International Journal of Communication Publishes a Forum on Oops? Interdisciplinary Stories of Sociotechnical Error

What can we learn about people and technology through interdisciplinary stories of sociotechnical errors, failures, breakdowns, and mistakes? 

Guest edited by Mike Ananny and Simogne Hudson, the Forum on Oops? Interdisciplinary Stories of Sociotechnical Error takes up the question through a playful and provocative mix of projects that show how sociotechnical errors happen, why they matter, and what they reveal about people, technology, and power. Amidst so many complex collisions among people, data, engineering, and media—and in an age when technological “innovation” is widely celebrated and inescapable—these articles offer changes to pause and ask what system failures show about how people and machines intersect and vie for power.

Including scholars from communication, media studies, urban planning, critical data studies, and science and technology studies, the collection of essays invites readers to see failures anew—to consider errors, breakdowns, and mistakes from a different perspective, method, or normative stake. Use these essays to start conversations about what “error” means in your work or community, and why it matters.

We invite you to read these articles that published in the International Journal of Communication on April 23, 2025. Please log into ijoc.org to read the papers of interest. We look forward to your feedback!
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Oops? Sociotechnical Errors as Interdisciplinary Stories of Complex Relations, Shared Consequences, and Resilient Hopes—Introduction
Mike Ananny, Simogne Hudson

Uncertainty as Spectacle: Real-Time Algorithmic Techniques on the Live Music Stage
Stephen Yang

When Faulty AI Falls Into the Wrong Hands: The Risks of Erroneous AI-Driven Healthcare Decisions 
Eugene Jang

Fake It Till You Make It: Synthetic Data and Algorithmic Bias
Sook-Lin Toh, Jiwon Park

Discourses of Sociotechnical Error and Accuracy in U.S. and PRC News Media: The Case of the 1999 Bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade
Max Berwald

Affective Experiences of Error 
Megan Finn, Youngrim Kim, Ryan Ellis, Amelia Acker, Bidisha Chaudhuri, Stacey Wedlake

Peeling Back the Layers of “Paint on Rotten Wood”: Unraveling the Senate’s “Big Tech and Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis” Hearing
Kyooeun Jang

Kicking Error Out of the Game: Video Assistant Referee as Technosolutionism
Pratik Nyaupane, Alejandro Alvarado Rojas

When User Consent Fails: How Platforms Undermine Data Governance
Rohan Grover

Ephemeral Platforms, Enduring Memories: Errors and Digital Afterlife
Sui Wang

:Chatting: Errors in Live Streamer Discord Servers
Kirsten Crowe

Hole in the (Pay)Wall: Monetized Access, Content Leaks, and Community Responsibility
Celeste Oon

Edges, Seams, and Ecotones: Error in Interstate Landscapes
Cindy Lin, Steve J. Jackson

Quantifying Housing Need in California: The Erroneous Practice of Evidence-Based Policy
Elana R. Simon

___________________________________________________________________________________
Silvio Waisbord, Editor 
Kady Bell-Garcia, Managing Editor
Chi Zhang, Managing Editor, Special Sections
Andrew Taylor, Webmaster
Mike Ananny, Simogne Hudson, Guest Editors

 
Please note that according to the latest Google Scholar statistics, IJoC ranks 7th among all Humanities journals and 9th among all Communications journals in the world — demonstrating the viability of open access scholarly publication at the highest level.

