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.



Search Backchannels


Encountering the data lives of the dead

May 23 2025

Catriona Brickel considers the various ethical dilemmas encountered when studying digital memorials

The stuff of taxonomic nightmares: the frustrating volatility of color

May 22 2025

Roos Hopman reflects on the slippery place of color within natural history

Mixtures: Research Stories on the Zika Virus – An Invitation to Read

May 19 2025

In this bilingual post (English and Brazilian Portuguese), Thais Valim, Isadora Valle and Mariana Petruceli present the content and launch of the “Mixtures: Research Stories on the Zika Virus” book, an invitation to read about scientific production on the emblematic Zika virus epidemic in Brazil, through STS lenses.

Locating STS in Southeast Asia: a Belgian migrant looking for a place of belonging

May 5 2025

A Belgian, trained in STS at the University of Vienna, shares her experience of locating STS hubs in Southeast Asia after moving to Bangkok.

Technology, health, and gender: contributions from and with Feminist STS

Dec 30 2024

In this post, Mariana Pitta Lima discusses contributions from and with feminist STS from the South, drawing on a recently published chapter on technologies, health, and gender based on fieldwork in Brazil.

Technofixes and Place: Environmental Building in Montana

Jun 24 2024

In this post, Annika Hirmke explores the tensions between the abstract techno-visions of environmental design projects in Montana within the contexts of settler colonialism and structural challenges of climate change.

Keywords in the Critical Medical Humanities: A Model for Research and Teaching

Jul 22 2024

In a three-day conference at Colby College, faculty across the small liberal arts college shared their research, teaching, and partnerships in critical medical and health humanities. Their goal was to collectively define the field by connecting their work to critical keywords.

Excremental Hauntings, or the Waste of Modern Bodies

Nov 4 2024

What does our growing obsession with shit and bodily leakage tell us about being modern, enlightened, and objective? Can we think without the dialectic of the sphincter, that alternation between containment and discharge, sovereignty and submission?

Call for Assistant Editors | 4S Backchannels (Global North Team)

Dec 25 2023

4S Backchannels: Call for Assistant Editors

4S Backchannels is welcoming applications from early-career scholars to join our growing Editorial Team.

4S Backchannels is an integral part of the Society of the Social Studies of Science (4S) organization and community. Our Global North and Global South teams provide a timely outlet for short-format, media-rich, and editor-reviewed scholarly communications. We aim to target a general audience interested in science and technology studie...

Will the bubble burst? Thinking together about hype machines in the contemporary technoscience.

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...