Digital (Un)Democracy: AI, Media, and the New Political Order

Session Submission Type: Paper Session (90 minute)

Description

Around the world, media systems and digital technologies, especially artificial intelligence (AI), are reorganizing political life and rewiring power among states, platforms, the press, and publics. This session maps these shifts along three axes:

Un-democracy. The digital public sphere is increasingly shaped by forces that undermine democratic deliberation and accountability. Demoderated social media, alternative news sites, and podcasts have lowered editorial safeguards, fueling mis/disinformation, hate speech, and intimidation; legacy fact-checking often cannot keep pace. Algorithmic recommendation intensifies polarization, while efforts to defund public media erode basic civic infrastructure. AI now amplifies propaganda and election interference through deepfakes and automated campaigns, with documented cases across multiple regions.

Uncertainty. The rise of AI introduces new political and economic ambiguities in how information is produced, distributed, and governed. AI systems increasingly exhibit (and are sometimes tuned toward) particular political leanings, raising questions about digital governance and transparency. Simultaneously, many countries and regions are testing whether and how platforms should share revenue with news organizations, exposing unsettled relations between platforms, the press, and society.

Democracy. Despite these challenges, digital tools continue to create spaces for civic renewal and collective experimentation. In Nepal, a nationwide ban on major social platforms helped catalyze wide mobilization and experimental deliberation, what observers called a “virtual parliament.” Newsrooms are likewise innovating: pop-up community bureaus, partnerships with social media influencers, and renewed offline/print practices reconnect journalism to local publics and solutions-oriented information needs.

We invite empirical, comparative, and theoretical papers that examine these dynamics, such as far-right media ecosystems, AI-mediated information operations, revenue-sharing regimes, platform governance, and civic tech experiments. The session’s goal is to identify mechanisms linking AI/media to democratic erosion and renewal, and to surface policy and organizational strategies, such as public media support, accountable AI, platform regulation, and newsroom innovation, that can sustain equitable, informed publics.

Sub Unit

• Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology Section / Digital (Un)Democracy: AI, Media, and the New Political Order

Presider

• Zhifan Luo, McMaster University

Individual Presentations

• Artificial Ideologies: How Human-AI Alignment Shapes Trust and Persuasion Across Ideological Boundaries - Ryan Gibson, University of New Hampshire

• Generative AI as a Protest Tool: Mobilization, Transnational Advocacy, and Grief - Danial Vahabli, Stony Brook University

• Generative Artificial Intelligence and Far-right Visual Communication on Social Media: Affordances, Actors, and Audiences - Thomas Davidson, Rutgers University-New Brunswick

• Power in the Loop: Algorithmic Governance and Legitimacy under Authoritarianism - Zheng Fu, Stony Brook University; Chuncheng Liu, Northeastern University

• Truth and Dare: Market Relations and Sentiment Distance in Digital Space during COVID-19 - Yan Long, University of California-Berkeley; Wei Luo, Peking University; Yue Zhang, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; Rui Chen, Harvard University

Session Organizer

• Muyang Li, York University