4S Mission
Fostering interdisciplinary and engaged scholarship in social studies of science, technology, and medicine across the globe.
Latest 4S News
Will the bubble burst? Thinking together about hype machines in the contemporary technoscience.
Published On: Apr 21, 2025
Ola Michalec Ph.D. considers the collective excitement surrounding AI and the ways in which the 'hype machine' mobilises resources, enrols new actors, creates pressure to accelerate responses, clouds judgement, conceals power dynamics or detracts from crucial infrastructural work. How might we situate the buzz and buzzwords AI as integral to the hype machine of promotion, exaggerated claims, collective frenzy, leadership and strong emotional responses influencing economic trends, political agend...
CfP | Science as Culture Special Issue: Colonial Relations in Modern Techno-Securitisation
Published On: Nov 11, 2024
Deadline: Apr 30, 2025
‘Security’ has become an increasingly dominant frame in recent decades, linking issues such as climate, biodiversity, borders, energy, food and military activities. Ever-more societal issues have been framed as security problems, even as existential threats. These frames seek to justify pre-emptive management through technoscientific expert systems, imagining control over everything and fostering an authoritarian culture. This SaC special issue will explore linkages among three dynam...
CfP | Special Issues in Science, Technology, & Human Values
Published On: Apr 13, 2025
Deadline: Jun 21, 2025
The editorial group of Science, Technology, & Human Values is happy to announce the journal’s annual Call for Proposals for Special Issues. Since 1972, Science, Technology, & Human Values has provided a forum for cutting-edge research and debate in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). This is a collectively edited, peer-reviewed, transnational, interdisciplinary journal containing research, analyses and commentary on the development and dynamics of science and techn...
4S Publications
Science, Technology, and Human Values
For more than forty years, Science, Technology, & Human Values has provided the forum for cutting-edge research and debate in the field of science and technology studies.
Bearly Recognizable: Facial Recognition and the Wild
Emily WandererDepartment of Anthropology, 6614University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
While big tech companies are growing more circumspect about the use of facial recognition for humans, interest in nonhuman facial recognition is surging. The identification...
Between Code and Culture: The Evolving Role of Conversation Designers and UX in AI Development
Elizabeth Rodwell1Department of Information Science Technology, 14743University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA
Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
Artificial intelligence (AI)-related technologies available to consumers have been rapidly advancing but without parallel insight into the social process of their design....
Machine's Eye View: Postmodern Data Science and the Politics of Ground Truth
Jathan SadowskiEmerging Technologies Research Lab, Faculty of Information Technology, 2541Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
This paper advances the critical analysis of machine learning by placing it in direct relation with actuarial science as a way to further draw out their shared epistemic...
Agriculture by Algorithm: Big Data, Digitalization, and Biotechnology Under Climate Change
Yıldız Atasoy1Department of Sociology and Anthropology, 1763Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
Based on textual analysis of publicly available documents published by the Food and Agriculture Organization, Bayer, and its partner delivery start-ups, this paper provides...
Making the Global Local: The Case of Chinese Research and Innovation Evaluation Systems
Julia Kirch Kirkegaard, Alan Irwin, Xuan Li
Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
Starting with China's increasingly prominent role in the global politics of science, this paper considers the case of Chinese policies for the evaluation of Research &...
Engaging Science, Technology and Society
Engaging Science, Technology, & Society is an online, open access publication of The Society for Social Studies of Science.
Transitioning ESTS
Published On: Mar 7 2025
Grant Otsuki, Clément Dréano, Noela Invernizzi, Ali Kenner, Angela Okune, Duygu Kaşdoğan, Sujatha Raman, Tim Schütz, Federico Vasen, Amanda Windle, Emily York
Contributions to this issue focus on a wide range of domains and problematics—environment, extractivism, air pollution, climate change, digitalization, automation, care, surveillance—that offer a thought-provoking commentary...
Volatile Atmosphere: A Tkaronto Archive
Published On: Mar 10 2025
Sophia Jaworski
This article delves into the history of petrochemical-derived gas emissions in Toronto, focusing on their emergence and regulation from the end of World War II and up to 1980. Drawing on archival materials, I trace local knowledge...
Origin Stories of the ‘Grants Uranium District’ in Northwestern New Mexico: Archives, Memoirs, and Exploratory Boreholes in the Production of Geological Regions
Published On: Mar 7 2025
Thomas De Pree
The “Grants uranium district” of northwestern New Mexico yielded more uranium ore than any other mining district in the United States during the Cold War Period (1947-1989). After the national market for uranium collapsed...
Farmers’ Creativity and Cultivated Senses: The Immediacy of Embodied Knowledge in Alternative Agriculture
Published On: Mar 7 2025
Dimas Dwi Laksmana
The Indonesian government has promoted several forms of alternative agriculture in response to the productivity orientation and top-down bureaucratic institutions in intensive agriculture. Implemented in the late 1980s, the Integrated...
4S Blog: Backchannels
Will the bubble burst? Thinking together about hype machines in the contemporary technoscience.
The Heartware approach: how cultural values drive sustainable socio-technical change
Interspecies Agencies: Controversies, Ontologies, and New Forms of Cohabitation (Part 3)
Interspecies Agencies: Controversies, Ontologies, and New Forms of Cohabitation (Part 2)
Backchannels content is contributed by our members to highlight news relevant to their work.
Making and Doing: STS Beyond the Four Corners of the Paper
STS News
Items submitted by the community and emailed to members monthly.