CfP: Special edition of Global Media and China "Artificial intelligence in the creator economy"; Deadline: 28.02.2025.

Call for Papers

Special edition of Global Media and China

Issue Editors
Keith Negus (Goldsmiths, University of London, UK, and University of Agder, Norway)
Qian Zhang (Communication University of China, Beijing)

Artificial intelligence in the creator economy

Artificial Intelligence (AI), powered by large data sets and advanced algorithms, is having a profound impact upon the global media. It is disrupting approaches to knowledge and information, models of communication and representation, along with creative practices and cultural production. This special edition addresses the impacts and consequences of AI for the study of global media, by focusing specifically on how AI is driving a growing creator economy. The creator economy refers to the way ever more content is made, modified, and monetized, using accessible AI apps, across audio-visual platforms like Douyin/ TikTok, YouTube, Sina Weibo, WeChat, Twitch, Bigo Live, and Boomplay.

The AI driven creator economy has widened access to content creation, challenging existing hierarchies of cultural production by allowing millions of media users to produce sounds, texts, and images that cross and combine music, video, fiction, drama, dance, documentaries, gaming and more. Generative architectures, such as transformer models and attention mechanisms, along with advances in affective AI, are disrupting key concepts and understandings of media production such as authorship, originality, empathy, and artistic expression. The issues are not only conceptual. AI also poses practical challenges to existing media occupations, artistic skills education, the regulation of personal data, and intellectual property management.

Focus and objectives. This special issue seeks to explore the under-examined intersections of AI and the creator economy. We aim to:

investigate how AI is reshaping creative practices and cultural production across global media systems.
encourage interdisciplinary connections between media studies, the arts and humanities, social sciences, and technical disciplines such as computer science, AI engineering, and software studies.
examine the practical implications of AI for creative industries and artistic practices.
explore the regulatory, ethical, and pedagogical challenges posed by AI in the creator economy.

By engaging with these themes, the special issue will interrogate the integration of AI into the media and creative industries, contributing to knowledge and understanding while advancing theoretical frameworks.

Call for papers. We invite contributions that explore, explain, and critically interrogate the integration and influence of AI on creative practices and the media economy. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following themes:

AI Architectures and Creative Production

How are AI architectures, models, and systems being developed and applied in media production, and with what consequences for creativity and cultural expression?
In what ways do algorithmic weights, biases, and training data influence the aesthetics, themes, and accessibility of AI-generated content?
What tensions emerge between the digital abundance advanced by generative AI and the emphasis placed on cultural scarcity and artistic uniqueness as indicators of value?

Changing Roles in the Creator Economy

Is the AI-driven creator economy providing new opportunities for underrepresented voices and emerging creators to gain recognition and revenue, or is it perpetuating existing inequalities?
How do self-taught creators, using AI tools, challenge traditional pathways in creative education and disrupt existing cultural hierarchies?

Media Systems, Markets, and Platforms

Does the integration of AI into creative platforms require scholars to rethink media theories, such as participatory culture, platform capitalism, or the public sphere?
How do media platforms (e.g. Douyin, YouTube) enable or constrain the creative application of AI technologies through their infrastructures, policies, and economic priorities?

Authorship, Regulation, and Ethics

How is AI redefining concepts like authorship, originality, and ownership in creative production, and what are the implications for copyright and intellectual property law?
Whose data is used in training AI models for the creative economy, and what ethical issues arise around credit, fair remuneration, and privacy?

Editorial note: The editorial introduction will highlight key points from the contributions, situate them within a broader context, and outline a framework for developing further research on AI in the creator economy.

Submission guidelines

The Journal invites contributions from scholars across media studies and related fields, including cultural studies, music and moving image studies, computer science, sociology, art history, and law. Papers should contribute to the thematic areas outlined above and advance critical debates within global media studies, and within the scope of the Journal.

Timeline

Please submit abstracts (maximum 500 words), with a brief biography (max 40 words) by 28 February 2025.
A decision on contributors, and notification of abstract acceptance will be made by 18 March 2025.
Deadline for submission of full papers is 26 September 2025. Submissions will be peer reviewed in accordance with the Journal’s guidelines.
Acceptance of an abstract and submission of a paper does not guarantee publication.

Final paper. Completed papers should not exceed 8,000 words including all references, and be formatted according to the submission guidelines of Global Media and China.

Please submit your abstract to both editors: Keith Negus K[dot]Negus[at]gold[dot]ac[dot]uk and Qian Zhang zhangqian_cuc[at]cuc[dot]edu[dot]cn

CFP, NewsHelene HeuserJanuary 8, 2025