About the Journal

About the journal

Digital Age in Semiotics & Communication (DigitASC) is an annual, open-access, double-blind peer-reviewed journal published since [2018] by the Southeast European Center for Semiotic Studies at New Bulgarian University, Sofia, Bulgaria. Founded by Prof. Kristian Bankov, it explores new forms of knowledge, social and linguistic interaction, and the cultural phenomena generated by the internet and artificial intelligence.

  • ISSN (Print): 2603-3585
  • ISSN (Online): 2603-3593
  • DOI prefix:33919 (every article receives a Crossref DOI)
  • Publisher: New Bulgarian University, 21 Montevideo Street, 1618 Sofia, Bulgaria
  • Editor-in-chief: Kristian Bankov, New Bulgarian University, Bulgaria
  • Frequency: one volume per year, in print and online
  • Language: English
  • Fees: none – no submission or article processing charges
  • Licence: CC BY 4.0

Each volume is devoted to a theme related to the digital environment, chosen by the editors and announced in a call for papers on this website, on the NBU semiotics page and on the journal's Facebook page. Papers outside the theme of the current volume may also be submitted if they fall within the journal's scope.

Aims and scope

DigitASC offers a collaborative, interdisciplinary forum for scholars researching new phenomena in the rapidly changing digital world. Its aim is to bridge semiotics, AI research, communication studies, the social sciences and STEM disciplines on the one hand and the problems of the digital era on the other, combining a solid theoretical framework with rigorous applied research.

We welcome contributions from theoretical and applied semiotics, communication studies, marketing and advertising, linguistics and literary studies, anthropology and ethnography, cognitive science and psychology, and computer science. Topics of particular interest include:

  • AI and new forms of knowledge
  • new media and the immersive e-consumption of experience
  • new forms of creativity with generative AI
  • new forms of social relations in the age of social media
  • new habits of communication, self-expression and self-representation
  • generative narratology and e-fiction
  • digital grammatology
  • generative audio-visualisation
  • large language models and computational linguistics

Open access

DigitASC is a fully open-access (diamond) journal. All articles are freely available on this website immediately upon publication, without subscription, registration or embargo. Authors are not charged any submission, processing or publication fees; the journal is funded by New Bulgarian University.

Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits anyone to share and adapt the work for any purpose, provided the original authors and the source are credited. Authors retain the copyright of their work and grant the journal the right of first publication.

Peer review process

DigitASC is committed to rigorous, impartial peer review. Every research article goes through the following stages:

  1. Editorial screening. The editors of the volume check the manuscript's fit with the journal's scope and the volume's theme, its compliance with the Notes for Contributors, and its originality, including a similarity check with plagiarism-detection software. Manuscripts that fail this check are returned to the authors without review, usually within a month.
  2. Double-blind review. Manuscripts that pass screening are sent to at least two independent reviewers, chosen from the International Advisory Board or from external experts in the field. Authors' and reviewers' identities are not disclosed to each other at any stage.
  3. On the basis of the reports, the editors of the volume recommend acceptance, minor revision, major revision or rejection. When the two reports disagree, a third reviewer may be invited.
  4. Final decision. The final decision on publication is taken by the Editor-in-chief, in consultation with the co-editor of the volume. Authors receive the decision together with the anonymised reviewers' reports and, where revisions are requested, a deadline for resubmission.
  5. Revision and acceptance. Revised manuscripts are checked against the reviewers' requests; major revisions may be returned to the original reviewers. Only manuscripts that satisfactorily address the reviews are accepted.
  6. Editing and publication. Accepted articles undergo language editing by a native English speaker and technical editing to the journal's style, and authors approve the proofs before publication.

Manuscripts submitted by the Editor-in-chief, the editors of a volume or members of the International Advisory Board are handled by an editor with no conflict of interest and undergo the same double-blind review as all other submissions. The submitting editor takes no part in the review or the decision.

Editorials and introductions to a volume written by the editors are not peer-reviewed and are identified as such.

Publication ethics

DigitASC follows the guidance of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), available in full at https://publicationethics.org/guidance-and-tools, and handles suspected misconduct according to the COPE flowcharts. The journal welcomes experimental and interdisciplinary work, but all of it must rest on academic integrity.

  • Data fabrication and falsification. Results must not be invented or manipulated. Authors must state how their data, corpora or examples were obtained and must distinguish empirical findings from interpretation and speculation.
  • Submissions must be original and must acknowledge the work of others, including the authors' own earlier publications. Self-plagiarism is not accepted. All manuscripts are checked with similarity-detection software.
  • Multiple submission. A manuscript must not be under consideration by another journal at the same time. Translations of previously published work and preprints are considered only if disclosed at submission.
  • Redundant publication. A single study must not be divided into several minimal papers; companion papers must state their relationship to each other.
  • Everyone listed as an author must have made a substantial contribution to the work and approve the final version; ghost and honorary authorship are not permitted. Changes to the author list after submission require the written agreement of all authors.
  • Editorial independence. Reviewers and editors judge manuscripts on scholarly merit alone, regardless of the authors' affiliation, nationality, gender or seniority. The journal actively supports early-career researchers.
  • Corrections and retractions. Errors found after publication are corrected in a published correction notice linked to the article. Articles are retracted, or given an expression of concern, where COPE guidelines require it; retracted articles remain online, clearly marked.
  • Complaints and appeals. Authors may appeal an editorial decision by writing to the Editor-in-chief at DigitASC@nbu.bg with a reasoned explanation. Appeals and complaints are handled by an editor not involved in the original decision, following COPE guidance.

Conflicts of interest

  • Authors must disclose any financial or personal relationships, funding sources or affiliations that could be perceived as influencing their work, in a statement included in the manuscript ("The author declares no conflict of interest" when there is none).
  • Reviewers must decline to review, or inform the editors, when they have a conflict of interest with the authors or the subject of a manuscript – for example a recent collaboration, a shared institution or a competing project. They must not use unpublished material for their own research.
  • Editors do not take part in decisions on manuscripts in which they have a conflict of interest; such manuscripts are handled by another member of the editorial team (see Peer review process).

Use of generative AI

  • AI tools cannot be listed as authors; authors are fully responsible for the content of their manuscript.
  • Any use of generative AI beyond grammar and spell checking must be disclosed in a Declaration on the use of generative AI, placed before the references and published with the article.
  • AI output is not a scholarly source and must not be cited as evidence; all references suggested by AI tools must be verified. AI output may be quoted only as an object of analysis.
  • Reviewers and editors must not upload manuscripts under review to generative AI tools, as this breaches the confidentiality of peer review.

Archiving and indexing

All content is preserved through the digital repository of New Bulgarian University. The journal is indexed in: CEEOL, Google Scholar.