Human-Machine communication (Special Issue)
Deadline: March 15, 2023
Editors
- Göran Bolin (Södertörn University)
- Andreas Hepp (ZeMKI, University of Bremen)
- Wiebke Loosen (Leibniz Institute for Media Research)
Description:
Mediatization research has long been concerned with the interrelationship between the transformation of media and communication on the one hand, and culture and so-ciety on the other (Bolin & Hepp 2017; Couldry & Hepp 2013; Ekström et al. 2016; Hjarvard 2013; Krotz 2009). With the spread of “communicative AI” (Guzman & Lewis 2020) – understood as AI-based systems whose function is to communicate with hu-mans (Esposito 2022) – we are currently experiencing the beginning of yet one more change to our media environment. The foundations of this change can be seen in the emergence of “social bots” (Gehl & Bakardjieva 2016) on various platforms, the spread of “artificial companions” such as Apple Siri or Amazon’s Alexa (Thorne 2020), the al-gorithmic response suggestions (Hancock et al. 2020), or the “work bots” (Hepp 2020) that produce automated journalism (Diakopoulos 2019; Loosen 2018). A further tech-nical boost to all this is the recent development of ChatGPT and GPT-3.5. The increas-ing success of machine learning and other AI technologies suggests that this is merely the first step toward the automation of communication (Gunkel 2020; Taipale & Fortu-nati 2018).
Against this background, it seems obvious that research into mediatization and hu-man-machine communication enters into a dialogue that, in the best case, mutually enriches empirical research and the theoretical discussion, helping us to better under-stand the current changes to media and communication and their consequences. This Special Issue aims to create a starting point for just such a dialogue. The objective is to discuss the following questions based on empirical studies and theoretical considera-tions:
• To what extent do current phenomena of automated communication represent me-diatization re-asserting itself?
• How can approaches to and theories of HMC and mediatization research mutually relate to and enrich one other?
• What will be the consequences to theorizing media and empirical research?
For more information or questions, please contact Andreas Hepp (ahepp@uni-bremen.de).
Keywords: Human-Machine Communication, Mediatization, communicative AI,
Deadline: Submissions are due March 15th, 2023, and the publication will be in Sep-tember, 2023. All manuscripts should be submitted via the journal’s online submission system (https://hmcjournal.com) with the remark, “Special Issue” in the cover letter. In the online submission system, there will be a drop-down menu under Document Type. Please choose “Special Issue Submission.” For formatting and length specifications, please see the journal’s Instructions for Authors.
References:
Bolin, G., & Hepp, A. (2017). The complexities of mediatization: Charting the road ahead. In O. Driessens, G. Bolin, A. Hepp, & S. Hjarvard (Eds.), Dynamics of mediatization (pp. 315-331). London: Palgrave.
Couldry, N., & Hepp, A. (2013). Conceptualising mediatization: Contexts, traditions, arguments. Communication Theory, 23(3), 191-202.
Diakopoulos, N. (2019). Automating the news. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Ekström, M., Fornäs, J., Jansson, A., & Jerslev, A. (2016). Three tasks for mediatization research: contributions to an open agenda. Media, Culture & Society, 38(7), 1090-1108.
Esposito, E. (2022). Artificial communication. Cambridge: MIT.
Gehl, R. W., & Bakardjieva, M. (Eds.). (2016). Socialbots and their friends: Digital media and the au-tomation of sociality. London: Routledge.
Gunkel, D. J. (2020). An introduction to communication and artificial intelligence. Cambridge: Polity.
Guzman, A. L., & Lewis, S. C. (2020). Artificial intelligence and communication: A Human-Machine Communication research agenda. New Media & Society, 22(1), 70-86.
Hancock, J. T., Naaman, M., & Levy, K. (2020). AI-Mediated communication: Definition, research agenda, and ethical considerations. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 25(1), 89-100.
Hepp, A. (2020). Deep mediatization. London: Routledge.
Hjarvard, S. (2013). The mediatization of culture and society. London: Routledge.
Krotz, F. (2009). Mediatization: A concept with which to grasp media and societal change. In K. Lundby (Ed.), Mediatization: Concept, changes, consequences (pp. 19-38). New York: Peter Lang.
Loosen, W. (2018). Four forms of datafied journalism. Journalism’s response to the datafication of society. Communicative figurations working paper, 18, 1-10.
Taipale, S., & Fortunati, L. (2018). Communicating with machines: Robots as the next new media. In A. L. Guzman (Ed.), Human-machine communication (pp. 201-220). New York: Peter Lang.
Thorne, S. (2020). Hey Siri, tell me a story: Digital storytelling and AI authorship. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, doi:10.1177/1354856520913866