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Where STS, AI, and Technology-and-Society Scholars Publish

A curated field guide for students, collaborators, and researchers in the Technology and Society Working Group mapping the core peer-reviewed journals, public-facing crossover magazines, international conferences, and research institutes across Science & Technology Studies (STS), critical AI studies, algorithmic accountability, and digital governance.

1. Academic Journals

Peer-Reviewed Outlets Across 10 Interdisciplinary Subfields
Core STS What STS Scholars Read & Publish In
  • Science, Technology, & Human Values (ST&HV): The official journal of 4S and the gold standard for STS.
  • Social Studies of Science (SSS): The other "heavyweight" STS journal, focused on the sociology of how scientific knowledge is produced.
  • Engaging Science, Technology, and Society (ESTS): 4S's open-access journal, more experimental and good for newer work.
  • Science as Culture: Critical, theory-forward, and strong on the politics of technoscience.
  • Science, Technology & Society: Strong on Global South perspectives.
  • East Asian STS (EASTS), Tapuya (Latin America), Science & Technology Studies (Nordic): Regional journals that signal a non-Western-centric framing.
  • Public Understanding of Science: Science communication and expertise.
  • Technology and Culture: The history-of-technology flagship (SHOT).
  • Minerva and Science and Public Policy: Science policy and governance.
  • Journal of Responsible Innovation: Governance of emerging tech.
Feminist & Critical-Theory STS Gender, Technoscience & Theory
  • Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience: Open-access feminist STS journal, firmly in the 4S orbit.
  • Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media & Technology: Open access, directly on gender and digital media.
  • Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society: Publishes feminist technoscience theory.
  • Feminist Media Studies New Addition: A major, high-impact venue for research on gender, digital media, platform labor, and algorithmic bias.
  • BioSocieties: Where the bioscience, genomics, and medicine side of STS publishes.
  • Public Culture: Transnational, theory-heavy work touching technology and modernity.
Critical Data, AI & Surveillance Algorithms, Ethics & Platform Governance
  • Big Data & Society: The sweet spot for critical data studies, sociology, and algorithms; every STS scholar working on AI publishes here.
  • Surveillance & Society: Open access and a core venue for surveillance studies.
  • The Information Society: Long-running and policy-oriented.
  • AI & Society, Philosophy & Technology, Ethics and Information Technology: The philosophy and ethics side of AI.
  • AI and Ethics New Addition: Distinct from AI & Society, this Springer journal has grown rapidly and focuses heavily on normative, applied, and interdisciplinary AI ethics.
  • Critical AI (Duke): Newer and humanities-heavy.
  • Data & Policy: Cambridge, open access, bridges academia and practitioners.
  • Social Science Computer Review New Addition: An essential, long-running venue for computational social science, algorithmic auditing, and the intersection of quantitative methods with societal critique.
  • Harvard Data Science Review New Addition: Features a dedicated, highly prestigious "Societal and Ethical Dimensions" section that actively bridges data science, STS, and policy.
  • Patterns (Cell Press) New Addition: Originally a data science journal, it now regularly publishes high-impact work on the societal, ethical, and policy implications of AI and large-scale data.
  • Internet Policy Review, Policy & Internet: Platform regulation and governance.
  • Journal of Digital Social Research: AoIR's open-access journal.
  • Digital Society (Springer): Newer, sociological.
  • First Monday: Long-running open-access internet-research journal; low barrier and fast turnaround.
Communication & Media Studies Platform Power & Digital Publics
  • New Media & Society: More communication-focused, and the primary venue for empirical work on platform power and algorithmic governance.
  • Information, Communication & Society: Highly relevant for political theorists looking at digital media impacts.
  • Social Media + Society: Open access with fast turnaround.
  • Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Journal of Communication: Higher-prestige and more quantitative.
  • Media, Culture & Society, Television & New Media, Convergence: More theoretical.
  • Digital Journalism, Political Communication: Closest to political-science concerns.
  • International Journal of Communication: Open access (USC); publishes tech policy and governance work.
  • Computational Communication Research New Addition: A diamond open-access journal gaining rapid traction for empirical, critical work on algorithms, bots, and digital society.
Political Science Institutions, Governance & Geopolitics
  • Perspectives on Politics: APSA's journal and the most receptive of the top political-science venues to interpretive and theoretical work.
  • Journal of Information Technology & Politics: Directly on target.
  • Politics & Society, Governance, Regulation & Governance: Regulatory and institutional angles on technology.
  • Review of International Political Economy, International Organization: For work on tech geopolitics, standards, and platform sovereignty.
Law & Technology Regulation, Privacy & Socio-Legal Studies
  • Law & Society Review, Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Harvard Journal of Law & Technology, Yale Journal of Law & Technology, Stanford Technology Law Review: The core tech-law school journals.
  • Journal of Cybersecurity (OUP), Computer Law & Security Review: Tech law and security governance.
  • Journal of Information Policy (Penn State): Open access, directly on target.
  • Telecommunications Policy: Older but active for platform and infrastructure policy.
  • Jurimetrics: Quantitative and legal studies of AI and regulation.
  • Law, Innovation and Technology New Addition: Strong on socio-legal perspectives, regulatory theory, and the co-production of law and emerging tech.
  • International Review of Law, Computers & Technology New Addition: A well-established venue for critical legal studies of digital tech, particularly strong on EU/UK regulatory frameworks.
  • Journal of Data Protection & Privacy New Addition: Highly respected among privacy scholars and practitioners, especially for GDPR and global data governance work.
Infrastructure, Environment & Energy Extraction, Grids & Climate Tech
  • Energy Research & Social Science: The go-to venue for social science of energy transitions and infrastructure — huge and fast-growing.
  • Environmental Humanities: Extraction, climate tech, and the more-than-human.
Philosophy & History of Science/Tech Epistemology & Humanities
  • Social Epistemology, Science in Context: For more philosophical and historical pieces.
  • Techné: Research in Philosophy of Technology: Directly on target for philosophy of technology.
  • Configurations New Addition: An excellent, sometimes overlooked venue for work at the intersection of literature, science, and technology (the humanities wing of STS).
  • Engineering Studies: The journal of engineering-studies scholars adjacent to STS.
Sociology & Anthropology Ethnography, Markets & Culture
  • Socius (ASA's open-access journal), Sociological Theory: Good fits for conceptual work on algorithms.
  • Cultural Anthropology, American Ethnologist, Theory, Culture & Society: Where anthropologists and cultural theorists of technology publish.
  • Journal of Cultural Economy: Markets, finance, and calculation.
HCI & Computer Science Venues CS Venues Welcoming Social Science
  • CSCW (journal and conference), CHI, Proceedings of the ACM on HCI: Qualitative and interpretive work is common here.
  • AIES (AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society): A cross-disciplinary AI-ethics venue.

