This year marks the five year anniversary of Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, published by Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. As we publish the sixth volume of the journal now, we find ourselves in a phase of expansion. There have been quite a few changes within the last year and we would like to take the opportunity to tell you about them in this editorial. Starting with the editorial office, there have been some additions to the staff. As of December 2011, the former Editorial Board member Kristian Daneback is the Associate Editor of the journal. Furthermore, we have now two Editorial Assistants, Lenka Dedkova and Vera Kontrikova. The Editorial Board and Advisory Board have expanded as well and we are very grateful for the service and expertise they bring to the journal (the board members are presented below in the journal information).

Another change you will notice starting from this issue is the DOI numbers assigned to each article. The DOI (Digital Object Identifier) is a permanent identification number that has become an international standard for electronic documents. This means that the articles published in this journal will be searchable through their DOIs which are more stable than URLs.

Our journal is also indexed in SCOPUS since 2011, and this is probably also one of the reasons why the flow of articles is increasing. We are happy about this and are thankful to authors for such a high interest in the journal! For your information, the rejection rate in the last 6 months has been approximately 70 percent and about 25 percent of the submissions are rejected by the editors without review. Under ideal circumstances, we aim to get an editorial decision to our authors within 3-4 months, sometimes longer if we have difficulties finding suitable reviewers or due to other extraordinary circumstances. Most manuscripts are revised two or three times (and often evaluated by the original reviewers) before acceptance. This, along with the current publication frequency of two volumes per year, means that a manuscript is generally published one year from its first submission. Having said that, we would like to mention the experts who evaluate the manuscripts we send out for review. Being researchers ourselves, we know all about the busy academic life and finding additional time on top of that oftentimes means that our reviewers perform their evaluations in their spare time – for free! Consequently, we are extremely happy whenever we get a positive response from a reviewer and, on the other hand, fully understand that sometimes this extra task may be too demanding due to an already heavy workload. Therefore, we would like to thank all of the previous, current and future reviewers of this journal; your work is invaluable in helping increasing the quality of the research we publish.

In this editorial, we would also like to mention the journal’s close connection to the annual conference Cyberspace 2012 held in Brno, Czech Republic. We are pleased that some of the authors have attended the conference in Brno, before or after they published in the journal. This year marks the ten year anniversary of the conference, and we hope that many old and new friends and colleagues will join us in Brno on the 30th of November to the 1st of December 2012 to present and discuss ideas, drafts, and recently completed studies; hopefully we will be able to publish some of them in subsequent issues of Cyberpsychology.

We would like to take the opportunity to emphasize the international aspect of the journal. We are happy to receive submissions from many countries from virtually all continents (except from the Antarctic and South America, so far). Apart from the Swedish/Czech editorial, the current issue comprises articles written by authors from Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Israel, Italy, and the United States. As you can see, they also represent a departmental and topical diversity which stands up to the journal’s aim to publish very broadly on cyberspace related issues from a variety of academic disciplines using both qualitative and quantitative methods as well as more theoretically oriented works and reviews.

In the current issue, the first study by Pettijohn II et al examines how facebook use is related to self-esteem and personality. In the second study, Walrave, Vanwesenbeeck & Heirman compare the privacy settings of adults and adolescents in relation to self-disclosure and the balance between protection and connection. Next, Welsh & Lavoie investigate online risk taking and cyberstalking victimization. In the fourth study, Bluemke & Zumbach examine the relationship between reaction times online and aggression. In the fifth study, Nimrod investigates gender differences in online depression communities. In the sixth study, Sirianni & Vishwanath explore the motives and behaviors of those who upload sexually explicit material. In the final paper Seganti & Ragneti present Fatorello’s communication theory of the 1950s, here in an updated version.

The next issue will be published in December 2012, the deadline for manuscript submission is 15th August 2012. However, we accept submissions continuously all year long.

Issue content

About journal

The 'Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace' is a web-based, peer-reviewed scholarly journal. The first peer-reviewed issue was published in September 2007. The journal is focussed on social science research about cyberspace. It brings psychosocial reflections of the impact of the Internet on people and society. The journal is interdisciplinary, publishing works written by scholars of psychology, media studies, sociology, political science, nursing, and also other disciplines. The journal accepts original research articles, as well as theoretical studies and research meta-analyses. Proposals for special issues are also welcomed.

The journal is indexed with Ebsco Academic Search Complete, the Directory of Open Access Journals, SCOPUS and the Czech Database of Scientific Journals.