International Journal of Communication invites you to read these 25 publications that published in March

The International Journal of Communication is pleased to announce the publication of 25 papers in MARCH 2025. To access these papers, Ctrl+Click on the titles below for direct hyperlinking, or go to ijoc.org.
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ARTICLES

Relative Public Disconnection: Poverty and Media Use in the Media Welfare State
Ivar Eimhjellen, Torgeir Uberg Nærlan

Who Wants Impartial News? Investigating Determinants of Preferences for Impartiality in 40 Countries
Camila Mont’Alverne, Amy Ross A. Arguedas, Sumitra Badrinathan, Benjamin Toff, Richard Fletcher, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen

Partisan Media and Support for Radical Protest Tactics Across Ideological Lines
Melissa Santillana, Joseph J. Yoo, Thomas J. Johnson, Silvia DalBen Furtado

Influence Operations as Brokerage: Political-Economic Infrastructures of Manipulation in the 2022 Philippine Elections
Fatima Gaw, Mariam Jayne Agonos, Kris Ruijgrok, Gerard Martin Suarez

The Role of Policy Mixes in Enabling Journalism Innovation: A Transnational Study Across Five Countries
Anja Noster, Christopher Buschow, Andy Kaltenbrunner, Renée Lugschitz

The “Star” Correspondent and Parachute Diplomacy: CNN’s Clarissa Ward in Myanmar and Afghanistan
Lisa Brooten, Syed Irfan Ashraf

Transmedia Edutainment for Sustainable Advocacy: How Narrative Engagement and Counterarguments Influence Generation Z’s Response to Sustainable Development Messages
Aya Shata, Michelle Seelig, Nicholas Carcioppolo

Determinants and Challenges of NGO Social Media Communication: Explaining Tensions Around “Looking Cool” for Social Change
Michael Dokyum Kim

Mobile Mundane (Dis)Connections: Examining Older Migrant Adults’ Mobile Media Automation During the COVID-19 Pandemic Through a Digital Kinship Lens
Earvin Charles B. Cabalquinto, Larissa Hjorth

Who is Responsible for Particulate Matter in South Korea’s Atmosphere? The Role of Social Media and Attribution of Responsibility on Risk Perception and Protective Behaviors
Doo-Hun Choi

Influence of the Watchdog Role of Nigerian Journalists on Public Perception of President Buhari’s Anti-Corruption Crusade
Sunday Uche Aja, Nnanyelugo Mark Okoro, Vincent Onyeaghanachi Odoh, Joseph Nwanja Chukwu, Mercy Ifeyinwa Obichili, Innocent Aja Ngene, Ngozi Eje Uduma, Chibuzor Cosmas Nwoga, Agatha Obiageri Orji-Egwu, Chika Thonia Ezeali

Toward a Theory of Surplus Blackness: Reception, Media Industries, and Blackness
Alfred L. Martin, Jr.

From Heroic Masculinity to Feminist Dads: Advertising Fatherhood in Türkiye
Alparslan Nas

Memefying Mental Illness: A Qualitative Content Analysis of Mental Illness Portrayals in #Depressionmemes on Instagram
Anna Wagner, Linn Temmann

The Positions of Data-Related Peripheral Actors in Journalism Practice
Laura Ahva

Bad Image, Yet Still Convincing? Examining the Chinese Government’s Image Repair Strategy in Responding to Accusations of COVID-19 Origin
Chih-Yao Chang, KyuJin Shim

Public Opinion and New Communication Technologies: The Impacts of Big Data on Public Opinion Studies From the Pragmatism Perspective
Pedro Caldas, Vinicius Romanini

BOOK REVIEWS

Eva Illouz, The Emotional Life of Populism: How Fear, Disgust, Resentment, and Love Undermine Democracy
Feyda Sayan-Cengiz

Meryl Alper, Kids Across the Spectrums: Growing Up Autistic in the Digital Age
Molly Martin

Mara Mills and Rebecca Sanchez (Eds.), Crip Authorship: Disability as Method
Kuansong Victor Zhuang, Wenqi Tan

Adrienne Russell, The Mediated Climate: How Journalists, Big Tech, and Activists Are Vying for Our Future
Claire Konkes

Song Shi, China and the Internet: Using New Media for Development and Social Change
Weiwei Zhang

Mohamed Zayani and Joe F. Khalil, The Digital Double Bind: Change and Stasis in the Middle East
William Lafi Youmans