2. Public-Facing Venues (Crossover Magazines and Outlets)

Where STS Scholars Pitch 1,500-Word Public Essays
Critical Tech & Political Economy Essays on Techno-Capitalism
  • Logic(s) Magazine: Run out of Columbia's INCITE. The premier critical tech magazine, very left-leaning and deeply critical of techno-capitalism.
  • Phenomenal World: Relaunched as a print magazine (Issue 1, "American Power," June 2026). Publishes political-economy-of-technology essays by academics.
  • The New Inquiry: Active; where the younger, highly theoretical STS crowd publishes essays on digital culture.
  • The Baffler, n+1, Dissent, Jacobin: Left-of-center outlets that regularly publish critical tech essays.
  • The Drift, Lux Magazine: Newer left-of-center outlets publishing critical tech essays.
  • The Nation: Regularly runs long critical tech pieces by academics.
Tech Accountability & Investigative Journalism Algorithmic Audits & Public Impact
  • The Markup New Addition: An investigative outlet that explicitly partners with academics to conduct algorithmic audits and publish data-driven tech accountability pieces.
  • ProPublica New Addition: While a newsroom, its foundational investigations (e.g., "Machine Bias") are required reading in STS. Scholars increasingly partner with ProPublica reporters to translate critical algorithm studies into public impact.
  • The Lever New Addition: A newer, independent outlet focused on tech accountability, antitrust, and labor. Highly receptive to scholarly perspectives on platform power.
Policy, Philosophy & General Public Broad-Reach Intellectual & Policy Commentary
  • Public Books: Founded by academics to bring scholarly perspective to public debates.
  • The New Atlantis: A journal of technology and society. Leans more traditional/conservative in its philosophy (critiques of transhumanism).
  • Issues in Science and Technology: Published by the National Academies and ASU. Probably the best single crossover venue for science and technology policy.
  • Tech Policy Press: Heavily read by policy staff and journalists, and fast to publish.
  • Noema: Berggruen's magazine, with long-form philosophical and political essays on technology.
  • Boston Review: Forums and essays with a political-theory bent, often engaging technology and democracy.
  • Aeon: Long-form essays written by academics.
  • The Conversation: Academics write directly for it with editorial help; pieces are widely republished.
  • MIT Technology Review: Accepts outside opinion pieces.
  • Slate's Future Tense (New America/ASU): Tech and policy commentary.
  • Los Angeles Review of Books, The Hedgehog Review: Review-essay venues with a humanistic bent.
  • Wired (Ideas essays): The highest-reach outlet that actually runs STS-informed essays.
  • Rest of World: Global South tech reporting and essays; good for non-US-centric framings.
  • Lawfare, Just Security: Reaches security, legal, and policy audiences on tech governance.
  • Eurozine: The European crossover venue for tech and politics essays.

