About the Journal

About the Journal

The integration of mobile internet access and social media into everyday communication is a ubiquitous worldwide phenomenon. The relational contexts in which technologies are used and the relational purposes for which they are used are critically important in understanding the adoption and utilization of technology along with their outcomes. Communication technologies have important implications for relationships at all stages, from formation to maintenance to dissolution.

Human Communication & Technology is accepting submissions that focus on relationships and communication as experienced in the digital age: how technology, social media, and various modalities define, redefine, and (in some cases) reconstitute relationships and how technology can serve as repositories for relationships' history, development, memorial, and demise.

Submissions to Human Communication & Technology should utilize theories that recognize the importance of the nature of the social tie or relationship between digital communication partners. The intersection between digital media and relationships has been examined from a variety of different perspectives and theories, including dialectical perspectives on mobile phone adoption and use, mass-personal communication and relational maintenance, channel complementary and media multiplexity, mixed media and multi-communication, channel switching and communication interdependence perspective, the social construction of technology, as well as many others. These areas of research demonstrate an evolving perspective among communication and media theorists that reaffirms that media are now a central component of modern relationships.

Manuscripts should focus on: (a) how relationship(s) influence the use of digital media, (b) the influence of digital media use on or within relationships, or (c) the cross-over or spill-over between media use and relationships. Potential topics might include, but are not limited to relationship initiation, development, maintenance, dissolution, affectionate and sexual communication, bullying and harrassment, conflict, and social support. Personal relationships could include those between romantic or intimate partners, spouses, parents and children, siblings, classmates, coworkers, neighbors, and friends.

Manuscripts should be post-positivist in epistemology, and the journal is open to both quantitative or qualitative empirical work as long as the submission focuses on the stated aims and scope of the journal.