Editor:

Assoc. Prof. David Smahel, M.Sc. et Ph.D., Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Czech Republic
E-mail: smahel(at)fss.muni.cz

Associate editor:

Assoc. Prof. Kristian Daneback, Ph.D., University of Gothenburg, Sweden
E-mail: kristian.daneback(at)socwork.gu.se

Editor assistants:

Vera Kontrikova, M.A., Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Czech Republic
E-mail: kontriko(at)fss.muni.cz

Lenka Dedkova, M.A., Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Czech Republic
E-mail: ldedkova(at)fss.muni.cz

Editorial board:

Prof. Kaveri Subrahmanyam, Ph.D., California State University, Los Angeles, USA
Prof. Herbert Hrachovec, Ph.D., University of Vienna, Austria
Prof. Dr. Micheline Frenette, Universite de Montreal, Canada
Prof. Alexander E. Voiskounsky, Ph.D., Moscow State University, Russia
Prof. Michael W. Ross, Ph.D., DrMedSc, MPH, MPHEd, University of Texas, Houston, USA
Prof. Petr Macek, CSc., Masaryk University, Czech Republic
Prof. Olle Findahl, World Internet Institute, Uppsala University, Sweden
Prof. Jochen Peter, Ph.D., University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Prof. Veronika Kalmus, Ph.D., University of Tartu, Estonia
Assoc. Prof. Joshua Fogel, Ph.D., Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, USA
Assoc. Prof. Gustavo S. Mesch, Ph.D., University of Haifa, Israel
Václav Štětka, Ph.D., University of Oxford, UK
Andra Siibak, Ph.D., University of Tartu, Estonia
Birgit U. Stetina, Ph.D., University of Vienna, Austria
Lukas Blinka, M.A., Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Czech Republic

Advisory board:

Prof. Bente Traen, Ph.D., University of Tromso, Norway
Prof. Charles Ess, Ph.D., Drury University, USA
Prof. Dr. Ilse Kryspin-Exner, University of Vienna, Austria
Prof. PhDr. Jan Jirák, Ph.D., Charles University, Czech Republic
Prof. Vasja Vehovar, Ph.D., University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Prof. Dr. Larry D. Rosen, California State University, USA
Prof. Patricia M. Greenfield, Ph.D., University of California, USA
Prof. Peter K Smith, University of London, England
Prof. Nicola Döring, Ilmenau University of Technology, Germany
Prof. Kimberly Young, Center for Internet Addiction Recovery
Prof. Jos de Haan, Ph.D., Erasmus University, Netherlands
Prof. Zbyněk Vybíral, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Czech Republic
Prof. Monica Whitty, Ph.D., Nottingham Trent University, UK
Assoc. Prof. Alfred Choi, Ph.D., Wee Kim School of Communication and Information, Singapore
Assoc. Prof. T. Ramayah, Technology Management Lab, School of Management, Universiti Sains Malaysia
Assoc. Prof. Neil Coulson, Ph.D., The University of Nottingham, UK
Assoc. Prof. Kenneth C. C. Yang, Ph.D., University of Texas at El Paso, USA
Assoc. Prof. Sun Sun Lim, Ph.D., National University of Singapore, Singapore
Assoc. Prof. Sameer Hinduja, Ph.D., Florida Atlantic University, USA
Assoc. Prof. Jana Horáková, Ph.D., Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Czech Republic
Assist. Prof. Alexander Schouten, Ph.D., Tilburg University, Netherlands
Assist. Prof. Ewa S. Callahan, Ph.D., School of Communications, Quinnipiac University, USA
Assist. Prof. Regina van den Eijnden, Ph.D., Utrecht University, Netherlands
PhDr. Ing. Petr Soukup, Ph.D., Faculty of Social Studies, Charles University, Czech Republic
Alistair Duff, Ph.D., Napier University, Scotland
Janis Wolak, Ph.D., University of New Hampshire, USA
Francesca Romana Seganti, Ph.D., American University of Rome, Italy
Jeffrey Gavin, Ph.D., University of Bath, UK
Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt, Ph.D., University of Tartu, Estonia
PhDr. Radim Polčák, Ph.D., Faculty of Law, Masaryk University, Czech Republic
Michael Fenichel, Ph.D., New York, USA
Leslie Haddon, Ph.D., London School of Economics, UK
Monica Barbovschi, Ph.D., Babes-Bolyai University, Romania
Jan Sirucek, Ph.D., Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Czech Republic

Publisher

Masaryk University, Faculty of Social Studies
Jostova 10, 60200 Brno
Czech Republic

Publication schedule

Twice per year (July and December) plus special issues