Open-science principles, such as sharing data and materials as well as pre-registration, are expected to foster a systematic replication culture. This is relevant especially for much cited publications at a discipline’s core to be reproducible. While communication science has been described to fall short of such principles, not much is known about its extent. Using a computational content analysis, we examine how many publications in communication science share data and materials and have pre-registered their endeavors. Looking at 14,687 publications between 2010 and 2020, encompassing 4,754 psychological papers as benchmark, the results show that open-science principles are employed only in a fraction of communication-science publications while being much more common in psychology. Moreover, adhering to these principles does not affect scientific impact. The paper advocates for greater attention to shared data and materials as well as pre-registrations, and to value these open-science principles in reviews, calls, and citations.

Haim, M. & Jungblut, M. (5/2021). How open is communication science? Analyzing open-science principles in communication science and psychology. Presented at the 71st Annual Conference of the International Communication Association, Denver. (content_copy)