Liane Rothenberger, Martin Löffelholz, David H. Weaver (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Cross-Border Journalism
Andreas Ryan Sanjaya

Christina Dunbar-Hester, Oil Beach: How Toxic Infrastructure Threatens Life in the Ports of Los Angeles and Beyond
Shelley Tuazon Guyton

____________________________________________________________
Silvio Waisbord, Editor 
Kady Bell-Garcia, Managing Editor 
Chi Zhang, Managing Editor, Special Sections 
Andrew Taylor, Webmaster

Please note that according to the latest Google Scholar statistics, IJoC ranks 7th among all Humanities journals and 9th among all Communications journals in the world  — demonstrating the viability of open access scholarly publication at the highest level. 

International Journal of Communication invites you to read these 17 publications that published in February

The International Journal of Communication is pleased to announce the publication of 17 papers in FEBRUARY 2025. To access these papers, Ctrl+Click on the titles below for direct hyperlinking, or go to ijoc.org.
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ARTICLES

Media Health Literacy: A Scoping Review and Agenda for Future Research
Shadee Ashtari

Representation in ScienceTok: Communicator Identities, Message Content, and User Engagement on a Short-Form Video Social Media Platform
Siyu Chen, Paul R. Brewer

Tracing Information Flows in the Hybrid Media System: The Agenda-Setting Role of Dark Platforms Surrounding the Ukraine Invasion Discourse
Mónika Simon, Savvas Zannettou, Kasper Welbers, Anne C. Kroon, Damian Trilling

The Sexualization of Boys and Girls in Videos: Proposal for a Self-Sexualization Scale on TikTok
Rebeca Suárez-Álvarez, Antonio García-Jiménez

Decolonizing the Queer Project of Aotearoa New Zealand: Weaving Takatāpui Identity Into Queer Spaces
Elena Maydell

Research Practices in Comparative Communication Research: Visibility, Topical and Geographical Disparities, and their Longitudinal Patterns
Fabienne Lind, Hyunjin Song, Hajo G. Boomgaarden, Ahrabhi Kathirgamalingam,
Kim Pamina Syed Ali, Rens Vliegenthart

Making Sense of Algorithm: Exploring TikTok Users’ Awareness of Content Recommendation and Moderation Algorithms
Cristiano Felaco

News Credibility on Facebook: The Role of Media and Intermediary Trust and Their Interplay
Lukáš Slavík, David Lacko, Jakub Macek

Everybody Hurts? Reality-Based Entertainment and Mediated Suffering in Sweatshop: Deadly Fashion
Vladimir Cotal San Martin, Georgia Aitaki

Shocking the System: The Athletic, a Journalistic Merger and the (Preventable) Ensuing Fallout
Patrick Ferrucci, Gregory P. Perreault

Creating a Cost to Spread Misinformation on Social Media
Drew B. Margolin, Yunyun S. Wang

I’ll Share It When I Believe It! An Experimental Study on the Effects of Hateful and False Content on Credibility and Sharing Intention
David Blanco-Herrero, Damian Trilling, Carlos Arcila-Calderón

Cultural Intertextuality in Olympic-Themed International Publicity: A Media Discourse Analysis
Yubin Qian

Smart-Washing the City: A Study on the Privatization of Urban Digital Infrastructures in the Global South
Jess Reia, Luã Cruz

BOOK REVIEWS

Simeon Yates and Elinor Carmi (Eds.), Digital Inclusion: International Policy and Research
Yan Wang

Phillip Santos and Cleophas T. Muneri (Eds.), Reading Justice Claims on Social Media: Perspectives from the Global South
Sarah Witmer

Avery Dame-Griff, The Two Revolutions: A History of the Transgender Internet
Mack Brumbaugh

____________________________________________________________
Silvio Waisbord, Editor 
Kady Bell-Garcia, Managing Editor 
Chi Zhang, Managing Editor, Special Sections 

Please note that according to the latest Google Scholar statistics, IJoC ranks 7th among all Humanities journals and 9th among all Communications journals in the world — demonstrating the viability of open access scholarly publication at the highest level.

