Volume 1 (2004) Inaugural Issue

McMaster's two newer undergraduate programs - Communication Studies and Multimedia - attract people with ambition and creativity. The McMaster Journal of Communication (MJC) is here to channel that ambition into a realized achievement.

Undoubtedly there are many other journals of communications and multimedia. Why then start another one? We founded this journal to address the need to showcase the work of undergraduate students. Most journals aren't open to undergraduate work and yet there is a growing competition for scholarships admittance into graduate programmes and research jobs that stress publications. Other journals could be intimidating to an undergraduate audience, with referees and usual contributors who are much more accomplished. Also, usual publications comprise of much more than what an undergraduate deals with day to day. MJC makes the prospect of a refereed publication less intimidating for undergraduates; submissions are anonymously reviewed by students' own peers first, and then reviewed by faculty members.

MJC is to be published bi-annually, once a semester, to impart the message that term papers are welcome as well as as honours thesis, practicum reports and works or multimedia art. Admittedly the journal is competitive and doesn't publish every submission aiming at quality rather than quantity. This year we accepted five manuscripts from 24 submissions and one Multimedia project from four submissions for a very respectable acceptance rate of 25%.

Lets not discount the value of human touch and campus spirit; a journal published right here by fellow students to whom other students have access to and from whom they can get useful feedback is truly invaluable. This feedback process is also useful for those authors whose manuscripts and art pieces are not accepted as this will give them a chance to review their submissions with the feedback provided for future consideration at MJC or elsewhere.

It is a challenging task to start a major project like the MJC without much precedent, especially when the project is to live on. It requires unusual attention to its fundamentals as there is no 'we'll fix it when we get there' option. I discovered how to manage reviewers, authors, peers and really learnt about the creative chaos of publishing world.

There are far too many people to thank but I would especially like to thank Dr. Alexandre Sevigny, Larissa Faulkner, Dr. Geoffrey Rockwell for helping me make this project a reality.

Also special thanks to Drs. Magda Stroinska & Joanne Buckley who - although they didn't have a supervisory role in the journal - were always available for spontaneous advice and support.

As the founding editor, my greatest chore is now to leave this project in the hands of the future editor and see it flourish.

-Sadia Azmat, Founding Editor-in-Chief, MJC 2004