Media,Technology and Governance

This paper empirically examines global access to large language models (LLMs) in order to assess their ongoing infrastructuralization and the challenges they face in moving toward general-purpose artificial intelligence. Drawing on the concept of connectivity in communication and media studies and adopting the “gateway” as a core infrastructural lens, the study employs computer network experiments to measure global access conditions to LLMs. Using network-level indicators—including packet loss, latency, and jitter—it evaluates accessibility, speed, and stability, as well as the inequalities embedded in LLM connectivity. Based on nearly 200,000 network probes conducted across 62 global network nodes, the study finds that city nodes in the Global South generally experience disadvantages in accessibility compared to those in the Global North, particularly when accessing LLMs developed in Western countries. The results further show that some LLMs outperform earlier information infrastructures, such as search engines and databases, in terms of accessibility and speed, with Global South nodes accessing LLMs notably faster than databases. However, LLMs have not yet demonstrated clear advantages in connection stability over previous-generation information infrastructures. While the emergence of LLMs signals an early stage of global information exchange and human-machine interaction, persistent geopolitical constraints on connectivity remain unresolved. Addressing issues of access, usability, stability, and societal value is therefore crucial if LLMs are to realize their infrastructural potential and evolve into genuinely global gateways.

This study systematically reviews Chinese academic discourse on AI governance by analyzing 3,633 Chinese-language articles published in core academic journals between 2015 and 2025. Combining LDA topic modeling with qualitative thematic interpretation, the study identifies five major thematic clusters: legal institutionalization of AI governance and accountability, corporate responsibility and data–copyright compliance, algorithmic power and human-centered ethics, platform-mediated risks and generative AI governance, and geopolitical competition in global AI governance. The analysis further reveals that Chinese AI governance scholarship has developed several interconnected regulatory logics, including multi-actor collaborative governance, the expansion of governance objects from data and algorithms to generative AI systems, lifecycle-based regulatory interventions, and agile and distributed governance pathways. The findings suggest that, although normative and policy-oriented discussions have become increasingly sophisticated, the field still faces structural limitations in conceptual clarity, empirical validation, and policy implementation. Building on these findings, this article proposes a future research agenda centered on conceptual clarification, theoretical integration, empirical evaluation, and closer attention to implementation dynamics. By mapping the thematic structure and analytical orientations of Chinese AI governance research, the study contributes to a more systematic understanding of how Chinese scholarship conceptualizes the governance challenges posed by rapidly evolving AI technologies.

This article explores the complex relationship between communication technologies and spatial power, as well as between the politics of mobility and spatial exclusion, against the backdrop of globalisation and digital technology. Building upon the naive predictions of the 1990s that technology would bring about universal mobility and connectivity, as well as the early techno-deterministic opinion that digital media inherently served as forces of democratisation and border dissolution, the article highlights how the distribution and access to communication infrastructure have themselves become crucial mechanisms of social exclusion and the main reason of reflecting the inequalities of mobility in reality. The digital divide is no longer merely a question of “access or no access,” but rather a hierarchical system involving the quality of access, the distribution of visibility, and permissions for virtual mobility. Taking Europe as an example, the article analyzes how, while promoting internal mobility and integration, the European Union also shapes an exclusive “European citizen” identity through border control, infrastructure planning, and cultural policies, thereby marginalising peripheral regions and groups. Phenomena such as Brexit and the rise of populism are seen as political backlash from regions “left behind” economically and culturally by globalisation. Furthermore, through the tragedy of Grenfell Tower, the article demonstrates that even in a highly interconnected era, the allocation of physical location and material resources (including communication resources) remains a fundamental determinant of life chances and visibility. It emphasises the importance of physical location and the politics of immobility, refuting the myth that virtual space can completely transcend geographical constraints.

Building upon existing geek studies and grounded in the philosophy of technology, this paper explores the human-computer interaction practices of technical enthusiasts in the era of Generative AI through qualitative interviews. Artificial intelligence (AI) technology can be understood as a digital object undergoing a continuous process of individualization. While technical enthusiasts assemble technical elements, invent technical individuals, and deploy technical infrastructure, they also function as technical individuals themselves. Together with AI, they co-construct an associated milieu, developing discursive and existential relationships in both technical and material senses. Furthermore, technical enthusiasts are capable of mastering the causal logic and temporal relationships of AI systems. Through ready-to-hand engagement and iterative “alchemy” (fine-tuning/training), they drive the process of technical individuation forward. Drawing on the phenomenological circuits of protention and retention, AI technology serves as “tertiary protention” and “tertiary retention,” intervening in the individuation process at both psychic and collective levels; in this process, technical enthusiasts act as vital transducers (transducteurs). While AI technology can be a poison, it can also serve as a remedy. Although human-machine practices do not rule out the possibility of technical alienation, this paper emphasizes the potential of technical enthusiasts as “alchemists” and the “magical” capabilities possessed by humans, thereby highlighting the agency of the subject.