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Imaginaries of Artificial Intelligence: The Communicative Construction of AI in China, Germany and the US

  • Duration: 2021 – 2025
  • Project lead: Prof. Dr. Christian Katzenbach

Partner: Institute for Communication and Media Research at the University of Zurich

Funding: Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) & German Research Foundation (DFG)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is considered a key technology in today’s societies. Political and economic actors in many countries have allocated considerable resources to AI development, and the technology is the subject of intense public debate. At the same time, observers of these debates criticize that the term AI is used vaguely and inconsistently, that the promises are overstated and that they oscillate between naïve hopes and dystopian fears.

This points to the fundamental interpretative flexibility of technologies and technology terms such as AI. Their development and social integration are context-dependent, shaped by political, economic and socio-cultural interests and subject to discursive negotiations in public arenas. The socio-technical perceptions of AI, i.e. the social understanding of the possibilities, potentials and risks associated with the technology, play a major role in how AI is perceived and used in society.

In collaboration between the Institute for Communication and Media Research at the University of Zurich and the ZeMKI, the three-year project presented, explained and compared perceptions of AI in different countries and over time. The research focused on AI development in the USA, China and Germany and examined the key players and public forums that play an important role in shaping AI perceptions in these regions.

Publications

  • Bareis, J., & Katzenbach, C. (2021). Talking AI into Being: The Narratives and Imaginaries of National AI Strategies and Their Performative Politics. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 47(5), 855–881. https://doi.org/10.1177/01622439211030007
  • Bory, P., Natale, S., & Katzenbach, C. (2024). Strong and weak AI narratives: An analytical framework. AI & SOCIETY. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-024-02087-8
  • Brause, S. R., Zeng, J., Schäfer, M. S., & Katzenbach, C. (2023). Media representations of artificial intelligence: Surveying the field. In Handbook of Critical Studies of Artificial Intelligence (pp. 277–288). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://www.elgaronline.com/edcollchap/book/9781803928562/book-part-9781803928562-30.xml
  • Hepp, A., Loosen, W., Dreyer, S., Jarke, J., Kannengießer, S., Katzenbach, C., Malaka, R., Pfadenhauer, M. P., Puschmann, C., & Schulz, W. (2023). ChatGPT, LaMDA, and the Hype Around Communicative AI: The Automation of Communication as a Field of Research in Media and Communication Studies. Human-Machine Communication, 6, 41–63. https://doi.org/10.30658/hmc.6.4
  • Hepp, A., Loosen, W., Dreyer, S., Jarke, J., Kannengießer, S., Katzenbach, C., Malaka, R., Pfadenhauer, M., Puschmann, C., & Schulz, W. (2022). Von der Mensch-Maschine-Interaktion zur kommunikativen KI. Publizistik, 67(4), 449–474. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11616-022-00758-4
  • Katzenbach, C. (2022, June 16). Lecture “KI-Widersprüchlichkeiten in Policy und Wissenschaft“—Workshop „Kommunikation im digitalen Wandel“ [Invited Lecture]. Zentrum Informationsarbeit der Bundeswehr in Kooperation mit der Universität Trier, Berlin.
  • Katzenbach, C., Richter, V., Jobin, A., & Liebig, L. (2022, May 12). Shaping AI – Imaginaries and Controversies of AI in Media and Policy. Artificial Intelligence and the Human: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Science and Fiction, Japanese-German Center Berlin (JDZB).
  • Mager, A., & Katzenbach, C. (2021). Future imaginaries in the making and governing of digital technology: Multiple, contested, commodified. New Media & Society, 23(2), 223–236. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444820929321
  • Mao, Y., Richter, V., & Katzenbach, C. (2022a, October). Imaginaries of Artificial Intelligence: Industry Stakeholders’ Communicative Construction of AI in China, Germany and the US. ECREA 2022 9th European Communication Conference, Aarhus.
  • Mao, Y., Richter, V., & Katzenbach, C. (2022b, November). Imaginaries of Artificial Intelligence: Industry Stakeholders’ Communicative Construction of AI in China, Germany and the US. Anticipation 2022, Phoenix, Arizona.
  • Mao, Y., Richter, V., & Katzenbach, C. (2025). Strategising imaginaries: How corporate actors in China, Germany and the US shape AI governance. Big Data & Society, 12(4), 20539517251400727. https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517251400727
  • Richter, V. (2022a, April). Imaginaries of AI – Reconstructing Future Visions of AI Shaping Current Research and Development. PhD Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning research and Democracy, Tübingen.
  • Richter, V. (2022b, November). Social Media Platforms as Multi-Sided Stakeholders: YouTube’s Role in Shaping (Public) Imaginaries of AI. AoIR 2022, Dublin.
  • Richter, V., Dergacheva, D., Katzenbach, C., & Kuznetsova, V. (2023, July 10). AI Stakeholders in US and German Twitter Discourse: Who is Shaping AI Debates and Trajectories? IAMCR 2023, Lyon.
  • Richter, V., Katzenbach, C., Dergacheva, D., Kuznetsova, V., Brause, S. R., Schäfer, M. S., & Zeng, J. (2023, May 22). Who is Shaping AI Debates and Trajectories? Stakeholders and their Imaginaries of AI in US- and German Social and News Media. (Un)stable Diffusions Symposium, Montreal.
  • Richter, V., Katzenbach, C., & Schäfer, M. S. (2023). Imaginaries of Artificial Intelligence. In Handbook of Critical Studies of Artificial Intelligence (pp. 209–223). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://www.elgaronline.com/edcollchap/book/9781803928562/book-part-9781803928562-24.xml

Persons

Labs