A bibliometric analysis of communication journals from 2002 to 2005

Journal impact ratings are often used by authors, promotion/hiring committees, and grant review teams as a proxy for scholarship quality. Journal citation data (2002- 2005) from Social Sciences Citation Index were used to rank journals in the field of communication. A journal relatedness algorithm was applied to ascertain the 19 semantically related journals in communication. The mean journal impact index was 0.77 (SD = 0.28). Human Communication Research (HCR), Personal Relationships, Journal of Communication (JOC), and Communication Research (CR) were ranked the top four journals for the study years examined. Network analysis was conducted on in-degree (i.e., citations to journals) and out-degree (i.e., citations from journals) data for the 19 communication journals for 2003-2005. The purpose of the network analysis was to study the citation patterns among journals in the field of communication. Data using degree centrality indicate that Communication Monographs, CR, HCR, and JOC (in alphabetical order) are the four most central journals in the field.