Automation is no longer a peripheral feature of communication. It has become a central force shaping how content is produced, circulated, amplified, moderated, and monetised. In the contemporary communication landscape, generative AI, recommendation systems, automated decision-making, and synthetic media increasingly influence what becomes visible, credible, and valuable. As a result, communication is being reorganised not only as a set of technologies but also as a field of labour, cultural meaning, algorithmic governance, and everyday life.
This transformation is especially significant for media work and cultural production. Generative AI is changing established ideas of authorship, originality, and authenticity, while platform logics continue to reward speed, visibility, and engagement. Creative workers, journalists, and content creators—including those navigating intimate media economies—are now required to adapt to an environment where automation can accelerate workflows but also intensify precarity, competition, opacity, and dependency on platform infrastructures. The expansion of automated communication raises urgent questions about human value, labour conditions, the management of digital identities, and the political economy of mediated work.
At the same time, automation is rapidly reshaping the public sphere and political communication. AI-assisted news production, algorithmic recommendation systems, and automated amplification influence how publics encounter information and how trust is negotiated. The intersection of new AI tools with persistent political logics complicates the circulation of cross-platform disinformation, while digital attention economies intensify urgency and hype in crisis and environmental communication. These developments make it crucial to examine public debates on AI, interrogating how narratives are framed, whose voices are amplified, and how automated systems impact fairness and legitimacy in decision-making.
Beyond the public arena, automated media ecosystems are fundamentally altering everyday practices, extending even into platformised family life. The pervasive datafication and surveillance inherent in these systems raise critical ethical and governance issues concerning digital wellbeing, privacy, and child data rights, highlighting how deeply automation is woven into the social fabric.
These interconnected challenges are particularly urgent in Southeast Asia and the broader Global South, where digital infrastructures are often adopted under unequal conditions of access, regulation, language, and cultural representation. Understanding AI and automation in communication therefore requires context-sensitive approaches that move beyond West-centred assumptions, foregrounding local realities, diverse cultural experiences, and the geopolitical contexts that shape AI legitimacy and adoption.
The 2026 International Short Course, “Automation and Communication: AI, Creativity, and Media Work,” is designed as a month-long academic forum to address these multifaceted issues. The programme combines conceptual framing, thematic sessions, and methodological insights—including the use of automated content analysis—to strengthen critical understanding of AI across media and communication. By bridging discussions on cultural labour, public trust, crisis amplification, and everyday platformisation, the event opens pathways for collaborative research, academic writing, and international scholarly exchange.