowledged academic experts (doctors, professors) in the area of research who have had recent publications on the related topic.

• Reviewing is strictly confidential. A breach of confidentiality is unacceptable unless the reviewer reports unreliability or counterfeiting of the material.

• Reviewers guarantee a confidential, independent, honest, and objective review of all manuscripts. The reviewer has the right to reject a manuscript before the review stage if it has been found to be of poor quality or does not meet the requirements of the Journal. This decision is made fairly and impartially.

• Reviewers shall provide a review within the time specified by the editors or notify the editor if the deadline is impossible.

• Reviewers shall provide an objective peer review. All the conclusions of the reviewer should be strictly provided with links to authoritative sources. Personal criticism of author by the reviewer is unacceptable. In such cases, the Editors follow the COPE protocole.

• Should the reviewer detect that the manuscript was based on other studies which the author failed to mention in the references, the reviewer shall inform the editor about it. Reviewers are obliged to inform the editor about any resemblance or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and other previously published research.

• Reviewers have no right to use unpublished manuscript materials in their own research without the written consent of the author.

• Reviewers cannot examine the manuscript if they find themselves unqualified or biased, or in case a conflict of interests arises because of competitive, cooperative, or other relationship with the author or organization related to the manuscript.

• If the reviewer raises an issue of data accuracy or the rationale for publication, the author is given an opportunity to respond.

• Independent peer reviewers are informed about the requirements or any changes in the editorial policy.

• The editorial office shall not reveal any personal data concerning the reviewers.

6. Correction policy

• The editorial office allows its authors to correct mistakes, typographical errors, or other inaccuracies after their manuscript has been published.

• Should you find an error, misprint, or any other inaccuracy in your published article, do not hesitate to inform the Editors.

• The Editorial Board is ready to make the following types of correction:

  • Addendum is published in case some important information, data, or results were unintentionally omitted from the article, i.e. author's affiliation, grant number, funding, research subject or method, etc. The Addendum is an Appendix to the published article, which informs about the missing information. The Addendum is published in the printed and digital versions of the current issue with the article number added. The original article is not changed, but acquires a hyperlink to the Addendum.

  • Erratum is a correction of formatting or other unscientific change to something that causes ambiguity, hinders understanding or prevents correct citing, e.g. spelling or factual error in the title or author's name, affiliation, e-mail, etc., missing or fuzzy figures, missing or misspelled words; a typo in the formula or in its explanation, etc. The Erratum is made in the digital version, and a message about the Erratum is published on the website and in the current printed issue. Minor errors that do not hinder the meaning or understanding are not corrected, and no Erratum is published.

  • Corrections are changes that may affect the scientific interpretation, e.g. incorrect data, extra text, wrong information in equations, conclusions, etc. These changes are evaluated by the Reviewer, and the final decision on making Corrections belongs to the Chief-in-Editor. The Corrections are published in the current issue as a separate publication with a reference to the original article. The original article is not modified, but acquires a hyperlink to the Correction.

7. Retraction

• Retraction of a published article is considered to be the last resort in case previously unknown facts were revealed after the review stage. In this case, the editorial office follows the COPE algorithm and the Decree issued by the Association of Science Editors and Publishers.

• Retraction can be initiated by authors, readers, reviewers, editors, and other publishers by appealing to the editorial office.

8. Violations

• Should the publication ethics be violated by the publisher, editorial office, the editor-in-chief, reviewers, or authors, an investigation is required. This applies to both published and unpublished materials.

1. General
   • We accept manuscripts of original articles and reviews in Russian and English.
   • The authors guarantee that:
     • they own the exclusive copyright for the manuscript they submit;
     • they publication will not infringe a third party’s copyright;
     • the manuscript has never been published;
     • they did not submit it to any other journal;
     • the list of authors includes only those who contributed to the research.
     • they agree with the Publication Ethics, and Rules of the Journal.
2. Submission procedure
   • E-mail us your manuscript and additional materials or upload them as separate files using your personal account on our website.
   • If you previously submitted this article to some other journal but it was not accepted for publication, please inform us in your letter lest we should accidentally reject your manuscript after the initial check-up.
   • Please remember that the Editors do not enter into correspondence with Authors to discuss the content, methods, or formatting of the articles submitted. Neither do we improve the scientific and methodological quality of the paper. 
3. Registration and Initial Check-Up
   • The registration and initial check-up stage normally take five days. We will e-mail you about the current status of your manuscript. If you did not get a letter from us within five days, it means that we did not receive your submission due to some technical problem. Please send your letter again or call +7(3842)55-87-61.
   • The Editor checks all submitted manuscripts for compliance with the profile of The Journal, Publishing Ethics (plagiarism, doubling, etc.), and formatting requirements (text volume, structure, number of keywords, abstract volume, references, in-text references, information about the Authors, etc.)
   • If your article is beyond the scope of the Journal or violates our Publishing Ethics, you will receive a substantiated rejection letter.
   • If the submitted article does not meet our formatting requirements, it will be returned to you for revision and improvement. 
   • Should you fail to e-mail us the improved version within 10 days, your next attempt will automatically be classified as a new submission.
   • Please visit our website to find out more about formatting requirements.
4. If the manuscript passes the initial check-up, it will be peer-reviewed by two experts in accordance with the rules established by the Editorial. The review process is double-blind to provide anonymity for both authors and reviewers.
   • The reviewer is appointed by the editor-in-chief or the deputy editors.
   • All manuscripts that have passed the initial selection stage are subject to a mandatory double-blind peer review conducted by the members of the Editorial Board or by acknowledged academic specialists in the related area with at least three years of publishing experience.
   • The journal only publishes the manuscripts recommended by the reviewers.
5. Admission Procedure
   • After your manuscript has been approved for publication, the Editor will inform you by e-mail and state the approximate publication date.
   • We do not guarantee that your manuscript will be published in the next issue: the review procedure usually takes some time.
   • We can provide you with an official letter that your manuscript has been accepted for publication. Do not hesitate to request a confirmation letter, if needed.
   • A publishing license agreement is signed by the Author(s) after the article is recommended for publication.
   • Papers are published depending on the registration date and editorial plans. Articles on topical issues and break-through research can be published out of turn by the decision of the Editor-in-Chief.
6. Editing and Publishing
   • All manuscripts are published only after they undergo literary editing and proofreading.
   • All changes made by the Editor require your consent by e-mail.
   • You will receive the typeset article for final approval before publication.
   • All articles have a printed and online version.

