Information For Authors

Interested in submitting to this journal? We recommend that you review the About the Journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the Author Guidelines. Authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process.

Frequency of Publication

Critical Digital Humanities follows a continuous publication model. Articles are published online immediately after acceptance and completion of the editorial process, ensuring timely dissemination of research.

The journal publishes one issue per year, with accepted articles added on a rolling basis to the current annual issue. This model allows for rapid publication while maintaining rigorous peer-review and editorial standards.

 

Scope of the Journal

 

Critical Digital Humanities publishes interdisciplinary scholarship that critically examines digital technologies, cultures, and practices through humanities-based, theoretical, and reflexive approaches. The journal focuses on how digital systems intersect with power, ideology, identity, culture, and social relations, emphasizing critique over purely technical or instrumental perspectives.

The scope of the journal includes, but is not limited to, the following areas:

  • Critical digital humanities and digital cultural studies
  • Algorithmic governance, data politics, and AI ethics
  • Platform studies, social media, and digital public spheres
  • Digital labor, gig economies, and techno-capitalism
  • Postcolonial, decolonial, and Global South perspectives on the digital
  • Feminist, queer, disability, Indigenous, and intersectional digital studies
  • Archives, memory, heritage, and digital preservation
  • Digital epistemologies, knowledge infrastructures, and open knowledge
  • Environmental humanities, extractivism, and digital ecologies
  • Surveillance, privacy, cybersecurity, and digital rights
  • Digital art, multimodality, speculative media, and creative practices
  • Methodological innovations, critical tools, and reflexive digital methods
  • The journal welcomes original research articles, theoretical and conceptual essays, methodological reflections, critical reviews, speculative and experimental works, and multimodal submissions. Contributions may engage empirical, interpretive, historical, or practice-based approaches, provided they foreground critical inquiry and humanities-centered analysis.

Critical Digital Humanities encourages global, cross-disciplinary, and socially engaged scholarship that challenges dominant techno-narratives and contributes to rethinking digital futures in more ethical, inclusive, and just ways.

 

Types of Content

Critical Digital Humanities publishes a diverse range of scholarly and public-facing content that reflects the interdisciplinary and critical orientation of the journal. The journal welcomes the following types of submissions:

  • Research Articles: Full-length, original research papers offering substantial theoretical, empirical, or critical contributions to digital humanities and related fields. (6,000–8,000 words; up to 6 figures/tables; APA 7th edition citation style)

  • Short Research Articles: Concise studies presenting focused arguments, case analyses, or preliminary findings with strong critical insight. (3,000–4,000 words; up to 4 figures/tables; APA 7th edition citation style)

  • Theoretical and Conceptual Essays: Works that advance or challenge existing theories, frameworks, and debates within critical digital humanities. (4,000–6,000 words; up to 3 figures/tables; APA 7th edition citation style)

  • Methodological Papers: Reflections on research design, digital methods, critical tools, and reflexive or experimental approaches. (4,000–6,000 words; up to 5 figures/tables; APA 7th edition citation style)

  • Research Briefs: Short, timely pieces highlighting emerging trends, datasets, projects, or early-stage research with critical relevance. (1,500–2,500 words; up to 2 figures/tables; APA 7th edition citation style)

  • Op-Eds and Critical Commentaries: Argument-driven essays engaging contemporary digital issues, policy debates, or public discourses from a humanities perspective. (1,200–2,000 words; no more than 1 figure/table if required; APA 7th edition citation style)

  • Reviews and Review Essays: Critical reviews of books, digital projects, platforms, tools, or exhibitions relevant to the field. (1,500–3,000 words; figures optional; APA 7th edition citation style)

  • Speculative and Experimental Writing: Creative, future-oriented, or unconventional forms of scholarly expression that push the boundaries of academic writing. (2,000–4,000 words; flexible figure limits; APA 7th edition citation style)

  • Multimodal and Practice-Based Submissions: Scholarship integrating text with images, audio, video, code, or interactive elements. (2,500–5,000 words or equivalent; figures/media as appropriate; APA 7th edition citation style)

  • Interviews and Dialogues: Conversations with scholars, practitioners, artists, or activists working at the intersections of digital culture and critical inquiry. (2,000–3,500 words; figures optional; APA 7th edition citation style)

All submissions are evaluated for their originality, critical rigor, relevance to the journal’s scope, and contribution to ongoing debates in critical digital humanities.

