Navigation auf zora.uzh.ch

Search ZORA

ZORA (Zurich Open Repository and Archive)

DDOS: due to massive botnet requests against our ‘Advanced Search’ we have restricted access to UZH (local and VPN). Thank you for your understanding.

Contested Chinese dreams of AI? Public discourse about artificial intelligence on WeChat and people’s daily online

Zeng, Jing; Chan, Chung-Hong; Schäfer, Mike S (2022). Contested Chinese dreams of AI? Public discourse about artificial intelligence on WeChat and people’s daily online. Information, Communication and Society, 25(3):319-340.

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a prominent public issue, particularly in China, where the government has announced plans to turn the country into a global AI power. This study analyses public discourse about AI in China through the conceptual lens of public spheres theory and counter-public spheres. It compares the official AI narrative on People’s Daily Online with public discussion about AI on the social medium WeChat, where we assumed that official views would be challenged. Using a combination of qualitative and computational methods, 140,000 AI-related articles published between 2015 and 2018 were studied. Findings reveal that AI-related discourse on WeChat is surprisingly similar to that on People’s Daily Online. That is, it is dominated by industry and political actors, such as government agencies and technology companies, and is mostly characterized by discussions about the economic potential of the technology, with strongly positive evaluations, and little critical debate.

Additional indexing

Item Type:Journal Article, refereed, original work
Communities & Collections:06 Faculty of Arts > Department of Communication and Media Research
Dewey Decimal Classification:070 News media, journalism & publishing
Scopus Subject Areas:Social Sciences & Humanities > Communication
Social Sciences & Humanities > Library and Information Sciences
Uncontrolled Keywords:Artificial intelligence, WeChat, science communication, public sphere, counter publics
Language:English
Date:17 February 2022
Deposited On:07 Oct 2020 14:24
Last Modified:05 Jun 2025 03:30
Publisher:Taylor & Francis
ISSN:1369-118X
Additional Information:This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Information, Communication and Society on 2020, available online: http://wwww.tandfonline.com/10.1080/1369118X.2020.1776372
OA Status:Green
Publisher DOI:https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2020.1776372
Download PDF  'Contested Chinese dreams of AI? Public discourse about artificial intelligence on WeChat and people’s daily online'.
Preview
  • Content: Accepted Version
  • Language: English

Metadata Export

Statistics

Citations

Dimensions.ai Metrics
38 citations in Web of Science®
48 citations in Scopus®
Google Scholar™

Altmetrics

Downloads

1230 downloads since deposited on 07 Oct 2020
391 downloads since 12 months
Detailed statistics

Authors, Affiliations, Collaborations

Similar Publications