International Journal of Communication invites you to read these 54 publications that published in January

The International Journal of Communication is pleased to announce the publication of 54 papers in JANUARY 2025, which includes the “Special Section on Unpacking Property: Media, Ownership, and Power in Transformation” and the “Forum on Groundhog Day.” To access these papers, Ctrl+Click on the titles below for direct hyperlinking, or go to ijoc.org.
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ARTICLES

The “Good” Dictator: The Semiotics of “Desirable” Authoritarianism
Sameera Durrani

Difference in and Influences on Public Opinion About Artificial Intelligence in 20 Economies: Reducing Uncertainty Through Awareness, Knowledge, and Trust
Ronald E. Rice, Ming-Yi Wu

The Role of Trust in Social Media Platforms in Shaping Political Effects of Dissident Information Flows: A Case of Facebook in Kazakhstan
Jason Gainous, Kevin Wagner, Amanzhol Bekmagambetov, Adil Rodionov, Serik Beimenbetov,
Aigul Zhanadilova, Zhanna Karimova

How, When, and Why to Use AI: Strategic Uses of Professional Perceptions and Industry Lore in the Dubbing Industry
Laurena Bernabo

Unveiling the Veil: Examining the Stereotyping of Hijab in Internet Memes and GIFs
Omneya Ibrahim, Shahira Fahmy

The Evolution of Twitter: An Entangled History of Intermedia Relationships
Carlos A. Scolari

A Territorialized Business Model? Exploring the Objective and Subjective Conceptualizations of the Local Scale Built by Mid-City Digital News Media in Chile
Antoine Faure, David Jofré, René Jara-Reyes, Claudia Lagos Lira

Dark Cycles: Social Engineering and Political Chatbots in Netanyahu’s 2019 Election Campaigns
Anat Ben-David, Elinor Carmi

The Thin Line Between Conspiracy Theories and Opinion: Why Humans and AI Struggle to Differentiate Them
Paula Carvalho, Danielle Caled, Mário J. Silva

What Makes You Happy Also Makes You Sick: Mental Health and Well- Being in Media Work
Mark Deuze

Autonomy and Algorithms: Tracing the Significance of Content Personalization
Henrik Rydenfelt, Tuukka Lehtiniemi, Jesse Haapoja, Lauri Haapanen

We the Consumers: The Conservative “Parallel Economy” as Reactionary Commodity Activism
Carolyn E. Schmitt, Lee McGuigan

News Corp Australia’s Conservative Advocacy Against the Indigenous Voice to Parliament
Victoria Fielding, Catherine Son, Robert Boucaut, Alexander H. Beare

The Women Who Proposed Two-Step Flow: A Gendered Revisit to the Intellectual History of a Mass Communication Theory
Esperanza Herrero

When Corrections Fail: Effects of Misinformation Targets, Repeated Exposure, and Partisanship on Misinformation Beliefs
Yunya Song, Yuanhang Lu, Stephanie Jean Tsang, Jingwen Zhang, Kelly Y. L. Ku

Voice-Based Assistants as Intermediaries for Sociopolitical Issues: Investigating Use Patterns, Expectations, and Prior Indirect Experiences
Esther Greussing, Evelyn Jonas, Monika Taddicken

Seeing a New Type of Economic Inequality Discourse: Inequality as Spectacle in the “Billionaire Space Race”
Michael Vaughan, David Schieferdecker

Variation and Selection During Pandemic: Toward A Multiplex Framework for Understanding Nonprofit Community Network Evolution in Crisis Time
Yiqi Li, Aimei Yang, Wenlin Liu, Jingyi Sun, Chuqing Dong, Lichen Zhen

Between Morality and the Market: The Circulation of Humanitarian Photography
Lilie Chouliaraki, Richard Stupart

