#IAMCR2025 Day 3 & 4 – International Association of Media and Communication Research

CPT – Users in focus: Weighing behaviour and attitudes in media governance and platform policies

I know how it works: Exploring the impact of algorithmic media content awareness on the privacy calculus of self-disclosure
» Dr. Zhang Hao Goh (Singapore)1, Prof. Gerard Goggin (Australia)2, Dr. Kym Campbell (Singapore)1 (1. Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University, 2. Western Sydney University)

• More data = more insights within mobile AI applications
• Layman vs. Expert – what does a model of knowing look like?
• Hierarchical structure of Awareness: Experiential (knowledge and experieince); systematic (how algorithms work); Normative (values and norms/ethics)

Are All AI Applications Created Equal? Unpacking Public Attitudes Toward AI Policies in Taiwan
» Dr. Tsung-Jen Shih (Taiwan)1, Ms. WEI-SHAN ZHENG (Taiwan)2 (1. College of Communication, National Chengchi University, Taiwan, R.O.C., 2. Telecom Technology Center (TTC), Taiwan, R.O.C.)

• General public in Taiwan and how they understand AI policies
• Deference and scientific authority (Lee & Scheufele, 2006) – we trust scientist more and we believe, if we do not believe we question legitimacy of science
• Findings indicate that both deference and moral considerations benefit perceptions

Behaviorism Takes Command: A Study on A/B Testing and Experimental Culture in Big Internet Tech Companies
» Ms. Xia Yunxuan (China)1 (1. Peking University School of New Media)

• Engineers vs. designers through A/B testing (testing as a decision making process)
• How has A/B testing evolved from a testign tool to a mechanism of digital governacne?
• A/B testing as a form of experimental culture – this emerges from within the tech industry as a constant process that is underway
• The backbone of design inhibits how the experimentation of the testing process – expanding the gaps between techn workers and users

Characteristics and Regulations of Digital Identity Theft in the AI Era: A Grounded Theory Study of Rednote Micro-Influencers
» Ms. Yichuan Wang (China)1, Mr. Hanze Zhao (China)2 (1. School of Journalism and Communication, Tsinghua University, 2. Beijing Foreign Studies University)

• It makes me think of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOuGH9Gpeos
• Method (coding): Open coding, axial coding then

Day 4

CPT – Generative AI Governance: Institutions, Imaginaries, Innovations

Innovation vs Imagination in GenAI: A Comparative Patent Analysis of China, Europe, and the United States
» Dr. Yuner ZHU (Hong Kong)1, Dr. Xinzhi Zhang (Hong Kong)2, Prof. Bu Zhong (Hong Kong)1 (1. Hong Kong Baptist University, 2. City University of Hong Kong)

• Systematic review of AI policy in Europe (Value Oriented), US (Market-driven) and China (State-led)
• Examining the relationship between Innovation and Imagination
• Patent filings: THomson Reuters Derwent World Patents Index
• Patent claims – 6.7% China, 86% Europe, 34.8% US – really clever way to identify where the innovation is and where the rest follow (I suspect it is highest in China with much interest emerging from Europe)
• Q: Expand on the clash between the three policy spaces?

Strikes and unrest in Hollywood media industry: bringing workers into the debate over GAI regulation and governance
» Mr. ANDRE ROCHA (Brazil)1 (1. DigiLabour research lab)

• digitallabour.com.br (double check this link) Brazillian colleagues doing work on the WGA
• Hollywood strikes
• Power resources mobilization: Institutional “Hollywood is ‘union town'”; Economic (structural): disruption of media markets; Societal (discursive): public opinion that AI is not art/threat to workers/reflects dominant views
• This moment spilled over into the gaming industry and other labour movements

Preemptive Dispositif: Data Annotation, Security, and the Territorialisation of Generative AI in China
» Dr. PENGFEI FU (China)1, Dr. Jian Lin (Hong Kong)2 (1. Shanghai Jiao Tong Univeristy, 2. Chinese University of Hong Kong)

• China internet governance has existed in a ‘post-moderation’ mode since its inception
• Concerns have moved from not what is made but how AI systems are designed, trained, developed, etc.
• ‘upstream interventions’ – data annotation such as screening, cleaning, classifying, rating, marking and quality verification that can be used to train LLMs. Not just technical but also normative and social.
• This is done as a ‘national workforce’. Ummmmm….
• This sits within a global workforce labour model towards data annotation
• Shift towards a pre-production regulation (this thinking aligns with our sandboxing approach), with focus on how training is done
• Q: yes! But how to do this practically?

