Title: Disrupt­ing and Consol­i­dat­ing Human-Machine Commu­ni­ca­tion
Date: Thurs­day, June 12, 2025 (Full day, 8:30am‑5:00pm)
Venue: On-site at the ICA25 confer­ence venue in Denver, CO, USA

Build­ing on the spir­it that launched HMC—the drive to explore unchart­ed spaces where human commu­ni­ca­tion with machines occurs—the 8th HMC Pre-Confer­ence aims to facil­i­tate dialogues about the disrup­tive poten­tial and consol­i­dat­ing force of machines in commu­ni­ca­tion research, while reflect­ing on how HMC itself is shaped by these dynam­ics. For this pre-confer­ence, we define “disrup­tion” as signif­i­cant changes in under­stand­ing, expe­ri­ence, or prac­tice, and “consol­i­da­tion” as unit­ing ideas into a new whole as well as strength­en­ing or solid­i­fy­ing them. 

1) Disruptive Potential of HMC

The first key area of this pre-confer­ence explores the disrup­tive poten­tial of HMC regard­ing machines that have trans­formed into commu­ni­ca­tors, collab­o­ra­tors, colleagues, friends, assis­tants, or competi­tors. By study­ing human commu­ni­ca­tion with machines, we aim to advance under­stand­ing, ques­tion­ing, adapt­ing, or evolv­ing the concept of commu­ni­ca­tion, the commu­nica­tive process, as well as the commu­ni­ca­tion field itself. There­fore, we seek to exam­ine how HMC chal­lenges conven­tions, facil­i­tates recon­fig­u­ra­tions, and estab­lish­es rede­f­i­n­i­tions. We invite contri­bu­tions that address ques­tions relat­ed to this disrup­tive poten­tial, includ­ing but not limit­ed to the following:

Disrup­tion of concepts: 

• How does HMC disrupt onto­log­i­cal defi­n­i­tions of a medi­um, commu­ni­ca­tor, and communication?
• How does HMC disrupt the role of the human in commu­ni­ca­tion schol­ar­ship and theory?
• How does HMC disrupt concep­tions of the commu­nica­tive world, rela­tion­ships, mean­ing-making, and ethi­cal ques­tions in communication?
• How does HMC disrupt commu­ni­ca­tion theo­ries and in what ways do tradi­tion­al commu­ni­ca­tion theo­ries accom­mo­date (or fail to accom­mo­date) the disrup­tive poten­tial of machine communicators?

Disrup­tion of research:

• How does HMC research disrupt tradi­tion­al notions of commu­ni­ca­tion research?
• How does HMC research disrupt method­olog­i­cal conven­tions in commu­ni­ca­tion research?
• How does HMC prac­tice disrupt conven­tions in the defi­n­i­tion, collec­tion, and analy­sis of data?
• How does HMC prac­tice alter conven­tions of under­stand­ing, writ­ing, and present­ing research?

Disrup­tion of every­day systems and life in a society:

• How does commu­ni­ca­tion with machines disrupt glob­al commu­ni­ca­tion and power dynam­ics, includ­ing in histor­i­cal­ly margin­al­ized regions, inclu­siv­i­ty, priva­cy, and socioe­co­nom­ic divides?
• How does commu­ni­ca­tion with machines disrupt rela­tion­ships, work, labor, or education?
• How does commu­ni­ca­tion with machines disrupt the domes­tic, social, and poli­cial sphere?

2) Consolidating Potential of HMC

The second key area of this pre-confer­ence explores the consol­i­dat­ing poten­tial of HMC as a stabi­liz­ing force in commu­ni­ca­tion research. While HMC has demon­strat­ed disrup­tive impacts, it also holds promise for stabi­liz­ing and strength­en­ing commu­ni­ca­tion schol­ar­ship and real-world prac­tices. Howev­er, as the field of HMC is rela­tive­ly young and commu­nica­tive machines are only begin­ning to inte­grate into daily life, signif­i­cant gaps in under­stand­ing this poten­tial remain. We, there­fore, invite contri­bu­tions that address ques­tions relat­ed to this consol­i­dat­ing poten­tial, includ­ing but not limit­ed to the following:

Consol­i­da­tion of concepts: 

• How does HMC help unify frag­ment­ed theo­ries or frame­works in commu­ni­ca­tion research?
• How can HMC provide cohe­sive frame­works that inte­grate and explain emerg­ing commu­ni­ca­tion phenom­e­na across diverse cultures, contexts, and disciplines? 
• How does HMC research contribute to the devel­op­ment of durable and scal­able commu­ni­ca­tion models and concepts?

Consol­i­da­tion of research:

• How can HMC consol­i­date method­olo­gies and ethi­cal guide­lines in commu­ni­ca­tion research?
• How does HMC contribute to the devel­op­ment of shared termi­nolo­gies and metrics for eval­u­at­ing commu­nica­tive processes?
• What is the poten­tial for HMC to build inter­dis­ci­pli­nary bridges and foster long-term research agen­das that span disci­pli­nary silos?

