Abant Journal of Cultural Studies aims to produce, develop and share information in an impartial manner with the scientific method by examining current developments in all fields of social sciences, especially communication sciences, in a holistic and inclusive manner.

Scientific works are studies that emerge as a result of scientific methods and ensure the application and impartiality of the scientific method. During the creation of these works, all components of the publication process; publisher / s, editor / s, author / s, referee / s and reader / s must comply with ethical principles. In this context, the publication ethics and open access policy of the Abant Journal of Cultural Studies is also in line with the guidelines and policies published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) on open access (e.g. "Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors; "Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors" and "COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors"; ICMJE Recommendations, CSE White Paper on Publication Ethics, WAME resources, WMA policies and ORI; WMA Declaration of Helsinki) requires all components of the publication process to comply with ethical principles.

If it is detected that the data used in the scientific works submitted and/or accepted to the journal are manipulated, distorted and fabricated, the authors of the scientific work will be officially notified of this situation and the work will be rejected. Abant Journal of Cultural Research has the right to request output files of the analysis results from the authors according to the feedback given by the editorial and/or referees.

Research ethics (Ethical consent document)
Abant Journal of Cultural Research has adopted the principle of full compliance with national and international ethical rules and principles within the scope of the protection of human and animal rights. In the articles evaluated in Abant Journal of Cultural Research, Ethics Committee Approval is required for the research in question in accordance with the following articles:

- All kinds of research conducted with qualitative or quantitative approaches that require data collection from participants using survey, interview, focus group, observation, experiment, interview techniques,
- Use of humans and animals (including materials/data) for experimental or other scientific purposes,
- Clinical trials in humans,
- Research on animals,
- Retrospective studies in accordance with the law on the protection of personal data.

Ethical responsibilities of the publisher
Abant Journal of Cultural Studies is a personal journal that has been publishing in the field of social sciences under the management of the editorial board or editorial board since 2016. The publishers of the journal have adopted the principle of free non-profit publication, which carries the principle that scientific works should be published in line with ethical principles.

- The publisher, one of the stakeholders involved in a scientific study, should also act within the scope of all these ethical principles.
- The publisher is obliged to use its communication power without any individual interest and to guide its target audience correctly.
- The publisher protects the ownership and copyright of every work published in its journal and undertakes the task of archiving every published product.
- Individuals should not hesitate to contact the publisher if they encounter an unethical situation.

Ethical duties and responsibilities of editors
- Rejecting manuscripts that are not suitable for the purpose and scope of the journal.
- To take into account the original value of the articles, contribution to the field, validity and reliability of the research method, clarity of expression and the purpose and scope of the journal while making positive or negative decisions about the articles.
- To take the submitted articles to the preliminary evaluation stage as long as there is no serious problem, to consider the referee's suggestions, not to change the decisions made by the previous editor(s) unless there is a serious problem, and to contribute with constructive criticism.
- To implement the double-blind review and evaluation process policies adopted by the journal, to keep the identity information of the reviewers confidential, to ensure that each article is evaluated impartially and within the deadline.
- To appoint reviewers independent of the author(s)' institutions to ensure independent peer review.
- To submit manuscripts taking into account the areas of expertise of the field editors and reviewers, and to support unbiased and independent reviews.
- To act in a balanced, objective and fair manner in fulfilling their duties without discrimination on the basis of gender, religious or political beliefs, ethnic or geographical origin of the authors.
- To evaluate the works submitted to the journal according to their content and not to show privilege to any author.
- To take the necessary measures to prevent possible conflicts of interest and to evaluate existing statements, if any. In the event of an emerging conflict of interest, the Journal suspends the evaluation process of the manuscript until the uncertainty is resolved; in this context, the Journal has the authority to request Ethics Committee Permission, Interviewer Voluntary Consent Forms and documents to be submitted from the applicant author.
- Treating sponsored studies or studies on special topics in the same way as other studies.
- In the event of a complaint of ethical violation, to implement the necessary procedures, adhering to the journal's policies and procedures. To give the authors an opportunity to respond to the complaint, and to take the necessary sanctions regardless of who the study belongs to.
- To take into account studies with negative results.
- To act responsibly and sensitively in publishing content in the form of corrections, explanations, apologies and retractions.

Ethical responsibilities of referees
In the article evaluation process of Abant Journal of Cultural Research, the principle of two-way blind reviewing is applied, where the author(s) do not know the referees and the referees do not know the authors; referees cannot communicate directly with the authors; article evaluation forms and notes on the text and correction requests are sent to the author(s) by the editors via the journal management system.

Referees who will evaluate the articles submitted to the Abant Journal of Cultural Studies should bear the following ethical responsibilities:

- Referees should objectively review the manuscript in a timely manner to contribute to the Editor's decision-making process and should agree to evaluate only the work related to their area of expertise.
- Reviewers should conduct the review with impartiality and confidentiality. In accordance with this principle, they should destroy the articles they have reviewed after the evaluation process and use them only after publication. Nationality, gender, religious beliefs, political beliefs and commercial concerns should not impair the impartiality of the review.
- Referees should refuse to evaluate the article and inform the editors when they realize that there is a conflict of interest.
- Reviewers should evaluate the manuscript in a constructive and courteous manner in accordance with the rules of academic etiquette; they should avoid personal comments containing insults and hostility.
- Referees should evaluate the manuscript they accept for evaluation within the deadline.
- Referee(s) should refuse to review a manuscript if it is too similar to a work in progress or under review.
- Reviewers should protect the confidentiality of the information provided by the editor and the author, destroy the manuscript after the evaluation process due to the principle of confidentiality, notify the editor if there is a violation of blind reviewing, and not evaluate the manuscript.
- Be aware of potential conflicts of interest (financial, institutional, collaborative, or other relationships between the author and the reviewer) and, if necessary, alert the editor of the manuscript.
- Maintain the confidentiality of the manuscript and the review process.
- Inform the journal if a situation arises that may affect their substantive comments and feedback.
- Try to respond to requests from the journal for revision and reconsideration.

