COM Research Seminar: AI as Communicator and Method: How AI’s Discursive Strategies Compete for Public Attention by Mr Zening DUAN
24 Feb 2025 (Mon)
On February 24, 2025, Mr. Zening DUAN, a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, delivered a seminar titled "AI as Communicator and Method: How AI's Discursive Strategies Compete for Public Attention." Mr. DUAN’s research focuses on how AI influences attention dynamics in newsrooms and social media, with notable contributions such as the development of "vec-tionaries," a computational model for analyzing latent features in text.
The seminar explored the competitive strategies used by AI-driven social bots to shape public attention and manipulate information flows in digital environments. Mr. DUAN presented empirical findings on two distinct types of discursive strategies employed by social bots, highlighting their effectiveness in amplifying selective attention and altering patterns of information dissemination across media ecosystems. He also discussed the broader implications of these strategies on public discourse and media systems. The seminar attracted around 30 Ph.D. students and faculty members who engaged actively and contributed to a thought-provoking discussion.
