In my view, this is a clear case of academic plagiarism. It flouts the ethical norms of academic publishing in general and the field of media and communications in particular. Journals, publishers and academic institutions operate with clear and well-known norms on plagiarism, and all the academics and universities I am familiar with train students to be clear about the norms for citing, crediting, and acknowledging fully the work, words and ideas of others.

Q2. The grey zone. Does the material include writing techniques that are controversial in your field but cannot be qualified fully and clearly as academic misconduct?

Much of the text is unacceptable, simply copying the words of others and presenting them as the author’s own. Some portions of the text could be considered to fall into the ‘grey zone’ if that is all that occurred – here I refer to the ways in which some parts are paraphrased (e.g. the list of points on what media literacy is not), although here too there is too much straightforward copying of others’ words.

Q3. Significance. What would be the outcome and impact if one of your colleagues published a similar work? (You may think of any conceivable sanctions or impact on research, institution, public perception etc.)

The consequence would be an internal university inquiry at first, to determine how much of the author’s works were not in fact their own and over what period. If more than a single or handful of instances, there would be a formal inquiry, by one of the most senior people in the university. If found guilty of plagiarism, there would be extremely serious consequences, including the possible outcome of being sacked. There could also be some public statement of the result of the inquiry, including the possibility of retractions of the author’s other work, public notices to all academics in contact with the guilty party, and widespread shame. Our university has a strict set of rules and procedures in cases of plagiarism by students, including for doctoral theses. Those found guilty of plagiarism cannot pass their PhD.

Among the most fundamental ethical norms of scholarly research within and beyond the field of media education is the appropriate acknowledging of works discussed or cited, a norm which the article in question disrespects repeatedly and to an extreme degree. Towards the beginning of the text, sentences from an existing publication are recombined without proper referencing, and modified only slightly by changing or adding individual expressions or punctuation marks. This already constitutes an obvious breach of good practice. The main part of the text consists, to a significant degree, of entire paragraphs extracted from existing publications for which no source is provided. In the few cases in which sources are given, the extent to which the respective publications have been quoted word by word is not made apparent to the reader. On the whole, the text gives the impression of relating to existing works in the field while for the most part silently reproducing them. What frequently represents the outcome of extended collaborative research projects is thus presented as the summarising assessment of an individual scholar.

Q2. The grey zone. Does the material include writing techniques that are controversial in your field but cannot be qualified fully and clearly as academic misconduct?

This question has to be answered in the negative for the simple reason that the bulk of the text can fully and clearly be characterised as a case of academic misconduct. The argument of the piece relies heavily on the insertion of plagiarised passages. Thus, the article speaks with an authority which – except for its comparatively brief opening and closing remarks – is neither the result of the author’s own research nor adequately acknowledged in its origins.

Q3. Significance. What would be the outcome and impact if one of your colleagues published a similar work? (You may think of any conceivable sanctions or impact on research, institution, public perception etc.)

In general, one would assume that such a blatant case of plagiarism would be recognised during the process of peer review, resulting in the outright rejection of the paper. And, of course, such an incident would seriously harm the reputation and integrity of the author within his or her institution and the academic community at large. As in the present case, we are dealing with the publication of a PhD candidate, the contradiction between the plagiarism undertaken and the overall aim of doctoral research to produce a genuine contribution to knowledge appears particularly glaring.

This article seems to be extensively plagiarised from several sources, two of which are written by myself. There is substantial copying of whole sentences and paragraphs, so this is not simply a matter of accident or coincidence. I am very happy that my work has been found useful by media policy-makers (as is the case with this author), but plagiarism is obviously unacceptable. This definitely does not comply with ethical norms in my field: if students were found to be doing this in their submitted work, they would be thrown out of their course, no question.

Q2. The grey zone. Does the material include writing techniques that are controversial in your field but cannot be qualified fully and clearly as academic misconduct?

There is a certain amount of ‘adaptation’ here, but what is striking is the fact that most of it is straight-out copying of sentences and paragraphs, no simply odd phrases here and there. The sources are cited by the author, but the fact that the material has been directly lifted from those sources is not made clear. There is a difference between clear citation (using quotation marks, indentation, a different type-face, for example) and plagiarism. This is plagiarism.

Q3. Significance. What would be the outcome and impact if one of your colleagues published a similar work? (You may think of any conceivable sanctions or impact on research, institution, public perception etc.)

If this was done by a student, they would be thrown off their course. If it was done by an academic, it would be ruinous for their reputation. They might not be thrown out of their job, but they would be formally reprimanded and the publication would be withdrawn.

The paper by Rodica Anghel, published in 2009, contravenes ethical standards for academic work at almost every level. This is a classic piece of ‘cutting and pasting’, where only a tiny amount of the text appears to be original to the ‘author’ and where the ordinary conventions of citation are invoked so loosely as to be virtually worthless. Hardly any of the long sections of direct quotation are marked as such, even though these have often barely been changed at all from the original text.

Q2. The grey zone. Does the material include writing techniques that are controversial in your field but cannot be qualified fully and clearly as academic misconduct?

There are no grey areas: this is one of the clearest cases of sustained plagiarism I have ever seen. The only aspect where there is the tiniest case for mitigation is that the author appears to have plagiarised in such an unsophisticated way that they have not even troubled to disguise their sources. The paper appears to demonstrate almost total ignorance about the standards and procedures required for academic work, rather than evincing a sustained, wilful attempt to deceive.

Q3: Significance. What would be the outcome and impact if one of your colleagues published a similar work? (You may think of any conceivable sanctions or impact on research, institution, public perception etc.)

I cannot imagine a paper like this appearing in any respectable academic journal with a peer review process. In the brief passages that do not appear to be pasted together from other sources without attribution, the writing is full of grammatical solecisms and lacks lucidity. Cutting and pasting from multiple sources, in the amateurish way that it has been conducted here, would almost certainly be detected by any reputable journal. Even if this were not the case, it is impossible to develop an argument that would be judged worthy of publication by composing in this manner.