The fifth annual pre-conference on Human-Machine Communication (HMC) aims to identify and explore the most pressing "open questions" surrounding communication between humans and technologies, such as chatbots, social robots and smart assistants.
For this full-day pre-conference, we invite scholars from across ICA’s divisions and a variety of epistemological and methodological backgrounds to discuss their work in relation to HMC, a broad field of research that encompasses Human-Computer Interaction, Human-Robot Interaction, and Human-Agent Interaction.
Scholars should address what they see as important open questions concerning the exchange of messages and creation of meaning between people and physical or virtual digital interlocutors, toward progressing theoretical and/or practical breakthroughs in relation to communication with these technologies and the discourses surrounding them.
Amongst many other things, submissions might consider questions relating to:
- Accessibility to such technologies for people with disabilities
- Uses to which communicative technologies are already being put and might be put in the future
- Ethical questions around technologies that communicate in humanlike ways
- Implications of integrating such technologies into people’s daily lives
- Potential repercussions of the increasing deployment of communicative machines for societies more broadly
- Specification of boundaries for convergence and divergence between human-human and human-machine communication practices
- Power relations between chatbots, social robots, smart assistants and humans
- Social representations and folk models of chatbots, social robots, and smart assistants
However, there are many other topics/themes that are likely to be of interest, so scholars should feel able to identify and address any pressing questions they feel HMC raises or might benefit from considering in their submission. The intention of the pre-conference is to encourage interdisciplinary thinking, approaches and collaborations in considering communication with machines.
Note: If you are interested in publishing a full version of your paper, please consider submitting to the journal, Human-Machine Communication. The journal editors would welcome papers that address the idea of open questions in HMC. The submission deadline is April 1, 2020.
Venue
Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre ** ON-SITE**
Cost of Registration & Attendance
Faculty US $75
Student US $50
Deadline for submissions: Friday, February 7, 2020
Submissions should be emailed to autumn.edwards@wmich.edu
Paper format
Papers should be 750-1000 words excluding references. The paper should detail what the scholar plans to present and how this relates to the overall focus of the pre-conference given above. The pre-conference is open to all sorts of scholarship, both empirical and theoretical, quantitative and qualitative.
Notification of acceptance: Friday, February 21, 2020
The pre-conference will have a two-tiered format. Some scholars will be invited to deliver a paper presentation while others will be invited to take part in a poster session.
Organizers
- Autumn Edwards, Western Michigan University, USA
- Eleanor Sandry, Curtin University, Western Australia
- Andrea Guzman, Northern Illinois University, USA
- Chad Edwards, Western Michigan University, USA
- Steve Jones, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA
- Patric Spence, University of Central Florida, USA
- S. Austin Lee, Chapman University, USA
- David Gunkel, Northern Illinois University, USA
- Jaime Banks, Texas Tech University, USA
- Seungahn, Nah, University of Oregon, USA
- Leopoldina Fortunati, University of Udine, Italy
Sponsors
- Northern Illinois University, Department of Communication
- Western Michigan University, School of Communication
- Communication and Social Robotics Labs
- Texas Tech University, College of Media & Communication, Human-Machine Comm Lab
- University of Illinois at Chicago, Department of Communication
- Chapman University, School of Communication, Social Robot Lab