Ethical responsibilities of authors
Scientific research ethical responsibilities of the author(s) submitting an article to Abant Journal of Cultural Research:

- The author(s) should not submit an article that they have published or submitted for publication elsewhere to Abant Journal of Cultural Research at the same time.
- The author(s) should submit an original article to Abant Journal of Cultural Studies.
- The author(s) should cite the sources used during the writing of the article with appropriate citation techniques in line with ethical principles.
- The names of people who do not contribute to the article should not be written as authors, and it should not be suggested to change the order of authors, remove authors, or add authors to an article applied for publication. The names of the authors are uploaded by the responsible author at the time of uploading the article to the system. The Editorial Board of the Journal does not make systematic changes.
- Author(s) should notify the editors of any conflict of interest or conflict of interest related to the article applied for publication.
- If the author(s) are asked for information or raw data about their articles during the review process, they should submit the requested information to the Editors.
- The author(s) should document that the rights to use the data they use in their articles, the permissions related to the research-research, or the approval of the participants on whom they conducted research have been obtained. In the methods section, information about voluntary consent must be provided.
- The author(s) should contact the editor within 5 days to inform, correct, or retract an error in the manuscript that is under review, early appearance, or published electronically.
- The author(s) should indicate that they have received ethics committee approval for research that requires data collection with quantitative or qualitative methods such as experiments, surveys, scales, interviews, observations, focus group studies that require ethics committee approval; the name of the ethics committee, the date and number of the decision should be indicated on the first-last page of the candidate article and in the method section, and the document showing the ethics committee decision should be uploaded to the system with the application of the article.
- The author(s) should provide evidence that they pay attention to ethical principles during the data collection process (such as obtaining permission to use other people's documents such as scales, questionnaires, photographs, or using a voluntary consent form). It should be stated in the articles that research and publication ethics and copyright regulations for intellectual and artistic works are complied with. If the research was conducted on human and animal subjects, it should be reported that the research was conducted in accordance with international declarations, guidelines, etc. (Declaration of Helsinki).
- Ethics committee approval is not requested from the author(s) for review articles. However, in works that do not require ethics committee decision, it should be stated on the first and last page of the article and in the method section.

Plagiarism policy
Plagiarism is the most common and serious ethical problem affecting scientific writings, regardless of whether it is intentional or not. Therefore, it is not only unethical, but also criminal and unacceptable to publish works that are similar to other sources without reference.

Abant Journal of Cultural Studies takes many measures to prevent any form of plagiarism. In accordance with today's publication policy, Similarity Programs are used to identify overlapping and similar text examples of articles (after article acceptance). Articles with a similarity score of more than 10% may lead to rejection even if detected after acceptance. In addition, the Editorial Board can act in accordance with COPE rules in the face of allegations and suspicions of plagiarism, citation manipulation and data falsification regarding the studies submitted to the journal.

Conflict of interest policy and copyright regulation
- Abant Journal of Cultural Research is obliged to take the necessary measures to prevent possible conflicts of interest and to evaluate existing declarations, if any. Therefore, it considers that possible conflicts of interest would harm the ethics of scientific publication. The Journal defines its obligations for all stakeholders to identify and prevent conflicts of interest. In the event of a potential conflict of interest, the Journal suspends the evaluation process of the manuscript until the uncertainty is resolved; in this context, the Journal has the authority to request Ethics Committee Permission, Interviewer Voluntary Consent Forms and documents that must be submitted from the applicant author.
- The author(s) owns the copyright on his/her own works and the right to publish his/her article for the first time belongs to Abant Journal of Cultural Research; in accordance with Creative Commons Attribution principles, it is permitted to share the work by citing the author and the journal.
- The author(s) must sign the Copyright Transfer and Conflict of Interest Form (all authors must sign) and upload it to the system when applying for publication to Abant Journal of Cultural Research.

Publication fee
Abant Journal of Cultural Research (AKAR) does not charge any processing fee under the name of publication or publication costs from the author or authors at any stage of submission, evaluation and publication of the articles. In addition, authors are not charged an article processing fee for the works they send to the journal. It is a free, non-profit, non-profit journal published to contribute to the sharing of information in the field of communication sciences.

Reporting the situation that does not comply with the ethical principles to the journal editor
Any unethical behavior of the editors, referees, authors, or any unethical situation related to an article in the review process, in early view, or published in the Abant Journal of Cultural Research should be reported by e-mail to abantkültürel@gmail.com.

Main bases of the policies
- YÖK Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Directive
- Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
- World Medical Association (WMA) Declaration of Helsinki
- International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)
- Budapest Open Access Declaration
- Creative Commons