Privacy Activism: (Anti-)Surveillance Discourse in Pandemic Days
Tamar Ashuri

Knowledge Mediation and Narrowed Polysemy in Journalistic Interactive Visualizations
Inbal Klein-Avraham, Zvi Reich

Rethinking the Protest Paradigm: Media Kettling in the Television Coverage of the 2019 Chilean Uprising
César Jiménez-Martínez, Ximena Orchard, Nadia Herrada

Paid to Play: Gender, Intersectionality, and Labor in Online Game Companionship
Ting He

Revealing the True Self Online: How Lurking Behavior Interacts With Exposure to Positivity Bias and Affects Self-Disclosure on Social Media
Briana Marie Trifiro, Manuel Goyanes

How Far Can Political Deepfakes Credibly Deviate From Reality? Responses to Political Deepfakes With Varying Degrees of Deception
Michael Hameleers, Toni Van der Meer, Tom Dobber

Confronting Anti-Press Violence in Mexico: Strategies of Resistance in Mexican and U.S. News Coverage of Journalist Killings
Elizabeth M. Chambers, Jennifer R. Henrichsen

Rooting Platform Dependencies in the Digital News Economy: Google News Initiative in India
Simran Agarwal

“Is That It?”: Veteran Reflections on the Falklands 40th Anniversary and Northern Ireland Peacekeeping Exhibitions at the Imperial War Museum London
Jenna Pitchford-Hyde, Katy Parry

SVoD in Europe and the Americas: A Comparative Approach to Regulatory Regimes
María Trinidad García Leiva, Ana Bizberge, Guillermo Mastrini

Mobile Without Fear: Personal Control, Information, and Communication Support in ICT-Mediated Urban Public Transportation
Gerit Götzenbrucker, Kai Daniel Preibisch, Michaela Griesbeck

Rethinking Crisis Response: Cross-Cultural Insights From Comparing American and Korean Corporate Apologies
Jeongwon Yang, Ploypin Chuenterawong

Platform Cultures and Emotional Communication About Climate Change: A Comparison of Affective Language in the Climate Change Blogo- and Twittersphere
Christel W. van Eck, Jon Roozenbeek, Tim M. Stevens, Art Dewulf

Online Behaviors, Offline Consequences? Linking Online Traces of Health Information Use to Observed Communication During Medical Consultations
Minh Hao Nguyen, Nadine Bol, Inge S. van Strien, Kirsten van der Eijken, Kristien M. A. J. Tytgat, Hanneke W. M. van Laarhoven,
Mark I. van Berge Henegouwen, Ellen M. A. Smets, Julia C. M. van Weert

BOOK REVIEWS

Rachael Kent, The Digital Health Self: Wellness, Tracking, and Social Media
Xinna Li

Hunter Hargraves, Uncomfortable Television
Gabriele Prosperi

Sara J. Grossman, Immeasurable Weather: Meteorological Data and Settler Colonialism from 1820 to Hurricane Sandy
Pamela C. Perrimon

Nevine El Nossery, Arab Women’s Revolutionary Art: Between Singularities and Multitudes
Noha Mellor

Aram Sinnreich and Jesse Gilbert, The Secret Life of Data: Navigating Hype and Uncertainty in the Age of Algorithmic Surveillance
John Cheney-Lippold

Jian Lin, Chinese Creator Economies: Labor and Bilateral Creative Workers
Daniela Mazur

Mel Stanfill, Fandom Is Ugly: Networked Harassment in Participatory Culture
Lauren Nicole Balser

Allen Munoriyarwa and Admire Mare, Digital Surveillance in Southern Africa: Policies, Politics and Practices
Sheila B. Lalwani

Andrea Wenzel, Antiracist Journalism: The Challenge of Creating Equitable Local News
Anita Varma

Guobin Yang, The Wuhan Lockdown
Yiyan Zhang

____________________________________________________________
Silvio Waisbord, Editor 
Kady Bell-Garcia, Managing Editor 
Chi Zhang, Managing Editor, Special Sections 

Please note that according to the latest Google Scholar statistics, IJoC ranks 7th among all Humanities journals and 9th among all Communications journals in the world — demonstrating the viability of open access scholarly publication at the highest level.