3. The Conference Circuit

Where Scholars Physically Gather to Network & Present
Core STS & Humanities Flagship STS Meetings
  • 4S (Society for Social Studies of Science): The main STS conference.
  • EASST: The European STS counterpart to 4S.
  • SHOT (Society for the History of Technology).
  • SLSA (Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts): The humanities wing of STS.
  • History of Science Society annual meeting: Companion to SHOT for the history side.
  • Society for the Query (INC, Amsterdam) New Addition: A niche but highly influential workshop/conference series for scholars focusing specifically on search engines, algorithms, and information retrieval.
Algorithms, AI & Internet Research Interdisciplinary Computing & Society
  • ACM FAccT (Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency): The major CS conference that actively courts STS scholars.
  • AoIR (Association of Internet Researchers): Very interdisciplinary, bridging STS, communications, and digital sociology.
  • We Robot: The premier conference on robotics, AI, and the law.
  • ACM CSCW and AIES: Companions to FAccT in the CS-adjacent space.
Political Science, Sociology & Comm Disciplinary Sections & Tracks
  • APSA's Science, Technology, and Politics section: The natural home within political science.
  • ICA and ISA: The major communication and international-relations conferences, each with technology tracks.
  • ASA sections: Science, Knowledge, and Technology, and Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology.
  • IC2S2 (International Conference on Computational Social Science): If your work touches computational methods.
Law, Policy & Governance Regulatory & Civil Society Convenings
  • Symposium on Computer Science and Law (CSLaw) New Addition: A newer, rapidly growing venue that explicitly bridges computer science, legal scholarship, and social science critiques of technology.
  • Internet, Politics, and Policy (IPP) Conference New Addition: Hosted by the Oxford Internet Institute. A premier, highly interdisciplinary, and intimate conference specifically for tech policy, governance, and STS scholars.
  • Privacy Law Scholars Conference (PLSC): Workshop-style, with an intense law, policy, and social science mix.
  • CPDP (Computers, Privacy and Data Protection): Brussels-based; the European privacy-law/policy gathering with a strong STS presence.
  • TPRC (Telecommunications Policy Research Conference): The policy-economics venue for platform and telecom governance.
  • RightsCon and the Internet Governance Forum: Where governance-adjacent scholars and civil society overlap.
  • Law and Society Association annual meeting.
  • Platform Governance Research Network (PGRN): Smaller but focused.

4. Institutional and Think-Tank Venues

Bridging Academic Scholarship, Policy Reports & Public Engagement
Established Hubs Fellowships, Working Papers & Symposia
  • Data & Society: Reports, workshops, and fellowships.
  • AI Now Institute.
  • Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia: Runs essay series by academics.
  • Berkman Klein Center, Stanford Cyber Policy Center and HAI, Brookings TechStream: (Note: the Stanford Internet Observatory was dismantled in early 2025 after political pressure and litigation, though the Cyber Policy Center continues.)
  • Oxford Internet Institute: Reports, working papers, and policy briefings.
  • Princeton CITP (Center for Information Technology Policy): Runs essay series and practitioner workshops.
  • UC Berkeley CLTC (Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity): Security futures and policy grants/reports.
Advocacy, Justice & Newer Centers Data Justice & Scholar-Activist Networks
  • Brennan Center for Justice: Tech-and-democracy work read by policymakers.
  • Electronic Frontier Foundation: Its Deeplinks blog is where legal-STS arguments reach advocates.
  • SSRC's Just Tech program: Funds and publishes social science on technology and justice.
  • Center for Democracy & Technology, Mozilla Foundation.
  • CMU's Block Center for Technology and Society New Addition: A major hub for interdisciplinary tech-and-society research, offering fellowships and workshops that actively court STS perspectives.
  • MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS) New Addition: Produces influential working papers, hosts key workshops, and funds research on the societal dimensions of data and AI.
  • Data Justice Lab (Cardiff University) New Addition: A leading global network that produces foundational frameworks, toolkits, and reports on data justice.
  • Algorithmic Justice League (AJL) New Addition: While advocacy-oriented, the AJL produces influential reports and provides a vital platform for scholar-activist work, particularly around facial recognition and bias.