The journal only publishes the manuscripts recommended by the reviewers.

«Double-blind» peer review.

The reviewer is appointed by the editor-in-chief or the deputy editor. Both the members of the editorial board and highly qualified scientists and specialists from other organizations and enterprises can be invited for reviewing manuscripts.

They have to have profound professional knowledge and experience of work in the specific field of science and be doctors of sciences and professors.

The reviewers are notified about the manuscripts being the authors' private owner rights and not being subject to public disclosure. The reviewers are not allowed to copy the articles for their private needs. Reviewing is performed confidentially. Violation of confidentiality is impossible unless the reviewer declares unreliability or counterfeiting of the article's materials.

The term for the article consideration should not exceed three months from the date of starting the reviewing process.

If the reviewer points out, that improvement is necessary the article is sent to the author for follow-on revision. In this case the return date of the modified article is considered the date of the article submission.

If, on the recommendation of the reviewer, the article underwent a considerable revision by the author, it is again sent to the reviewer who gave the critical remarks. The editorial board reserves the right to reject the articles in case of the author's inability or unwillingness to take into account the editor's recommendations.

In case of two negative manuscript reviews from different experts or one negative review on the article's modified variant it is rejected without considering by other members of the editorial board. After reviewing the possibility of publication is decided upon by the editor-in-chief or, in case of necessity, by the editorial board altogether.

The author of the rejected article is sent a motivated refusal by the official responsible for issuing. The reviewer's name may be reported to the author provided that the former gives consent to it.

Reviews' originals are kept by the editorial board during five years since the publication.

1. Retraction purpose.
   1. The Editors can retract a published article to inform the readers that the article contains faulty / unreliable data.
   2. The Editors can retract a published article to inform the readers about plagiarisms, an unreported conflict of interests, or doubling, i.e. if new information has been revealed that can affect the interpretation of the published data or recommendations on their use.
2. An article can be retracted if the Editors found out that the article violates the ethics of scientific publishing.
   1. if the article contains invalid data, be it the result of a deliberate violation, miscalculation, experimental error, or misprint;
   2. the Author(s) published one and the same data or manuscript in several journals without a serious reason, authorization, or cross-reference;
   3. the bulk of the article was copied from a previously published work by a different author.
3. Retraction Procedure
   1. Retraction can be initiated by Authors, Readers, Reviewers, Editors, and other Publishers by officially appealing to the Editorial Board. An expertise conducted by the Editorial Board can also trigger a retraction procedure.
   2. If the Editorial Board failed to answer a retraction claim from the author within 10 days, the author is free to appeal to the Association of Science Editors and Publishers (ASEP).
   3. If the Editorial Board decides to retract the article based on the violations mentioned above, the Corresponding Author is sent a notification that explains the reasons for the retraction.
   4. The final decision takes into account the explanation given by the Author. Should the author fail to respond within 10 days, the Editors are free to retract the publication without the Author’s concern. Irrespective of the fact whether the Authors accept the standpoint of the editorial board or not, the retraction is an abiding procedure.
   5. The retraction protocol is sent to the corresponding author, the ASEP, eLIBRARY.RU, and CyberLeninka.
   6. A retraction note, which states its reason and date, is published both in the paper and online versions of the Journal. After that, the article will be marked as RETRACTED in all reference databases. Retracted articles are excluded from all citation indices and reference lists and do not affect electronic calculations of one’s personal scientific achievements.
   7. After the retraction procedure has been completed, the Editorial Board retains the right not to accept other manuscripts submitted by the author(s) in question for a certain period.

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Copyright Notice

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

1. The Authors retain copyright and grant the Journal the right of first publication with the work under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement its authorship and initial publication in this Journal.

2. The Authors are free to enter into separate contract arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the published version, e.g. they can post it at the repository of their home university or publish it in a book, with an obligatory acknowledgement of its initial publication in this Journal.

