IJOC-MASTS Special Forum

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 published as a Special Forum in the International Journal of Communication.