International Journal of Communication Publishes a Forum on Sociotechnical Change: Tracing Flows, Languages, and Stakes Across Diverse Cases

If change is the only constant, then what drives sociotechnical change? Who creates change within and through systems of humans and nonhumans? Which changes echo and repeat? Who suffers or benefits from change? What normative ideals guide hopes and fears of change?

Through empirically grounded, conceptually provocative, and wonderfully playful essays, this Forum on Sociotechnical Change: Tracing Flows, Language, and Stakes Across Diverse Cases, guest edited by Mike Ananny and Simogne Hudson, considers these questions and more by critically tracing different places where people and technologies meet. 

From studies of sports stadiums, homelessness counts, policing jaywalking, travel maps, and chicken farms to venture capitalism, refugee communities, climate crises, diasporic conflict, and autopen controversies, the forum offers not only unique case studies of change but also a larger story of how change emerges from messy but traceable collisions of people, practices, genealogies, representations, infrastructures, and values. 

Intended as provocations and starting points, the essays show how sociotechnical change is everywhere, and how the study of sociotechnical change can be interdisciplinary, playful, creative, and rigorous. 

Though authors come from different institutions and disciplines, they develop their projects through the University of Southern California’s collective MASTS (Media As SocioTechnical Systems), an interdisciplinary initiative fostering convivial exploration and collaboration across historically siloed schools, departments, methods, and traditions. 

We invite you to read these articles that published in the International Journal of Communication on January 1, 2024. Please log into ijoc.org to read the papers of interest. We look forward to your feedback!  
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Creating a Language of and for Sociotechnical Change: Interdisciplinary Sites, Stakes, and Senses of Transformation—Introduction
Mike Ananny, Simogne Hudson

From AAA TripTik to Google: Maps as Sites of Sociotechnical Change
So Yun Ahn

Disautomated Realities in South Africa: Loadshedding, Poultry Death, and the Promises of Failure
Ziyaad Bhorat

Digital Nations and the Future of the Climate Crisis 
Alfonso Hegde

Plasticity: Accounting for Adaptation in Sociotechnical Systems
Renyi Hong

Humanitarian Innovation in Forced Displacement
Alphoncina Lyamuya

Digital Diaspora and Nationhood: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and Practices of Nationhood
Azeb Madebo

“A Fountain Pen Come to Life”: The Anxieties of the Autopen
Pegah Moradi, Karen Levy

The Stadium as Sociotechnical Change
Cerianne Robertson, Pratik Nyaupane

Structures of Capital and Sociotechnical Change: The Case of Tech Startups and Venture Capital
Benjamin Shestakofsky, Caitlin Petre

Counting on Stability: The Social Construction of the Los Angeles Homeless Count
Will Orr

Pedestrian Mobilities at the Crossroads: The Contestation and Regulation of Jaywalking
Josh Widera

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Silvio Waisbord, Editor 
Kady Bell-Garcia, Managing Editor
Chi Zhang, Managing Editor, Special Sections
Mark Mangoba-Agustin, Webmaster
Mike Ananny and Simogne Hudson, Guest Editors

Please note that according to the latest Google Scholar statistics, IJoC ranks 7th among all Humanities journals and 8th among all Communications journals in the world — demonstrating the viability of open access scholarly publication at the highest level.