3. The Authors are free to post their work online, e.g., in university repositories or on their website, prior to and during the submission process, as it can encourage productive feedback and a greater citation of the work after its publication (See The Effect of Open Access).

Virtual Communication and Social Networks is an interdisciplinary journal that publishes full articles, reviews, short communication articles and book reviews in Russian and English language. The publications concern the general theoretical problems of virtual communication, linguistic means in the Internet communication, the typology of communicative practices, discourses and speech genres as well as the specifics of culture, speech, psychology and social situation in the virtual space of Russia and the world.

The journal publishes works on key issues of virtual communication, analytical materials on the results of research in the field of virtual communication, articles reflecting on the interaction of philological, psychological, sociological and cognitive sciences in the virtual communication research.

Thematic areas of the journal:

• Philosophy: social networks and the social consciousness formed by it as a new phenomenon of communication; a person in social networks as a new type of person, new ethics, culture, psychology and biology; digital immortality.
• Cognitive science: electronic and biological brain; the problem of isomorphism in the structure and functioning of social and neural networks.
• Socio-political science: social typology and description of social network users; social networks as a reflection of the social stratification: the problem of generational communication; youth stratum as an object of research.
• Psychology: psychological typology and description of social network users; social networks as a factor in the formation of psychological attitudes; dependence of children, adolescents and youth on social networks as a problem of modern times.
• Linguistics: the influence of virtual communication and social networks on Russian speech and language; discursive practices in social networks; linguopersonology of social networks; linguistic conflictology of social networks.
• Legal studies: social networks as a medium and means of offenses; social networks as a tool for combating offenses.
• Pedagogical Linguistics: social networks: a friend and / or enemy of the Russian school, parents and society; the culture of communication in social networks.
• Linguolegal studies: identification of texts containing signs of offenses in social networks; linguistic expertise of speech product in network communication.
• Media communication studies: the place of social networks in the modern media; transnational and intra-national trends.

Archiving

• A national library: Russian State Library (RSL).
• Other: Library of Kemerovo State University (print.), National Electronic-Information Consortium (NEICON); Scientific electronic library eLibrary.ru, V.D. Fedorov Kemerovo Regional Scientific Library (print.)

Plagiarism detection

The Journal uses plagiarism detection software  Antiplagiat and Crossref Similarity Check. In case of plagiarism, the Editorial Board follows the COPE guidelines and its own Publishing Ethics.

We adhere to a very strict ethical policy against plagiarism, false citation, and data fabrication. The authors are held responsible for the content of the manuscript submitted. They shall not modify the text to bypass anti-plagiarism or increase originality. Should the editors detect any attempts to drive up the originality percentage, the manuscript will be rejected immediately.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interests

Authors are obliged to disclose any existing or potential conflicts of interest that may influence the decision to publish their work.

The Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have a conflict of interests resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the Authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

Unpublished materials cannot be used in research without the written consent of the Author(s). Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and cannot be used for personal advantage.

Virtual Communication and Social Networks is an interdisciplinary journal that publishes full articles, reviews, short communication articles and book reviews in Russian and English language.

Technical requirements for the manuscript

• Do not use formatting and page numbering, take into account the requirements for the manuscript structure.
• Font – Times New Roman, font size – 10, line spacing – 1.0. Do not indent a paragraph with tabulation or series of spaces.
• Submit the manuscript as a .doc, .docx, .rtf file.
• The journal publishes three types of articles:
• Original article: the volume is 15–30 thousand characters with spaces, 20–40 sources in the list of references.
• Review article: the volume is 50–80 thousand characters with spaces, 80+ sources in the list of references.
• Short communication article, book review: the volume is up to 6 thousand characters.
• Abstract, keywords, footnotes and a list of references count towards the volume of the article.
• Provide the title of the article, information about the author(s), abstract, keywords, figure and table captions in Russian and English language.
• The originality of the article must reach at least 75 %. The volume of borrowing from one source should not exceed 6 %. Plagiarism is prohibited.

Manuscript structure

1. Metadata in Russian

Type of manuscript (full article / review / short communication article / book review).
Title of the article. 
Full names of the authors. The full first name and patronymic are written before the last name.
The author's organization. It is necessary to provide the official name of the institution, the city and country it is located in, separated by a comma. If authors are from different institutions, correlate the names of institutions and the authors by adding upper case numeric indexes before the names of institutions and after the full name of the authors.
The e-mail of the correspondent author.
Abstract. Write informative, original abstract that includes all aspects of the article: subject, purpose, methods, results and conclusions in 150–250 words.
Keywords. Provide 6–10 words for the indexing of the article in search engines.

2. Metadata in English

• Type of manuscript (full article / review / short communication article / book review).
• Title of the article.
• The names of the authors. Write first name, patronymic (abbreviated), last name. The transliteration of the author’s name must be identical to the one presented in the ORCID profile, passport, or previously published articles.
• The author's organization. The official English name of the institution.
• The e-mail of the correspondent author.
• Abstract. The English version of the abstract must fully correspond to the Russian version and be correct from the point of view of the English language.
• Keywords. Keywords in English.

