Three Challenges for Media and Communication Studies in the Age of AI

Abstract

The rapid development of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) marks a critical turning point for media and communication scholarship. In dialogue with earlier analyses of platformization, this commentary identifies three interrelated challenges that emerge as GenAI systems are progressively integrated in key sectors of the economy and spheres of life. First, it explores the deep economic and infrastructural entanglements between GenAI and platform capitalism. Cloud infrastructures developed by major US and Chinese tech companies underpin the training, deployment, and scaling of large AI models, reinforcing corporate concentration and dependency. This raises urgent questions about evolving divisions of labor, data extraction, and value generation in the GenAI economy. Second, the commentary examines the performative interplay between AI hype and practice. While grand narratives about Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and a global AI race shape policy and investment, they also obscure the situated realities of GenAI development and use across diverse global regions. The challenge lies in developing situated analyses and conceptual perspectives that account for the sociotechnical, political-economic, and epistemic specificities of AI adoption worldwide. Third, the commentary reflects on the possibility of public and non-profit alternatives to Big AI. Drawing on critical current scholarship, it argues for smaller, locally grounded, and ethically curated models—while recognizing the structural limitations that constrain their scalability. Taken together, these challenges demand renewed critical attention to the global political economy of platforms and GenAI.