International Journal of Communication Publishes a Special Section on Unpacking Property: Media, Ownership, and Power in Transformation

How does who owns the media shape what we see, read, and believe?

Property is a cornerstone of modern capitalist societies, shaping the distribution of wealth, power, and access. Yet, in media and communication studies, it has long been overlooked as a subject in its own right. This Special Section on Unpacking Property: Media, Ownership, and Power in Transformation, guest edited by Sebastian Sevignani and Hendrik Theine, sets out to change that.

The Special Section explores how property in the media intersects with today’s social and economic shifts. It delves into transformations in media ownership, the implications for public interest, and how narratives around property and wealth are constructed and legitimized. Key topics include media concentration, feminist political economy, and the expanding dominance of global tech giants in the media landscape.

Through these lenses, the contributions offer fresh perspectives on pressing questions: How does media ownership shape journalistic content? What happens when Big Tech extends its grip to the media, influencing everything from the value chain to the working conditions of journalists? How do surveillance capitalists justify large-scale data dispossession? And can philanthropy-funded journalism provide a viable alternative to commercial media?

This Special Section broadens the scope of property research within communication studies, showing why it’s an essential lens for understanding media’s role in a rapidly changing world. The articles in this special section address crucial intersections—examining how gendered ownership structures link to authoritarian-populist politics and uncovering how the rich use media to construct and legitimize their wealth and property.

Contributors include: Sebastian Sevignani (Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany), Hendrik Theine (Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria; University of Pennsylvania, USA), Mandy Tröger and Nils S. Borchers (University of Tübingen, Germany), Julia Bartsch (University of Leipzig, Germany), Marlene Radl and Birgit Sauer (University of Vienna, Austria), Burçe Çelik (Loughborough University London, UK), Mojca Pajnik (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia), Louisa Lincoln (University of Pennsylvania, USA), Stefan Wallaschek (Europa University Flensburg, Germany), and Nora Waitkus (London School of Economics, UK).

We invite you to read these articles that published in the International Journal of Communication on January 27, 2025. Please log into ijoc.org to read the papers of interest. We look forward to your feedback!  

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Media Property: New Explorations in Media and Communication Studies—Introduction
Sebastian Sevignani, Hendrik Theine

Toward Media Environment Capture: A Theoretical Contribution on the Influence of Big Tech on News Media
Sebastian Sevignani, Hendrik Theine, Mandy Tröger

The Internet of Things Presents: A Case Study on Ensuring Legitimacy for Building Data Supply Routes in Surveillance Capitalism
Nils S. Borchers

Structural Masculinism and Women’s Media Ownership in the Context of Authoritarian Populism: A Feminist Political Economy of Communication Perspective
Marlene Radl, Burçe Çelik, Mojca Pajnik, Birgit Sauer 

Does Media Ownership Matter for Journalistic Content? A Systematic Scoping Review of Empirical Studies
Hendrik Theine, Julia Bartsch, Mandy Tröger

Examining the Journalism Philanthropy Model: A Literature Review
Louisa Lincoln

The Past, the Present, the Future: Self-Portrayals of Wealthy Business Owners in the Media
Stefan Wallaschek, Nora Waitkus 

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Silvio Waisbord, Editor 
Kady Bell-Garcia, Managing Editor
Chi Zhang, Managing Editor, Special Sections
Sebastian Sevignani, Hendrik Theine, Guest Editors

Please note that according to the latest Google Scholar statistics, IJoC ranks 7th among all Humanities journals and 9th among all Communications journals in the world — demonstrating the viability of open access scholarly publication at the highest level.