3. The manuscript

• Divide the text into sections following the IMRAD structure or into titled semantic parts.
  • Introduction describes the topic of the study, its objectives and relevance, presents a brief review of the scientific literature on the topic;
  • Methods and materials contain description of the research methods and materials as well as the analysis of the original experimental research. If the article is devoted to theoretical research, this section must contain its theoretical foundations;
  • Results present processed experimental or theoretical data obtained during the study as text and tables, graphs, diagrams, equations, photographs, drawings. The section can be divided into subsections with semantic titles. Examples from the research material (linguistic units, quotations from works of art) must be presented in italics without quotation marks.
  • Discussion correlates the obtained results with other studies.
  • Conclusion contains the main ideas of the article, comparison of the obtained results with expected ones, describes novelty and practical significance of results, provides conclusions and recommendations as well as the main directions for further research.
  • Visual materials. Include figures and tables that are adequate to the article and provide new information, not duplicated in the text. Visual materials should be designed for a clear, complete and structured presentation of information.
  • Place visual materials with captions in the body of the article and enumerate them if there is more than one.
• Reference visual materials in the text.
  • Provide figure captions in both Russian and English language.
  • Enclose graphs, diagrams, charts, figures made in MS Office as separate .xls, .vsd or .doc files.
  • Provide scanned drawings, photographs as separate .tif, .jpg, .png or .pdf files with a resolution >300 dpi.
  • Create tables that can be edited, do not include them as images.
• References to unpublished works, state documents (decrees, laws, etc.), historical documents, newspaper articles, Internet sources without authorship (forums, blogs, etc.), examples from fiction, encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc. are given as footnotes.
• Additional information
  • Conflict of Interests: this section indicates a real or potential conflict of interests. If there is no conflict of interests, you should write that “the author declares that there is no conflict of interests regarding the publication of this article”. Please make sure you have informed the Editor in advance about any kind of potential conflict of interests. Should the Editor reveal it during the initial check-up, your manuscript can be rejected.
  • Authorship and Contribution: specify the contribution of each author; CRediT may help you to define their roles in the project. 
  • Acknowledgments: This section is optional and contains an expression of gratitude to those who contributed to the research.
  • Funding: indicate the organization that supported your research and the publication of this article. Remember that by failing to indicate funding source you may cause a conflict of interests.
• List of references. It is a mandatory structural part, which reflects the scientific coverage of the topic and allows you to verify the reliability of the data used in the study. The list of references allows you to recognize and use the ideas of other authors, avoid accusations of plagiarism as well as demonstrate the scale and depth of research by quoting the works of other authors and their previous publications. References to the latest publications and foreign literature can highlight the relevance of a scientific publication.
  • The editorial office does not accept for publication manuscripts without a list of references.
  • Include in the list of references only the sources used to write the article.
  • Provide 20–40 sources for an original scientific article, for a review article – 80+.
  • Reference all sources in the body of the article by specifying the author / authors (if there are two) / the author et al. (if there are 3 or more), the year of publication and the cited pages within square brackets. Separate different sources by semicolons and arrange them alphabetically. When referencing a range of pages, use a dash (not a hyphen). For example: [Ivanov 2010: 78], [Ivanov, Petrov 2015: 403], [Sidorov et al. 2020: 7–8], [Ivanov 2010: 78; Ivanov, Petrov 2015: 403; Sidorov et al. 2020: 7–8].
  • If you need to cite two sources with the same author and year of publication, add a letter to the year of publication: 2010a, 2010b, 2010c.
  • Place the list of references after the body of the article in alphabetical order (first the sources in Russian, then in foreign languages), preceded by the words References.
  • Instead of including dissertations, abstracts of dissertations, educational and methodological manuals, it is better to reference articles from scientific journals, conference materials, monographs, etc., published by the same author.
  • Include 7–10 sources published in the last 5 years.
  • Limit self-citation to 10 % of references from the total number of sources. Use of self-citation should be justified.
  • Provide the description of the sources in accordance with Russian National Standard (GOST 7.05-2008 Bibliographic reference. General requirements and rules of compilation). The description of the source in Latin is based on the Chicago style citation. Replace slashes and hyphens used in GOST with commas and dots.
  • The bibliographic description of the publication includes:
    • the last name and initials of every author (regardless of their number),
    • the full title of the work,
    • title of the book or journal (if specified),
    • city, publisher's name, year of publication,
    • volume (for multi-volume publications); volume and issue (for periodicals),
    • for articles – the numbers of the first and last page; for monographs – the total number of pages.
  • If the source has DOI, add it to the bibliographical description.
  • When referring to a part of a book or collection (article, chapter, section, etc.), indicate its first and last pages in the list of references.
  • Provide a translation or transliteration of the source in square brackets after the Russian description.
  • Transliteration of the Russian authors’ last name should match the one provided in their other publications (in foreign language) or in their profiles (ORCID, Scopus). If there is no such information, use transliteration according to the LC standard (Library of Congress).
  • Do not transliterate the names of foreign authors, instead use their name as it is originally written (for example, J. Austin – J. Austen, not Dzh. Ostin).
  • If the title of publication is written in alphabet, other than Latin, translate it into English. If authors of the source material already provided a translation, use the author’s version translation. You can find this information on the website of a particular journal or in digital scientific library (eLIBRARY.RU).
  • Provide the names of journals written in alphabet, other than Latin, according to how the journals prefer to be quoted. If the journal has no such information, then use transliteration according to the LC standard. Italicize the name of the journal.
  • If the source text written in alphabet, other than Latin, then the language of the publication is indicated in parentheses at the end of the description, for example (In Russ.), (In Jap.), (In Ukr.), etc.

