Abstract
This editorial introduces Volume 12 of Human–Machine Communication by positioning communicative machines as epistemic provocateurs that unsettle inherited distinctions among agency, meaning, and relation. Rather than treating these disruptions as anomalies to be resolved, the editorial argues that Human–Machine Communication (HMC) is distinctively equipped to register, analyze, and sustain such epistemological tensions. Drawing on philosophical traditions from Aristotle to Marx and Heidegger, the authors show how contemporary communicative machines simultaneously strain multiple historical settlements that once stabilized human–machine boundaries. The volume frames HMC as a “seismograph” for and as a “practice of” epistemological change, tracing how agency and meaning are disrupted by machines and negotiated through communicative practice with machines in several contexts. Emphasizing relational and sociomorphic approaches, the editorial advances the Act–Mean–Relate paradigm as a way to understand agency and meaning as emergent, situated accomplishments rather than fixed properties. In doing so, it positions HMC as a critical site for examining how knowledge, trust, or accountability are reorganized under conditions of machine participation.
DOI
10.30658/hmc.12.1
Recommended Citation
Etzrodt, K., & Edwards, A. (2026). The epistemic power of human–machine communication. Human–Machine Communication, 12, 7–23. https://doi.org/10.30658/hmc.12.1
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