[Commlist] Cfp: “Human-machine communication cultures: Artificial intelligence, media and cultures in a global context” - Special issue of Global Media and China

We invite the submission of article proposals for a special issue of the 
journal Global Media and China <https://journals.sagepub.com/home/gch> 
entitled “Human-machine communication cultures: Artificial intelligence, 
media and cultures in a global context,” guest-edited by Simone Natale 
(University of Turin, Italy) and Deqiang Ji (Communication University of 
China).

Traditionally, communication studies investigate the social, cultural 
and political dimensions of human communication, especially but not 
exclusively when mediated by technology. Recent advances in Artificial 
Intelligence (AI) pose a new challenge to existing frameworks: 
technologies such as voice assistants, social media bots, and the 
application of automatic text generators to news media not only play the 
role of the channel through which communication is achieved, as in 
traditional definitions of the term medium (McLuhan, 1964), but also the 
role of the communicator (Natale, 2021) or moderator (Gillespie, 2018), 
since they are programmed to produce communicative messages directed at 
human interlocutors. The new area of inquiry called Human-Machine 
Communication emerged in response to this challenge, with the objective 
to apply to communications between humans and machines the conceptual, 
theoretical and methodological tools originally developed in 
communication and media studies to examine communications between humans 
(Guzman & Lewis, 2019; Gunkel, 2020).

Human-machine communication, however, is still often declined in the 
singular form. Too little consideration is given to the fact that 
communication is always situated in specific cultural, linguistic and 
national environments, which in turn inform the situations and outcomes 
of all communication processes (Gunaratne, 2010; Xiangzhong, 2016). This 
special issue of Global Media and China aims to contribute to existing 
efforts (e.g. Lawrence, 2021; Komarraju et al., 2021) to fill this gap. 
Contributions are invited that examine and enlighten the plurality of 
human-machine communication cultures, both at a diachronic (i.e. 
historically across time) and at a synchronic (i.e. geographically 
across different areas of the globe, including but not limited to China) 
level. As a whole, the special issue will show that if we want to 
understand the impact of AI technologies in the contemporary world, we 
need to better situate the cultural and social dynamics that contribute 
to shape the meanings and the pragmatic outcomes of these technologies 
for human societies across the globe.

We encourage submission of essays that illustrate the above-mentioned 
dynamics with specific cases/ examples/ empirical studies. We are 
especially interested in research based within the broad remits of 
communication and media studies, but interdisciplinary collaborations 
that highlight the relationships with other areas are also encouraged.
Selected articles will address questions such as:
·   How do different linguistic, cultural and national dimensions impact 
on the functioning and outcome of AI technologies?
·   How can we better understand the plurality of algorithmic 
imaginaries and human-machine communication cultures in a global world?
·   How does AI and human-machine communication change global media 
industries around the world? How do they affect specific media sectors, 
such as journalism, computer games, social media, film and broadcasting?
·   How are technologies such as AI and robots domesticated in different 
cultural environments?
·   How do human-machine communication cultures change across time, both 
in the history of AI and in the longer history of media technologies?
·   How can the scope of human-machine communication research be 
enlarged to encompass wider historical trajectories and geographical 
boundaries?

*Deadline for submission of abstracts: _31 July 2022_*
Please send a 300-word abstract and a 100-word bio, mentioning the title 
of the special issue in the subject line, to the guest editors: 
(simone.natale /at/ unito.it) and (jideqiang /at/ cuc.edu.cn)
Authors of accepted abstracts will be notified by 5 September 2022 and 
asked to submit a full paper by 28 February 2023.
*/Each article accepted through peer review will be made freely 
available online as open access. Publication costs of the journal are 
covered by the journal sponsor. There is no charge for submitting and 
publishing a paper in the journal./*

*The journal*
Global Media and China (GMAC) is a peer-reviewed, open access journal 
published by Sage Journals. This journal is sponsored by the 
Communication University of China. It is a journal of the International 
Communication Section of the International Association for Media and 
Communication Research (IAMCR).

*References*
Gillespie, T. (2018). Custodians of the Internet : platforms, content 
moderation, and the hidden decisions that shape social media. Yale 
University Press.
Gunaratne, S. A. (2010). De-Westernizing communication/social science 
research: Opportunities and limitations. Media, Culture & Society, 
32(3), 473-500.
Gunkel, D. J. (2020). An Introduction to Communication and Artificial 
Intelligence. Polity.
Guzman, A. L., & Lewis, S. C. (2019). Artificial intelligence and 
communication: A Human–Machine Communication research agenda. New Media 
& Society, 22(1), 70–86.
Komarraju, S. A., Arora, P., & Raman, U. (2021). Agency and servitude in 
platform labour: A feminist analysis of blended cultures. Media, Culture 
& Society, published online before print 10 July 2021, doi: 
10.1177/01634437211029890
Lawrence, H. M. (2021). Siri Disciplines. In T. S. Mullaney, B. Peters, 
M. Hicks, & K. Philip (Eds.), Your computer is on fire. MIT Press.
McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding media: The extensions of man. McGraw-Hill.
Natale, S. (2021). Deceitful Media: Artificial Intelligence and Social 
Life after the Turing Test. Oxford University Press.
Xiangzhong, L. (2016). New hope, new global media and China. Global 
Media and China, 1(1-2), 5-6.



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