Publication ethics

The Journal Virtual Communication and Social Networks is guided by the principles of publication ethics based on the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Publishing Ethics Resource Kit (Elsevier), and the Decree on Ethical Principles of Scientific Publications issued by the Association of Science Editors and Publishers.

All those involved in the publishing process (the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer, the publisher and the editorial office) are to observe the abovementioned codes of publication ethics.

1. Duties of the Publisher

• The policy of the Journal is based on respect for the individual rights of the author and intellectual property rights.

• The publisher ensures independent and conscientious consideration of all submitted manuscripts, without prejudice against ethnic, religious, or social status of their authors and regardless of commercial interests and relations with the founder.

• The publisher shall work to ensure and improve the quality of published materials and meet the needs of readers and authors to make a significant contribution to the development studies of virtual communication and social networks.

• Our editorial principles involve relevance, importance, clarity, reliability, and validity of the published research material. Credibility, reproducibility, uniqueness, fullness, balance, and transparency are the main indicators of quality of the publications.

• The publisher strives to attract and recruit highly qualified professionals who can contribute to the development of the Journal.

• The publisher shall constantly improve the processes of reviewing and editing.

• The publisher shall guarantee that all submitted manuscripts are checked for image manipulation, plagiarism, and duplicate or redundant publications.

• The publisher shall take all necessary measures in case of conflict and publish improvements, clarifications, refutations, and apologies if necessary.

2. Duties of the Editorial office

• The editorial office publishes information for authors, including the formatting requirements, submission and review procedures.

• The editorial office ensures independent and conscientious consideration of all submitted manuscripts, without prejudice against ethnic, religious, or social status of their authors and regardless of any commercial interests and relations with the publisher.

• The editorial office has the right to reject a badly written manuscript that does not meet the formatting requirements or contains evidence of slander, plagiarism, or copyright infringement. The final decision on the publication of an article or refusal of such is taken by the editor-in-chief and is fair and unprejudiced.

• Manuscripts submitted to the editorial office are checked for borrowings from open sources (plagiarism). The check is carried out through the Internet resources (www.antiplagiat.ru and https://crosscheck.ithenticate.com). Should multiple unauthorized borrowings be detected, the editorial office follows the COPE algorithm.

• The editorial office ensures confidentiality, which means that the submitted manuscript cannot be demonstrated to anyone other than the respective authors, reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher.

• The editorial office ensures that the materials of the rejected manuscript will not be used in the board members’ own research without the written consent of the author.

• The editorial office shall promptly examine each complaint about any possible unethical behavior of the authors of submitted and published articles and undertake appropriate measures. Should the unethical behaviour be proved, the editorial office has the right to refuse to publish the article, cease further cooperation with the author, publish a retraction, or take other necessary measures to further curb unethical behavior of the author in question.

• Should an error be detected, amendments shall be provided as soon as possible. When the online version of the article is corrected, it is provided with the correction date and a reference to the errata published.

3.Duties of Authors

• Authors guarantee that the manuscript they submit meets the formatting requirements.

• Authors guarantee that the submitted manuscript contains authentic results that have never been published and are not being reviewed by other journals.

• Deliberately erroneous or forged data and conclusions are unacceptable.

• Authors are free to post the initial draft of their manuscript on such public preprint servers as bioRxiv, arXiv, or in the related repository. In this case they should inform the Journal about it and provide a link to the preprint. However, they cannot post their article on preprint servers if it has already been published by the Journal or improved to meet the requirements of the editorial board or reviewers, as it might be regarded as a duplicate publication. When citing an article published in the Journal, please make sure that the link leads to the official page of the article on the Journal's website.

• Authors are required to refer to other studies as correctly and accurately as possible by specifying the original source in the references. A word-for-word citation or periphrasis of the author’s own publications is unacceptable: they can only be used as a basis for new findings.

• Authors must follow the applicable laws on copyright protection. Materials protected by copyright, e.g. tables, figures, or large citations, may be reproduced only with the permission of their respective owners.

• Authors cannot copy references from other publications if they are not familiar with the original source. Quotes and references must be accurate and formatted in accordance with the requirements.

• Authors ensure that the list of authors includes only those individuals who have made significant contributions to the work, and that no researcher deserving authorship has been excluded from the list of authors.

• In determining the authorship and contributorship, the editorial office follows the CRediT authorship criteria.

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND.

2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND

3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND

4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

• All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged. These authorship criteria are intended to reserve the status of authorship for those who deserve credit and can take responsibility for the work.

• The corresponding author shall guarantee that all the co-authors have seen the final version of the manuscript, approved it, and agreed to its submission for publication in the Journal.

• Authors must disclose any conflicts of interests that could affect the evaluation and interpretation of their manuscript.

