This special issue aims for paper submissions that discuss connections between media ecology and artificial intelligence. Coined by Mollick (2023), this new “AI Tide” is ripe for exploration in field of media ecology. AI has become a transformative force shaping the very fabric of our media landscape. As media technologies evolve, AI’s pervasive influence impacts content creation, distribution, consumption patterns, and the overall media ecosystem. Understanding the interplay between AI and media is crucial to grasp the implications for communication, culture, and society.

Walter Ong argued that artificial intelligence could never approach human intelligence, as intelligence is embedded in culture, persons, their bodies, and even silence. He wrote, “Despite all the work to achieve ‘artificial intelligence’ through the computer, the computer always lacks the living silence in which, as we have seen, human thought and language are embedded, it lacks the unconscious in which human thought and language are also embedded, and it lacks the biological substructures in which human thought and language are embedded” (Ong, 2018).

All disciplines have been impacted by the recent generative AIs that have entered the public sphere. Conferences throughout 2023 have seen discussions about AI, even our own at Fordham in June. Media ecologists have many valuable perspectives to contribute to this global conversation, and this special issue is welcoming media ecologists a space to explore AI.

Possible topics welcomed in this special issue include, but are not limited to:

• AI and higher education
• AI and culture
• AI and language
• Implications of media ecology on the development of AI
• Media ecology and the global village
• The digital divide and AI
• Human consciousness and AI
• Language and AI

Abstracts (300 words) and a short biographical note should be submitted by December 11, 2023 via email to Tiffany Petricini tzr106@psu.edu with the subject line “AI and Media Ecology.”

About the journal Explorations in Media Ecology

Explorations in Media Ecology, the journal of the Media Ecology Association, accepts submissions that extend our understanding of media (defined in the broadest possible terms), that apply media ecological approaches, and/or that advance media ecology as a field of inquiry. As a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary publication, EME welcomes contributions embracing diverse theoretical, philosophical and methodological approaches to the study of media and processes of mediation.

Important Dates

• Abstract submission (300 words): December 11, 2023
• Manuscript submission: January 11, 2024
• Notifications: February 15, 2023
• Final manuscript submission: March 31, 2024
• Target publication date: June, 2024

Paper Submission Format

Contributors are asked to submit original papers between 4000-6000 words in the journal’s requested manuscript format. You can find more information about formatting here: https://www.intellectbooks.com/asset/8837/1/NfC_EME_16_1.pdf.

Special Issue Guest Editor

Tiffany Petricini is an Assistant Teaching Professor in Communication at Penn State Shenango and Program Coordinator of the Penn State Western Corporate Communication Consortium. Her publications have reflected interests in phenomenology, interpersonal communication, technology, philosophy, ethics, and media ecology, including her work Friendship and Technology, available through Routledge. Tiffany has been an invited speaker on the international radio program “Spark” on CBC Radio One and the first external speaker to ever be invited to the SUNY Plattsburgh at the Ethics Institute. She also serves as the social media expert for NBC affiliate WFMJ 21 News.