Linguists first used the term backchannel to refer to the spontaneous responses and signals that provide interactivity to what is only apparently a one-way communication. Social media users have adopted the term to refer to the unofficial, multi-directional online conversation that parallels formal academic exchange at a lecture or conference. The Backchannels blog is intended to have a similar relationship to scholarly discourse in STS. It provides an outlet for alternative-format scholarly communications, publishing shorter, timelier, media-rich communiques of interest to the global STS community. The editors welcome proposed contributions.
Oct 14 2024
This report generates new insights to the concept of 'voicing' through a summary of panel discussions held during the EASST/4S meeting in Amsterdam to ask: What politics becomes possible through diverse and distributed practices of voicing attuned to soundings, and how do these politics translate into STS knowledge work?
Oct 3 2024
Lauren Kelly reports back from the STS Summer School in Singapore in June 2024, sponsored by Science, Technology and Human Values
Oct 7 2024
As part of her PhD project on the transformation of the concept halal in Indonesia, Arum Budiastuti offers a reflection on how technology-based halal certification introduces a new meaning of halal and what implications this has.
Sep 30 2024
While today feminist science studies and STS are often considered inseparable, Daiwie Fu examines their once tumultuous relationship. In this post, he offers a brief review of the convergence between feminist studies and STS.
Sep 23 2024
In this post, Maitreyi Redkar reflects on the medical research on Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, identifying how it neglects Indian women and their lived experiences.
Aug 26 2024
In this post, Sarah Cheung (University of Edinburgh) examines the ways in which generative AI continually refigures the 'digital public sphere', portending new regulatory regimes and possibilities.
Aug 20 2024
Carlos Andrés Arroyave Bernal offers a commentary on the role of health among data labelers in artificial intelligence, most of whom are Venezuelan immigrants. The text is based on the preliminary findings of his doctoral research titled "Dignity as a Commodity? Labor Process and Partial Inclusion among Data Labelers in Artificial Intelligence in Colombia"
Aug 14 2024
In this trilingual post, Jorge Alexander Daza Cardona reflects on his experiences at the XV Latin American Conference on Social Studies of Science and Technology (ESOCITE 2024), organized by the Latin American Association for the Social Studies of Science and Technology (ESOCITE)
Aug 12 2024
In this timely post, A.R.E. Taylor, an anthropologist of technology and Senior Lecturer in Communications at the University of Exeter reflects on the wider socioeconomic issues underpinning the CrowdStrike IT outage that occurred on Friday 19th July 2024.
Jul 29 2024
The globalization of the academic work prompted an increased flux of scholars in international conferences in all fields. In this piece, Noela Invernizzi and Sofía Foladori-Invernizzi explore how transnational 4S meetings have become, as a response to their own field’s critique of its Euro-American-centrism.