• The sources of financial support for the project (grants, state programs, projects, etc.) are to be indicated in the manuscript.

• Authors are required to immediately notify the editorial office in the event of an error in any work filed by them for publication, accepted for publication, or already published, and contribute to its correction. Should the editorial office be informed about an error by third parties, the authors are to promptly correct the error or justify it.

• Authors retain exclusive rights to the published material, which is marked with Copyright © on the title page of the Journal.

• All papers published in the Journal fall under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC BY 4.0). The online version of the Journal is published in open assess, which means that you are free to read, download, copy, forward, print, and make reference to the complete texts provided you mention the author’s name. 

4. Duties of the Editor-in-Chief

• The editor-in-chief promotes the Journal, improves the quality of published materials, meets the needs of readers and authors, and contributes to the development studies of virtual communication and social networks.

• The editor-in-chief uses the following criteria to accept a manuscript for publication: compliance with the profile of the Journal; relevance, novelty, and significance; clarity of presentation; reliability of results and completeness of conclusions. The decision is based on all the comments provided by independent reviewers. The main criteria are the quality of research and its relevance.

• The editor-in-chief (in his absence – deputy editor-in-chief) shall guarantee an independent and conscientious consideration of all manuscripts without ethnic, religious, or social prejudice and regardless of any commercial interests or relations with the founder or publisher.

• Manuscripts are private property of their authors and cannot be subject to disclosure. They cannot be used for personal purposes or transferred to third parties without the written consent of the author.

• The editor-in-chief (in his absence – deputy editor-in-chief) has the right to reject the publication with evidence of slander, insult, plagiarism, or copyright infringement.

• The editor-in-chief (in his absence – deputy editor-in-chief) selects independent experienced reviewers with no conflict of interest.

• The editor-in-chief (in his absence – deputy editor-in-chief) shall decide on the acceptance or rejection of an article for publication on the basis of all the comments provided by independent reviewers. The final editorial decision and the reasons for its adoption are reported to the authors. The editorial office shall take all necessary measures in case of conflict.

5. Duties of Reviewers

• The expert evaluation of the manuscript promotes the adoption of editorial decisions and also helps the author improve the manuscript. Based on the reviews, the editor-in-chief (in his absence – deputy editor-in-chief) makes a decision to accept the manuscript for publication, return it to the author for revision, or reject it.

• To be published, a manuscript has to be recommended by two independent reviewers appointed by the editor-in-chief (in his absence – deputy editor-in-chief). The double blind peer review can be conducted by the members of the editorial board or by acknowledged academic experts (doctors, professors) in the area of research who have had recent publications on the related topic.

• Reviewing is strictly confidential. A breach of confidentiality is unacceptable unless the reviewer reports unreliability or counterfeiting of the material.

• Reviewers guarantee a confidential, independent, honest, and objective review of all manuscripts. The reviewer has the right to reject a manuscript before the review stage if it has been found to be of poor quality or does not meet the requirements of the Journal. This decision is made fairly and impartially.

• Reviewers shall provide a review within the time specified by the editors or notify the editor if the deadline is impossible.

• Reviewers shall provide an objective peer review. All the conclusions of the reviewer should be strictly provided with links to authoritative sources. Personal criticism of author by the reviewer is unacceptable. In such cases, the Editors follow the COPE protocole.

• Should the reviewer detect that the manuscript was based on other studies which the author failed to mention in the references, the reviewer shall inform the editor about it. Reviewers are obliged to inform the editor about any resemblance or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and other previously published research.

• Reviewers have no right to use unpublished manuscript materials in their own research without the written consent of the author.

• Reviewers cannot examine the manuscript if they find themselves unqualified or biased, or in case a conflict of interests arises because of competitive, cooperative, or other relationship with the author or organization related to the manuscript.

• If the reviewer raises an issue of data accuracy or the rationale for publication, the author is given an opportunity to respond.

• Independent peer reviewers are informed about the requirements or any changes in the editorial policy.

• The editorial office shall not reveal any personal data concerning the reviewers.

6. Correction policy

• The editorial office allows its authors to correct mistakes, typographical errors, or other inaccuracies after their manuscript has been published.

• Should you find an error, misprint, or any other inaccuracy in your published article, do not hesitate to inform the Editors.

• The Editorial Board is ready to make the following types of correction:

  • Addendum is published in case some important information, data, or results were unintentionally omitted from the article, i.e. author's affiliation, grant number, funding, research subject or method, etc. The Addendum is an Appendix to the published article, which informs about the missing information. The Addendum is published in the printed and digital versions of the current issue with the article number added. The original article is not changed, but acquires a hyperlink to the Addendum.

  • Erratum is a correction of formatting or other unscientific change to something that causes ambiguity, hinders understanding or prevents correct citing, e.g. spelling or factual error in the title or author's name, affiliation, e-mail, etc., missing or fuzzy figures, missing or misspelled words; a typo in the formula or in its explanation, etc. The Erratum is made in the digital version, and a message about the Erratum is published on the website and in the current printed issue. Minor errors that do not hinder the meaning or understanding are not corrected, and no Erratum is published.

