journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Prompt Culture: From Lines to Surfaces in AI Image Generation - Norma Musih, 2026

This article introduces ‘prompt culture’ as an emergent ecosystem at the intersection of artificial intelligence, language, market economy, and visual culture. ...

journals.sagepub.com

🌿 New article in AI and Ethics: “Perplexity is BS machine:” from controversy to AI ethics as discourse?” 🌿 with @skjethani.bsky.social; on public discourses surrounding AI-powered conversational search engines, using the 2024 controversy over Perplexity as our central case. doi.org/10.1007/s436...

New in our MWC journal!: Nataliya Roman @nataliialaba.com & John H. Parmelee, with “The architect of the invasion” vs. “a symbol of resilience”: How AI chatbots frame Zelenskyy, Putin and the Russia–Ukraine war - they struggle making sense of Russian propaganda: journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

journals.sagepub.com

Our study "The architect of the invasion" vs. "a symbol of resilience:" How AI chatbots frame Zelenskyy, Putin and the Russia-Ukraine war is just out in @mwcjournal.bsky.social: doi.org/10.1177/1750...

“The architect of the invasion” vs. “a symbol of resilience”: How AI chatbots frame Zelenskyy, Putin and the Russia–Ukraine war - Nataliya Roman, Nataliia Laba, John H. Parmelee, 2026

This qualitative content analysis conducted in November 2024 examines how four AI chatbots – OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Copilot, Google’s Gemini, and Anthrop...

journals.sagepub.com

Our co-edited open access book with @catherinebouko.bsky.social, Six Critical Lenses on AI-Generated Images, now has a cover and critics’ reviews 📘 ✨ www.routledge.com/Six-Critical...

📣 New! Around the world, AI-generated deepfakes are being used to enable financial fraud — and they're causing serious harm. Our policy brief w @columbiasipa.bsky.social unpacks the limits of current regulations & underscores the need for institutional accountability. datasociety.net/library/deep...

Calling all students and emerging scholars‼️ 📣 #ICA26 #CapeTown 🇿🇦 @icahdq.bsky.social If you are currently a #student or #ECR and your paper has been accepted at #ICA26 Cape Town, you may apply for #VCSD travel grant by submitting your details through this form: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

VCSD Travel Grant Application #ICA26

Calling all students and emerging scholars! The ICA Visual Communication Studies Division (VCSD) leadership team is now accepting applications for our annual travel grants. The Klaus Krippendorff Mem...

docs.google.com

X’s Grok is failing to accurately verify video footage from the Iran conflict and is sharing its own AI-generated images about the war. www.wired.com/story/fake-a...

Fake AI Content About the Iran War Is All Over X

X’s Grok is failing to accurately verify video footage from the Iran conflict and is sharing its own AI-generated images about the war.

wired.com

❕"Gaza and the rise of synthetic militarism: On genocide and generative AI" by Adi Kuntsman and Rebecca L Stein just out in Media, Culture & Society: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Gaza and the rise of synthetic militarism: On genocide and generative AI - Adi Kuntsman, Rebecca L. Stein, 2026

Drawing on the case of the Israeli genocidal assault on Gaza, with attention to how Israelis and their supporters were employing synthetic images as political t...

journals.sagepub.com

AI-generated war footage is becoming a problem, X is taking a stand against it by *checks notes* demonetizing bluechecks for 90 days when they share it without a label?

X Will Stop Paying People for Sharing Unlabeled AI-Generated War Footage

Fake war footage is a problem as old as social media. AI has just supercharged it.

404media.co

New article on prophets and AI (with Amanda Lagerkvist and Blazenka Scheuer) www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

“The workers in Kenya say that it feels uncomfortable to go to work. They tell us about deeply private video clips, which appear to come straight out of Western homes, from people who use the glasses in their everyday lives. Several describe video material showing bathroom visits, sex…”

She Came Out of the Bathroom Naked, Employee Says

Bank details, sex and naked people who seem unaware they are being recorded. Behind Meta’s new smart glasses lies a hidden workforce, uneasy about peering into the most intimate parts of other people’...

svd.se

📣 #CallForApplications #CfA The SCRIPTS Academic Accelerator #Fellowship 2026 is open for 2nd & 3rd year #PhD #researchers from regions and communities underrepresented in academia. Join us for 12 months in #Berlin. ⏰ Deadline: 28 Feb 2026 💶 Funding: €1,800/month 👉 ogy.de/bz4q 🙌 Please share!

After decades of undermining the credibility of dissent, the Iranian regime now "has AI not just as a tool for creating fakes but as a rhetorical weapon." The sense that nothing can be trusted becomes an accelerant. (And not only in Iran.) www.theatlantic.com/internationa...

How Doubt Became a Weapon in Iran

AI manipulation, and the very suspicion of it, serves those who have the most to hide.

theatlantic.com

“According to AI companies, creativity isn’t an innate human endeavor, but a problem, an inefficiency waiting for a technological intervention…Such rhetoric conveniently abstracts creativity from a complex, embodied human experience & represents it as a computational problem to be solved.”

AI is not a tool - AI & SOCIETY

AI & SOCIETY -

link.springer.com

My piece “AI is not a tool” is out in AI & Society. The tool metaphor is all over AI industry rhetoric that markets visual #genAI as the solution to your creative needs doi.org/10.1007/s001... 1/2 Image credit: Beckett LeClair / betterimagesofai.org / CC BY 4.0

#CfP! Special Visual Essays Issue on More-than-Human Perspectives in Visual Communication, guest edited by Juhri Salamet. Extended abstracts due 20 January 2026. More information: www.designresearchsociety.org/events/cfp-s...

