Communicative Turbulence: Knowledge, Culture and Algorithmic Power In an Age of AI

We live in times where information is abundant yet trust in knowledge has rarely been weaker. Generative AI now mediates how cultural meaning is produced, circulated and contested, reshaping the sociology of communication, knowledge and culture at its foundations. This session invites empirical and theoretical contributions examining how algorithmic systems, platform infrastructures and AI-driven content are transforming the social production of knowledge, the formation of publics, and the politics of cultural representation. We seek papers that move beyond techno-optimism, offering grounded analyses of how communication and knowledge are reconfigured under conditions of misinformation, surveillance, polarisation and epistemic fragmentation. We welcome work across several interlocking strands. The first concerns AI and the production of knowledge: generative systems in research, journalism and education, automated content and epistemic authority. A second examines algorithmic cultures, including recommendation systems, the datafication of culture, attention economies and surveillance capitalism. A third addresses misinformation, trust and the public sphere, attending to disinformation ecosystems, post-truth dynamics and declining trust in science and institutions. A fourth foregrounds the decolonising of digital communication, exploring global asymmetries in AI infrastructure, linguistic and cultural bias in models, and voices from the Global South. A fifth turns to performance, narrative and political communication, treating social media as a performative space shaped by strategic narratives, leaders and digital diplomacy. A final strand considers media, memory and representation, examining AI-generated imagery, deepfakes, synthetic media and the contestation of cultural memory. Together these strands invite a critical sociology of communicative life under algorithmic conditions.