  • Corrections are changes that may affect the scientific interpretation, e.g. incorrect data, extra text, wrong information in equations, conclusions, etc. These changes are evaluated by the Reviewer, and the final decision on making Corrections belongs to the Chief-in-Editor. The Corrections are published in the current issue as a separate publication with a reference to the original article. The original article is not modified, but acquires a hyperlink to the Correction.

7. Retraction

• Retraction of a published article is considered to be the last resort in case previously unknown facts were revealed after the review stage. In this case, the editorial office follows the COPE algorithm and the Decree issued by the Association of Science Editors and Publishers.

• Retraction can be initiated by authors, readers, reviewers, editors, and other publishers by appealing to the editorial office.

8. Violations

• Should the publication ethics be violated by the publisher, editorial office, the editor-in-chief, reviewers, or authors, an investigation is required. This applies to both published and unpublished materials.

1. General
   • We accept manuscripts of original articles and reviews in Russian and English.
   • The authors guarantee that:
     • they own the exclusive copyright for the manuscript they submit;
     • they publication will not infringe a third party’s copyright;
     • the manuscript has never been published;
     • they did not submit it to any other journal;
     • the list of authors includes only those who contributed to the research.
     • they agree with the Publication Ethics, and Rules of the Journal.
2. Submission procedure
   • E-mail us your manuscript and additional materials or upload them as separate files using your personal account on our website.
   • If you previously submitted this article to some other journal but it was not accepted for publication, please inform us in your letter lest we should accidentally reject your manuscript after the initial check-up.
   • Please remember that the Editors do not enter into correspondence with Authors to discuss the content, methods, or formatting of the articles submitted. Neither do we improve the scientific and methodological quality of the paper. 
3. Registration and Initial Check-Up
   • The registration and initial check-up stage normally take five days. We will e-mail you about the current status of your manuscript. If you did not get a letter from us within five days, it means that we did not receive your submission due to some technical problem. Please send your letter again or call +7(3842)55-87-61.
   • The Editor checks all submitted manuscripts for compliance with the profile of The Journal, Publishing Ethics (plagiarism, doubling, etc.), and formatting requirements (text volume, structure, number of keywords, abstract volume, references, in-text references, information about the Authors, etc.)
   • If your article is beyond the scope of the Journal or violates our Publishing Ethics, you will receive a substantiated rejection letter.
   • If the submitted article does not meet our formatting requirements, it will be returned to you for revision and improvement. 
   • Should you fail to e-mail us the improved version within 10 days, your next attempt will automatically be classified as a new submission.
   • Please visit our website to find out more about formatting requirements.
4. If the manuscript passes the initial check-up, it will be peer-reviewed by two experts in accordance with the rules established by the Editorial. The review process is double-blind to provide anonymity for both authors and reviewers.
   • The reviewer is appointed by the editor-in-chief or the deputy editors.
   • All manuscripts that have passed the initial selection stage are subject to a mandatory double-blind peer review conducted by the members of the Editorial Board or by acknowledged academic specialists in the related area with at least three years of publishing experience.
   • The journal only publishes the manuscripts recommended by the reviewers.
5. Admission Procedure
   • After your manuscript has been approved for publication, the Editor will inform you by e-mail and state the approximate publication date.
   • We do not guarantee that your manuscript will be published in the next issue: the review procedure usually takes some time.
   • We can provide you with an official letter that your manuscript has been accepted for publication. Do not hesitate to request a confirmation letter, if needed.
   • A publishing license agreement is signed by the Author(s) after the article is recommended for publication.
   • Papers are published depending on the registration date and editorial plans. Articles on topical issues and break-through research can be published out of turn by the decision of the Editor-in-Chief.
6. Editing and Publishing
   • All manuscripts are published only after they undergo literary editing and proofreading.
   • All changes made by the Editor require your consent by e-mail.
   • You will receive the typeset article for final approval before publication.
   • All articles have a printed and online version.

The Journal "Virtual communication and social networks" is open access journal fully funded by Kemerovo State University. The Journal is committed to ensuring that all of the articles we publish are freely available. Articles are available to all without change, and there are no article processing charges for authors.

The journal only publishes the manuscripts recommended by the reviewers.

«Double-blind» peer review.

The reviewer is appointed by the editor-in-chief or the deputy editor. Both the members of the editorial board and highly qualified scientists and specialists from other organizations and enterprises can be invited for reviewing manuscripts.

They have to have profound professional knowledge and experience of work in the specific field of science and be doctors of sciences and professors.

The reviewers are notified about the manuscripts being the authors' private owner rights and not being subject to public disclosure. The reviewers are not allowed to copy the articles for their private needs. Reviewing is performed confidentially. Violation of confidentiality is impossible unless the reviewer declares unreliability or counterfeiting of the article's materials.

The term for the article consideration should not exceed three months from the date of starting the reviewing process.

If the reviewer points out, that improvement is necessary the article is sent to the author for follow-on revision. In this case the return date of the modified article is considered the date of the article submission.

If, on the recommendation of the reviewer, the article underwent a considerable revision by the author, it is again sent to the reviewer who gave the critical remarks. The editorial board reserves the right to reject the articles in case of the author's inability or unwillingness to take into account the editor's recommendations.