Peer Review Process

Critical Digital Humanities follows a rigorous, transparent, and ethical peer-review process to ensure the quality, originality, and scholarly integrity of all published work.

All submissions undergo an initial editorial screening to assess their relevance to the journal’s scope, originality, and basic scholarly standards. Manuscripts that do not meet these criteria may be desk-rejected at this stage. Submissions that pass the initial screening are assigned to an Associate Editor or Section Editor.

The journal follows a double-blind peer-review process, in which the identities of both authors and reviewers are kept confidential. Each manuscript is typically reviewed by two independent experts in the relevant field. Reviewers evaluate submissions based on originality, theoretical and methodological rigor, clarity of argument, ethical considerations, and contribution to critical digital humanities scholarship.

Based on the reviewers’ reports, the editorial decision may be one of the following: acceptance, minor revisions, major revisions, or rejection. Authors receiving revision requests are expected to address reviewer comments in a timely and constructive manner. Revised manuscripts may be sent for further review at the discretion of the editors.

The final decision on publication rests with the Editor-in-Chief, in consultation with the editorial team. Critical Digital Humanities is committed to maintaining fairness, confidentiality, and academic integrity throughout the review process, and to ensuring that all submissions are evaluated solely on scholarly merit, without discrimination or conflict of interest.

Required Disclosures

To ensure transparency, ethical integrity, and scholarly accountability, Critical Digital Humanities requires authors to include the following disclosures in their submitted manuscripts, where applicable:

  • Conflict of Interest Disclosure: Authors must declare any financial, institutional, professional, or personal relationships that could be perceived as influencing the research or interpretation of findings. If no conflicts exist, authors should explicitly state that there are no conflicts of interest.

  • Funding and Sponsorship Disclosure: Authors must acknowledge all sources of financial support, grants, institutional funding, or sponsorship received for the research or publication. If the research did not receive any external funding, this should be clearly stated.

  • Author Contributions: For multi-authored manuscripts, authors are encouraged to provide a brief statement outlining each author’s contribution to the study (e.g., conceptualization, methodology, analysis, writing, review).

  • Ethical Approval Statement: Research involving human participants, interviews, surveys, digital ethnography, or use of personal data must include a statement indicating whether ethical approval was obtained from an appropriate review board or ethics committee, or explaining why such approval was not required.

  • Informed Consent Statement: Where applicable, authors must confirm that informed consent was obtained from participants, and that privacy, anonymity, and data protection standards were upheld.

  • Data Availability Statement: Authors should indicate whether the data supporting the findings are available, where they can be accessed, and under what conditions, or state if data sharing is restricted due to ethical or legal reasons.

  • Use of AI and Digital Tools: Authors must disclose the use of AI tools, generative technologies, or automated systems in the research or writing process, specifying the purpose and extent of their use.

  • Acknowledgements: Any individuals, communities, or institutions that contributed to the research but do not meet authorship criteria should be acknowledged.

Failure to provide required disclosures may delay the review or publication process. All disclosures should be included in a dedicated section of the manuscript prior to the references.

Article Processing Charges (APC)

Critical Digital Humanities follows a transparent and affordable Article Processing Charge (APC) policy. A fee of USD 50 is applicable only for articles that are formally accepted for publication after the peer-review process. There are no submission or review fees.

All payment-related communication, including invoices and payment instructions, will be shared exclusively through our official email address: contact@wavehills.org. Authors are strongly advised not to trust or respond to any payment requests received from other email addresses. The journal will not be responsible for payments made through unauthorized or unofficial channels.