TY - JOUR
T1 - Contested Chinese Dreams of AI? Public discourse about Artificial intelligence on WeChat and People’s Daily Online
AU - Zeng, Jing
AU - Chan, Chung hong
AU - Schäfer, Mike S.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - 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 characterised by discussions about the economic potential of the technology, with strongly positive evaluations, and little critical debate.
AB - 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 characterised by discussions about the economic potential of the technology, with strongly positive evaluations, and little critical debate.
KW - Artificial intelligence
KW - counter publics
KW - public sphere
KW - science communication
KW - WeChat
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85087024846&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/1369118X.2020.1776372
DO - 10.1080/1369118X.2020.1776372
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85087024846
SN - 1369-118X
VL - 25
SP - 319
EP - 340
JO - Information Communication and Society
JF - Information Communication and Society
IS - 3
ER -