In case of two negative manuscript reviews from different experts or one negative review on the article's modified variant it is rejected without considering by other members of the editorial board. After reviewing the possibility of publication is decided upon by the editor-in-chief or, in case of necessity, by the editorial board altogether.

The author of the rejected article is sent a motivated refusal by the official responsible for issuing. The reviewer's name may be reported to the author provided that the former gives consent to it.

Reviews' originals are kept by the editorial board during five years since the publication.

1. Retraction purpose.
   1. The Editors can retract a published article to inform the readers that the article contains faulty / unreliable data.
   2. The Editors can retract a published article to inform the readers about plagiarisms, an unreported conflict of interests, or doubling, i.e. if new information has been revealed that can affect the interpretation of the published data or recommendations on their use.
2. An article can be retracted if the Editors found out that the article violates the ethics of scientific publishing.
   1. if the article contains invalid data, be it the result of a deliberate violation, miscalculation, experimental error, or misprint;
   2. the Author(s) published one and the same data or manuscript in several journals without a serious reason, authorization, or cross-reference;
   3. the bulk of the article was copied from a previously published work by a different author.
3. Retraction Procedure
   1. Retraction can be initiated by Authors, Readers, Reviewers, Editors, and other Publishers by officially appealing to the Editorial Board. An expertise conducted by the Editorial Board can also trigger a retraction procedure.
   2. If the Editorial Board failed to answer a retraction claim from the author within 10 days, the author is free to appeal to the Association of Science Editors and Publishers (ASEP).
   3. If the Editorial Board decides to retract the article based on the violations mentioned above, the Corresponding Author is sent a notification that explains the reasons for the retraction.
   4. The final decision takes into account the explanation given by the Author. Should the author fail to respond within 10 days, the Editors are free to retract the publication without the Author’s concern. Irrespective of the fact whether the Authors accept the standpoint of the editorial board or not, the retraction is an abiding procedure.
   5. The retraction protocol is sent to the corresponding author, the ASEP, eLIBRARY.RU, and CyberLeninka.
   6. A retraction note, which states its reason and date, is published both in the paper and online versions of the Journal. After that, the article will be marked as RETRACTED in all reference databases. Retracted articles are excluded from all citation indices and reference lists and do not affect electronic calculations of one’s personal scientific achievements.
   7. After the retraction procedure has been completed, the Editorial Board retains the right not to accept other manuscripts submitted by the author(s) in question for a certain period.

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The paid-off issues may be collected at the Editorial Office: Kemerovo State University, Office 149, Bld.2, 73, Sovetskii Ave, Kemerovo, Kemerovo region (Kuzbass), 650000, Russia.

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Copyright Notice

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

1. The Authors retain copyright and grant the Journal the right of first publication with the work under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement its authorship and initial publication in this Journal.

2. The Authors are free to enter into separate contract arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the published version, e.g. they can post it at the repository of their home university or publish it in a book, with an obligatory acknowledgement of its initial publication in this Journal.

3. The Authors are free to post their work online, e.g., in university repositories or on their website, prior to and during the submission process, as it can encourage productive feedback and a greater citation of the work after its publication (See The Effect of Open Access).

The Virtual Communication and Social Networks is an open access journal (Gold OA). All articles are freely available to readers immediately upon publication.

Our open access policy follows the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI): the articles we publish are available on the Internet. Any user is free to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, cite, scan, and index the articles, store them as data using various software, or use them for any other legal purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the Internet.

For more information please read BOAI statement.

Alekseev Mihail Kemerovo State University

Ankiri Enis Sfax University

Anumyan Karpis Moscow State Linguistic University

Bazhenova Elena Perm State University

Baymahan Aknur Karaganda Buketov University

Barkovich Aleksandr Minsk State Linguistic University
doctor of philological sciences

docent

SCOPUS: 57208124708 SPIN: 865147 ORCID:0000-0001-8469-8431 Web Of Science: W-2342-2018

Basina Polina Tomsk State University

Bass Ekaterina Volgograd State University

Bahtina Lina Kemerovo State University

Belousov Konstantin Permskiy gosudarstvennyy nacional'nyy issledovatel'skiy universitet
doctor of philological sciences


SCOPUS: 56331104300 SPIN: 272789 ORCID:0000-0003-4447-1288 Web Of Science: A-4891-2016

Bel'gibaeva Gul'barshyn Karaganda Buketov University

Blinova Mariya Kemerovo State University

Bodyanskaya Alisa Kemerovo State University

Bresler Mihail Ufa State Petroleum Technical University (Department of International Relations of History and Asian Studies, Associate Professor)
candidate of philosophical sciences

docent

SPIN: 680979 ORCID:0000-0001-6985-8919

Bresler Mikhail G. Ufa State Petroleum Technical University (Department of International Relations, History and Oriental Studies, assistant professor)
from 01.01.2018 to 01.01.2024 candidate of philosophical sciences

Burmakina Anna Leonidovna Kemerovo State University

Bushev Aleksandr Tver State University
doctor of philological sciences

professor

SPIN: 283492 ORCID:0000-0002-8730-0078

Vakhrameev Pavel Cherepovets State University

Velikzhanina Kristina Altai State University

Vinogradova Yuliya National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE University)

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