[Commlist] cfp: Online workshop - Discourses of Capital, Technology, and Artificial Intelligence

D31: Online workshop - Discourses of Capital, Technology, and Artificial 
Intelligence

Dates: November 4 - 9 (with November 4 for videos going live and 
sessions online throughout the week) 2024

Call for papers ending on: Sunday, 6 October 2024

Website: discourseanalysis.net/DN31 <http://discourseanalysis.net/DN31>

Contact: (east.west.dn.wg /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(east.west.dn.wg /at/ gmail.com)>

Location: online, parallel

Language policy: the working language for the workshop is English

Call for Papers
The “East-West dialogue” working group of DiscourseNet Association and 
the University of Valencia invite submissions for an upcoming online 
workshop on "Discourses of Capital, Technology, and Artificial 
Intelligence."

In an era marked by rapid technological advancements and the increasing 
influence of artificial intelligence (AI), the intersection of capital, 
technology, media, and AI in discourse has become a crucial area of 
study.  AI technologies have commanded billions of dollars in capital, 
and have been implicated in maintaining and contributing to inequalities 
in global employment markets (Perrigo, 2023).

In the last years AI has attracted high expectations around its 
capabilities and potential in both public and scientific discourses (De 
Togni et al. even refer to this interest as ‘hype’), different 
technologies that contain embedded AI are constantly in the focus of the 
researchers. Thus, in 2023 only Google Scholar indexes more than 35 000 
articles upon request “AI” and 17800 papers upon request “Generative 
AI”. At the same time, we can state that the key term – AI – has not yet 
crystalized (Ekbia 2012, Elliott, 2021, Elliott 2022). It leads to 
interpretative flexibility (Bijker 2012) and makes the discourses around 
AI crucial as they partially impact further development of this technology.

Moreover, AI becoming a strategic priority for global players such as 
the USA, the EU, Russia, China, India and others fighting for the 
leadership in this technological area, politicizes the technology and 
makes the development of AI deeply incorporated in political and 
geopolitical context, tightly connected to capital and different 
strategies of technological development in different states. So it is 
important to analyze how AI is discursively constructed and publicly 
discussed on a global level, which involves the dialogue between 
different global regions.

This workshop aims to explore the discursive practices that shape our 
understanding of the structures of these domains, and explore the 
relationship between capital, technologies, and the social conditions 
through which they emerge.

We welcome contributions that examine themes such as:

- The rhetoric surrounding AI and its impact on society, economy, and 
culture

- Discourses of technological innovation and their relationship to capital

- The language of automation and its effects on labour discourses

- Narratives of progress and disruption in tech-driven economies

- Ethical considerations in AI development and implementation

- The role of discourse in shaping public opinion on emerging technologies

- Critical analyses of techno-capitalist discourses

DN31 invites scholars from all subfields of the transdisciplinary field 
of (critical) discourse studies to submit papers and to explore what is 
going on in this dynamic field of strategic struggles. We accept the 
results of finalized research projects but also work-in-progress and 
embryonic ideas.

We also explicitly welcome scholars from other disciplines and 
perspectives in the humanities and social sciences: Media studies, 
Communication sciences, Political sciences,  International relations, 
History, Ideology studies, Linguistics, Cultural studies, Audience and 
reception studies, Governmentality studies, Strategic narrative studies, 
Journalism studies, (Social) media studies, Development studies, Post- 
and De colonial studies, etc.

We equally welcome people with technological backgrounds as well as 
representatives of the tech industry.

Open lecture on November 4, 18-00 CET
Keynote lecture by Lisa Parks (https://www.lisaparks.net/ 
<https://www.lisaparks.net/>), Ph.D., Distinguished Professor at the 
University of California at Santa Barbara, Director of the Global Media 
Technologies and Cultures Lab, editor of the book 'Media Backends: 
Digital Infrastructures and Sociotechnical Relations' 
(https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jj.10405519 
<https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jj.10405519>).
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