Media, AI, and Society In Late Modern Conflicts: Navigating the New Communication Order

This rapid convergence of artificial intelligence, digital media, and global-wide networks for communications networks is radically reshaping social structures, public discourse, and human interaction in the 21st century. In an era of unprecedented political, economic, and cultural conflicts across the world, media and communication technologies can be seen not only as a mirror but also as an accelerator of such social change. This session welcomes submissions that analyze the complex relationship of AI, media, and society from a global sociological perspective.

The growth of algorithmic media, AI-driven platforms, and content automation has significantly altered how information is produced, distributed, and consumed in different socio-cultural environments globally. From AI-powered media content to deepfakes, through surveillance capitalism and platform-mediated public opinion, the boundaries between human communication and machine-generated content are increasingly blurred. These developments create a need for critical thinking about issues such as truth, trust, democratic engagement, and the future of the public domain. However, the digital ecosystem has also opened new avenues to marginalized voices. Yet even these hopeful developments carry contradictions, visibility does not always translate into power, and digital spaces are themselves contested terrains shaped by inequality, surveillance, and algorithmic gatekeeping.

This session invites scholars and practitioners to bring their work into dialogue on such topics—but not limited to—AI and journalism, platform capitalism and democracy, digital inequalities, media trust and misinformation ecosystems, algorithmic bias and representation, the sociology of influencer cultures, surveillance and digital rights, and the changing nature of public communication in authoritarian and democratic contexts alike.