The Human-Machine Commu­ni­ca­tion Inter­est Group supports and promotes schol­ar­ship regard­ing commu­ni­ca­tion between people and tech­nolo­gies designed to enact the role of commu­ni­ca­tors (i.e., arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI), robots, digi­tal assis­tants, smart and Inter­net of Things (IoT) devices). HMC encom­pass­es research with­in Human-Comput­er Inter­ac­tion (HCI), Human-Robot Inter­ac­tion (HRI), and Human-Agent Inter­ac­tion (HAI) and relat­ed areas of study focused on how people make sense of machines as commu­ni­ca­tors; the impli­ca­tions of people’s inter­ac­tions with commu­nica­tive tech­nol­o­gy for indi­vid­u­als, orga­ni­za­tions, and soci­ety; and the philo­soph­i­cal and crit­i­cal critique of the design of these tech­nolo­gies and their inte­gra­tion into daily life. HMC also includes the study of the discourse surround­ing commu­nica­tive tech­nolo­gies and people’s commu­ni­ca­tion with them. The HMC Inter­est Group is inclu­sive of the differ­ent theo­ret­i­cal and method­olog­i­cal approach­es in commu­ni­ca­tion research. 

News

HMC Pre-Confer­ence and HMC at the ICA’s Annu­al Confer­ence 2023 in Toronto

The HMC Pre-Confer­ence took place on May 25, 2023, at the Sher­a­ton Hotel in Toron­to, preced­ing the annu­al ICA Meet­ing. The program can be found at https://humanmachinecommunication.org/pre-post-conferences. The response was over­whelm­ing, and we sincere­ly thank every­one for their intrigu­ing and inspir­ing contri­bu­tions. Follow­ing this Pre-Confer­ence, there will be a multi-author paper, co-writ­ten by the orga­niz­ers and partic­i­pants. We express our heart­felt grat­i­tude to the HMC Jour­nal, which has gener­ous­ly provid­ed a space for this collab­o­ra­tive writ­ing experiment.

The IG HMC also had a robust pres­ence at the ICA’s Annu­al Confer­ence (May 26 to May 30). All sessions were well-attend­ed, and as our Chair, Chad Edwards, stat­ed, “Almost every panel was a stand­ing room only, with many people from other divi­sions inter­est­ed in the work of this commu­ni­ty. […] Each year, the papers seem to get stronger and stronger.” Our special thanks go to Jihyun Kim (Vice-Chair), who master­ful­ly planned all of this year’s incred­i­ble sessions. Also, thanks to Katrin Etzrodt (Social Media and Web Engage­ment), who did much work getting the word out about the HMC sessions.
A brief overview in terms of numbers can be found here https://humanmachinecommunication.org/main-conference-2021.

We bid farewell to our outgo­ing offi­cers and extend a warm welcome to our incom­ing officers

We extend our deep­est grat­i­tude to Margot van der Goot, Carmi­na Rodríguez Hidal­go, and Hannah Mieczkows­ki, each of whom has signif­i­cant­ly contributed to our orga­ni­za­tion in their respec­tive roles.

  • Margot van der Goot dili­gent­ly served as our Secre­tary, keep­ing our meet­ings orga­nized and our commu­ni­ca­tion stream­lined. Her dedi­ca­tion to detail and effi­cien­cy has been inte­gral to our operations.
  • Carmi­na Rodríguez Hidal­go, as our Inter­na­tion­al Liai­son, has been instru­men­tal in estab­lish­ing and main­tain­ing key glob­al connec­tions. Her efforts have great­ly enriched our inter­na­tion­al perspec­tive and collaborations.
  • Hannah Mieczkows­ki, our Student & Early Career Repre­sen­ta­tive, has been the vital bridge between us and our student and early career commu­ni­ty. Her dedi­ca­tion and initia­tive have great­ly support­ed and enhanced the oppor­tu­ni­ties avail­able for those at the start of their careers.

We can’t thank them enough for their invalu­able contri­bu­tions and commit­ment to their roles.

We’re also thrilled at this time to intro­duce our new officers.

  • Andrew Prahl is step­ping into the role of Secre­tary. We look forward to the orga­ni­za­tion and direc­tion he’ll bring to our meet­ings and communications.
  • Caro­line van Strat­en is our new Student and Early Career Repre­sen­ta­tive. We’re excit­ed for the fresh perspec­tives and ener­gy she’ll bring in support­ing and advo­cat­ing for our student and early career community.
  • Kun Xu is join­ing us as our Inter­na­tion­al Liai­son. His expe­ri­ence and vision will be instru­men­tal in foster­ing and main­tain­ing our impor­tant inter­na­tion­al rela­tion­ships and collaborations.

We warm­ly welcome them to their new roles and eager­ly antic­i­pate the inno­v­a­tive contri­bu­tions they will bring to our organization.

Elec­tion of Vice-Chair for HMC Inter­est Group (2023)

Thank you to those that reached out about running for the incom­ing Vice-Chair posi­tion. We will have a strong slate of candi­dates. We will have many more posi­tions next year.

Elec­tions will be tenta­tive­ly sched­uled for late summer/early Fall 2023. We will be keep­ing you updat­ed on the details via email and social media. Please note, only ICA members are eligi­ble to vote. There­fore, it’s crucial to renew your member­ship to ensure your voice is heard.

Links

MEMBERSHIP
https://www.icahdq.org/group/hmc

Join now! Offi­cial members of the group will receive infor­ma­tion about calls and events. Members also have voting rights and can run for office.

When renew­ing your ICA member­ship or join­ing ICa for the first time, select Human-Machine Commu­ni­ca­tion from the list of Inter­est Groups and Divisions

SHARE INFORMATION
HMC AT ICA’S “THE LINK”
https://link.icahdq.org/thelinkhome

Connect­ing you with peers to share strate­gic advice, solve chal­lenges and devel­op new approach­es. Sign in, select the IG “Human-Machine Commu­ni­ca­tion”, and start shar­ing.

HMC SCHOLARS E‑MAIL LIST
[email protected]

The list address­es inter­na­tion­al schol­ars inter­est­ed in human-machine commu­ni­ca­tion (HMC), or the study of commu­ni­ca­tion with a host of tech­nolo­gies, includ­ing HCI, HAI, and HRI. The purpose of this list is to share announce­ments rele­vant to the commu­ni­ty includ­ing CfPs for confer­ences and publications.

HMC JOURNAL
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/hmc

Designed as an inter­na­tion­al, inter­dis­ci­pli­nary hub, Human-Machine Commu­ni­ca­tion will publish high-impact schol­ar­ship exam­in­ing human-machine commu­ni­ca­tion from a breadth of method­olog­i­cal, theo­ret­i­cal, and philosophical/critical angles to bring further visi­bil­i­ty, legit­i­ma­cy, and commu­ni­ty to this newly emer­gent locus of schol­ar­ly and public inter­est. The jour­nal is the result of collec­tive orga­niz­ing around recent pre-confer­ences and work­shops at the Inter­na­tion­al Commu­ni­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion (ICA), Asso­ci­a­tion of Inter­net Researchers (AoIR), and ACM/IEEE Inter­na­tion­al Confer­ence on Human-Robot Inter­ac­tion (HRI). It is clear there is tremen­dous schol­ar­ly ener­gy converg­ing around this topic matter.