Assembling Generative Artificial Intelligence: Mapping Policy Evolution and Governance
» Dr. Chao Su (United States)1 (1. Boston University)

• Wayback machine to snapshot TikTok’s Community Guidelines from 2018
• Published article here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369118X.2025.2513672

CPT – What drives digital adoption and regulation? Between moral panics and digital identity

Do Sleeping Sovereigns Dream of Digital Identities?: Identity, Sovereignty, Citizenship
» Mr. James Rosenberg (United States)1 (1. University of Wisconsin–Madison)

• The introduction of the EU digital wallet
• Self Sovereign Identity: the internet identity layer as a solution to public trust across the internet – a menas of proving identity on the internt
• TCP/IP provides an address not an identity
• 3 solutions: centralised model (id cards etc.); federated model (insert identity provider i.e. Google credentials); decentralized model (SSI – relationship between you and IP provider)
• Self-Sovereign Identity: Decentralized digital identity and verifiable credentials
• The sovereign individual – anyone can be rich, citizenship is dead, nation-state is dead, live elsewhere from your money in a tax haven

The Anxiety of Age: Moral Media Panics over Children’s Social Media Use as a Tool to Regulate
» Dr. Catherine Page Jeffery (Australia)1, Dr. Justine Humphry (Australia)2, Prof. Jonathon Hutchinson (Australia)1 (1. University of Sydney, 2. The University of Sydney)

• This is our work, questiosn as follows: Is this private and public media? What is the reach of those orgs that are presented in the data? I don’t know if reach is the thing to measure here, I think it’s impact. Haidt > Wippa > 36 months etc. then the link with policy agenda.
• What about individual ‘media’, as opposed to ‘the media’
• Presented excellently by Cat and Justine

One World, Different Priorities: AI Technology Policies and the Global South
» Prof. chika Anyanwu (Australia)1 (1. University of New South Wales)

• AI policies and tis translation around the world, especially the Global South
• GenAI in Africe, a colonial lens,
• “Technology transfer”: colonial term that the West will allow knowledge to come into Africa
• Socially constructed technology spaces (GenAI) and how this transfers across the glove(the question of power and influence)
• Superiority lens (McDonalds food is cheaper than good food as an example), Interesting read on this topic here
• Homi K. Bhabha’s Third Space Theory and Cultural Identity Today: A Critical Review
• Noble and algorithms of oppression
• Fascinating analysis of Africa from early ‘cheap labour’, then to material wealth
• What about now (space for GenAI)?
• Africa AI Policy Framework
• Congo as a stronghold of minerals for tech, becoming ‘the bride of the US’ as a result of the tensions between US and China

Understanding Digital Cryptocurrency Communities: Digital Participation, Infrastructure, and Social Networks in the Global South
» Dr. Jonalou Labor (Denmark)1 (1. Aarhus University)

• This is important work to bridge the scholarship between crypto worlds (bitcoin etc.) and platform studies
• Multi-layers as a way to understand crypto (create their own platform layers), embedding this work in platform studies – think: Discord as a way to communicate about Bitcoin
• Digital Bayanihan is the connection between collective action and cryptocurrencies – adaption of new frameworks in digital activism
• Great work that provides clear evidence for the inclusion of alternative regioanl models (i.e Philippines) in platform studies.

Media’ s Embrace of Technology: How Media Portrays the Use of Autonomous Taxis and Its Impact on Individuals’ Adoption Intentions
» Prof. Christine Yi-Hui HUANG (Hong Kong)1, Ms. Ruoheng LIU (China)
1, Ms. Shuang GAO (China)1, Ms. Bo CHANG (China)1 (1. City University
of Hong Kong)

• Technology acceptance model
• Uber and Baidu partner for autonomous vehicles

CPT – The Digital Transactions Turn: Making Policy and Governance Fit-For-Purpose

Digital Transaction Platforms in Asia
» Prof. Adrian Athique (Australia)1 (1. The University of Queensland)

• Digital transactions are acts of: code, exchange, communication, solidarity and power
• Xanadu Project was already doing this
• Cascading transactions – automated and layered nature of platforms to think beyond economies
• Strategic design
• Transaction platforms: payment, banking, exchange, escrow, social media, social credit
• Currencies: Airtime, social, crypto, legible reserves

TikTok Refugees and the Cross-Cultural Public Sphere: Social Transactions and International Communication Policy
» Prof. Haiqing Yu (Australia)1 (1. RMIT University)

• TikTok refugees went to Insta reels, YouTube shorts but India won: Chingari, Roposo, Moj, Josh. Plus Rednote in China
• Red note users: “What?!? Why do I now see all these blue eyes?”
• Total cultural explosion between US and Chinese users – Cross cultural social translations
• Exchange of English, Chinese, Chinglish is more informative than then a Chinese State or New York Times explanation
• Impacts on policy – book idea: “policy intermediaries”

Platform Labor and Transaction Chains
» Prof. Cheryll Ruth Soriano (Philippines)1 (1. De La Salle University Manila)

• Next Wave Cities – support for Philippines labour industries – digital jobs and labour
• Upwork is the platform that results – think: Airtasker but better
• This platform and service prompts a new kind of transaction platform – GCash
• [This includes Vietnam]
• The oversupply of labour has created new industries on how to be successful on UpWork
• It’s very similar to the YouTube world – creators, MCNs, training, ‘universities/feeder schools’

E-commerce logistics in Southeast Asia: the cases of Shopee and Lazada
» Dr. Emma Baulch (Malaysia)1 (1. Monash University Malaysia)

• Lots of talk of ‘intermediaries’ here – I think there is a thread that unexplored in all the work in this panel
• Fascinating work that explores the tensions of delivery drivers especially in Malaysia