New in AI & Society: how visual generative artificial intelligence #genAI is viewed by those who adopt or resist this technology, and why. doi.org/10.1007/s001...

Whose imagination? Conflicting narratives and sociotechnical futures of visual generative AI - AI & SOCIETY

Conceptually informed by sociotechnical imaginaries, this article asks how visual generative artificial intelligence (genAI) is viewed by those who adopt or resist this technology, and why, drawing evidence from YouTube discussions. Firstly, visual genAI is framed as a natural progression of technologies that enhance creativity, increase productivity, and democratize art, echoing the prevailing narratives of Silicon Valley. Secondly, visual genAI is discussed in relation to critical concerns such as job displacement, no compensation for artists, and the rise of industrial art. Despite these divergent viewpoints, a collective effort to negotiate ethical AI adoption emphasizes accountability from AI companies, updates to existing regulatory frameworks, and alternative solutions to reclaim the human element in genAI cultures. The findings suggest that while visual genAI can indeed enhance creative practices, data value extraction must be repudiated to prevent market power concentration by those who frame this technology as a tool for the imagination while excluding the creators whose work these “tools” are built on. The article offers empirical insights into how different social groups advocate for or resist visual genAI, stimulating critical debate on its status and integration into cultural production and society at large.

doi.org

How do we prevent AI companies from enabling uncredited mimicry of culture in AI-generated images? Some answers at www.acume.org/r/beyond-mag.... Click ➕ for evidence and actionable steps. Based on my 2024 study in New Media & Soc doi.org/10.1177/1461... #criticalAI #generativeAI #noAIart

🔗 The open-access study can be read here: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... 🙏 Thanks to @nataliialaba.com for inspiring this study and to she and @neous.bsky.social for organising a panel on visual style that we presented at #ADDA5 and that helped sharpen my arguments in this paper.

Computer-mediated representations: a qualitative examination of algorithmic vision and visual style - TJ Thomson, 2025

To the general public, text-to-image generators, such as Midjourney and DALL-E, seem to work through magic and, indeed, their inner workings are often frustrati...

journals.sagepub.com

What a delight it was to work with @danielpfurtscheller.at, @klobinger.bsky.social, @nataliialaba.com, & @kathchr.bsky.social on this newly published study: Visual literacies in transition: multimodal co-production with generative AI. 🔗 You can read our open access study here: lnkd.in/gZwZr83g

Early career and international submissions Q&A for #ICA26 @icahdq.bsky.social Join the upcoming Q&A Zoom Event organized by the ICA Visual Communication Studies Division (VCSD) to know more about our call for abstracts and papers in response to the theme "Communication and Inequalities in Context"

New study in Memory, Mind & Media: "Memory of the multitude and representation in AI-generated #images of #war; #AI and #Memory special collection. doi.org/10.1017/mem.... #criticalAI @universitypress.cambridge.org

Some of my thoughts on the politics of visual generative #AI documented in a beautiful graphic recording in the 2025 Digital Politics Summer School curated by the Digital Society research group at The Manchester Metropolitan University 😍 digitalsociety.mmu.ac.uk/2025/09/03/v...

Visual AI Politics//Politics of Visual AI Graphic Recording - Digital Society Research Cluster

As part of the 2025 Digital Politics Summer School, we held a roundtable discussion exploring Visual AI Politics//Politics of Visual AI. In case you missed it, you can watch the […]

digitalsociety.mmu.ac.uk

Preparations are in full swing and we look forward to welcoming everyone in Groningen soon for #12ICOM: 12th International Conference on Multimodality 29-31 October 2025, House of Connections, Groningen bit.ly/12ICOM Watch our website for the full program to be online soon!

The program and (free) registration for online 𝗗𝗶𝗴𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗣𝗼𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘀 𝗦𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗦𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗼𝗹 "𝗩𝗶𝘀𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗔𝗜 𝗣𝗼𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘀 / 𝗣𝗼𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗩𝗶𝘀𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗔𝗜", 𝟮𝟰-𝟮𝟳 𝗝𝘂𝗻𝗲, are available! digitalpoliticsmanmet.bloggi.co/visual-ai-po...

Visual AI politics/politics of visual AI: Digital Politics Summer School 2025

24-27 June, online Our Digital Politics Summer School is celebrating its fifth anniversary! This year, the school is focusing on visual generative AI. Details of speakers, call for workshop participat...

digitalpoliticsmanmet.bloggi.co

Nataliia Laba @nataliialaba.com on text-to-image generators, the resulting artefacts and our interpretation. Her food for thought: Can human qualities really be translated to AI? We should continue addressing how people's experiences shape their expectations towards AI.

CfP Digital Politics Summer School at Manchester Metropolitan University, 23-27 June (online). This year, the school is focusing on visual generative AI, and invites applications for participation in a networking and co-production session. More info: digitalpoliticsmanmet.bloggi.co/visual-ai-po...

Visual AI politics/politics of visual AI: Digital Politics Summer School 2025

23-27 June, online Our Digital Politics Summer School is celebrating its fifth anniversary! This year, the school is focusing on visual generative AI. Details of speakers, call for workshop participat...

digitalpoliticsmanmet.bloggi.co

New OA book. Seeing Like a Platform: An Inquiry into the Condition of Digital Modernity by Petter Törnberg and Justus Uitermark. www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edi...

Seeing Like a Platform | An Inquiry into the Condition of Digital Mode

Power needs abstraction, to make the unwieldy complexity of the social world legible and manageable. The proposition at the heart of Seeing Like a Platform is

taylorfrancis.com

Are you researching the role of AI for workers in the media, arts and culture sectors? Consider submitting an abstract to our special issue for AI & Society journal on the topic. link.springer.com/collections/...