Consol­i­da­tion of every­day systems and life in a society:

• How does HMC stabi­lize commu­ni­ca­tion process­es, rela­tion­ships, and mean­ing-making in profes­sion­al, social, or person­al contexts?
• How can HMC enhance commu­ni­ca­tion systems in orga­ni­za­tion­al,  soci­etal, or cultur­al contexts?

Submission Type: Short papers

Papers should be 1000–1500 words, not includ­ing title page, tables, and refer­ences. Papers less than 1000 words or greater than 1500 will not be consid­ered. Papers should clear­ly outline what the schol­ar intends to present and how it aligns with the provoca­tive themes of the HMC pre-confer­ence. Papers will be assigned to curat­ed panel sessions as well as to sessions with more inter­ac­tive formats. The pre-confer­ence is open to all sorts of schol­ar­ship, both empir­i­cal and theo­ret­i­cal, and any method­ol­o­gy is welcome (e.g., quan­ti­ta­tive, qual­i­ta­tive, rhetor­i­cal). Bold reflec­tion pieces and sharp posi­tion papers are also encour­aged. Papers must be writ­ten in English and may use any inter­nal­ly consis­tent format­ting and cita­tion style. Submis­sions will be peer-reviewed by other HMC schol­ars. Review crite­ria include rele­vance, orig­i­nal­i­ty, rigor, gener­a­tiv­i­ty, and implications/utility. 

Impor­tant to note: Papers must be clear­ly relat­ed to human-machine commu­ni­ca­tion. The HMC Inter­est Group focus­es on the mean­ing-making that unfolds when people engage direct­ly with tech­nol­o­gy as a commu­nica­tive subject rather than as an object used to commu­ni­cate with other people. HMC includes the empir­i­cal, philo­soph­i­cal and crit­i­cal exam­i­na­tion of these tech­nolo­gies and their inte­gra­tion into daily life; yet mere­ly study­ing tech­nol­o­gy with­out an explic­it focus on commu­ni­ca­tion typi­cal­ly falls outside of HMC research and scholarship. 

Submission Guidelines

Submit two sepa­rate docu­ments in Pdf: (1) cover page and (2) anonymized manu­script. Please adhere to the follow­ing guide­line. Submis­sions that do not comply will be returned to the submitter. 

• Cover page should include the follow­ing: Title of the paper, 4–6 keywords, author infor­ma­tion (full name, affil­i­a­tion, and email address­es for all authors), and word count. 
• Anonymized manu­script should include a title on the first page with­out iden­ti­fy­ing author infor­ma­tion. Manu­scripts must be prop­er­ly anonymized, includ­ing remov­ing all author names and affil­i­a­tions from the manu­script and from the name of the file and meta­da­ta. Authors should be care­ful that in-text and refer­ence cita­tions do not disclose aspects of author iden­ti­ty (i.e. refer­ences to works “in print” or “in review”). 

Submissions

Submis­sions should be emailed to Andrew Prahl ([email protected]) with the subject line: HMC Pre-Confer­ence Submis­sion. Please double check the guide­lines (see above) before making the submis­sion. If you do not receive an acknowl­edge­ment with­in 48 hours of submit­ting, please send Andrew an email at [email protected] just to make sure you are getting through the spam filters. 

Important Dates

• Submis­sions due: Janu­ary 31, 2025 (12pm ET)
• Reviews due: Febru­ary 28, 2025
• Deci­sion noti­fi­ca­tions: mid-March, 2025

Orga­niz­ers:

• Andrew Prahl, Nanyang Tech­no­log­i­cal Univer­si­ty, Singapore
• Katrin Etzrodt, TU Dres­den, Germany
• Jihyun Kim, Univer­si­ty of Central Flori­da, USA
• Marco Dehn­ert, Univer­si­ty of Arkansas, USA
• Nan Wilken­feld, Univer­si­ty of Cali­for­nia, Santa Barbara, USA 
• Kun Xu, Univer­si­ty of Flori­da, USA

We Need Reviewers: 

To enhance the qual­i­ty of the review process, we need review­ers. In addi­tion to all first authors of the submit­ted papers, who will be required/expected to review 3–4 submis­sions, we still need more volun­tary review­ers. Please contact Andrew Prahl ([email protected]) if you’re inter­est­ed in help­ing us. Your time and support are great­ly appreciated

Spon­sor­ship Call:

The pre-confer­ence welcomes spon­sors. Primar­i­ly, spon­sor­ships are being used to support student regis­tra­tion fees. If your orga­ni­za­tion would like to contribute funds and be recog­nized on promo­tion­al mate­ri­als at the event, please contact Andrew Prahl ([email protected]). We will facil­i­tate the process with the support from ICA.