Media Computing and Its Cultural Consequences

Introduction

The School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong has been organizing the annual Communication Visiting Scholar Program since 2008. The Program aims to promote academic exchange and links among Chinese-speaking scholars in cultural China and improve the quality of research of the Chinese research community. The Centre for Chinese Media and Comparative Communication Research (The C-Centre) of the School of Journalism and Communication will play host to this program in 2027.

Program Theme 2027

The theme of this year’s workshop is “Media Computing and Its Cultural Consequences.” We define media computing as the ongoing process through which computational technologies design and reshape media ecology and communication infrastructure. From early software systems to internet platforms dominated by recommendation algorithms, and subsequently to generative AI tools, media computing has engendered a proliferation of highly computable media applications that continuously reconfigure the production, circulation, and consumption of content and meaning. Code and algorithms discretize myriad aspects of everyday cultural practices into computable units, rendering them programmable and measurable, while grafting them onto technological imaginaries and commercial discourses centered on automation and personalization.

Today’s generative large language models, now routinely marketed as “intelligent,” have further amplified the profound impact of media computing on media and culture, while simultaneously raising a series of sociocultural questions: How should we understand the techno-political logics underpinning the continuous evolution of media computing? How can we analyze the ways in which media computing shapes, disrupts, and even reconstitutes today’s cultural production and consumption practices? How might we excavate the cultural-political potentials and limitations of increasingly computable, somehow “intelligent” media applications?

Simultaneously, the evolution of an increasingly computable media ecology, with datafication at its core, continuously delineates and accentuates the uncomputability inherent in the cultural realm. The history of computation is precisely the history of computational technologies continuously dissolving, absorbing, and responding to the uncomputable dimensions of the real world. How do the emotions, values, identities, and actions implicated in cultural production and consumption processes manifest profound contradictions and tensions within the discretization processes of media computing? How might we reconceptualize the “uncomputability” of cultural value in an era where all things are rendered computable?

This workshop cordially invites scholars to critically examine the constellation of cultural issues precipitated by media computing. We welcome empirical research and theoretical reflections on the evolution, applications, and impacts of media computing in the domains of culture and communication. The workshop encompasses four sub-themes:

1. The Evolution of Media Computing and Its Political Economy: What technological, capital, and institutional logics characterize the historical evolution of media computing? How have computational media applications and infrastructure, from platformization to AI, become entangled with state power, market concentration, and global capital flows? Within the diverse social and regional contexts of Greater China, how does the political economy of media computing manifest differentiated trajectories?
2. Media Computing Shaping Cultural Production and Consumption: How do computational media applications reorganize the value chains, labour relations, and power dynamics of cultural production? In the datafication process of cultural production and consumption, how are these practices quantified, predicted, and intervened upon? How does this discretization process shape users’ cultural tastes, consumption habits, and modes of participation?
3. Generative Media Computing and the Uncomputable: How do generative media applications unsettle established understandings of creativity, authorship, originality, and authenticity? Can affect, aesthetic judgment, ethical reasoning, and cultural context be meaningfully translated into computable form, and at what cost? How do bias, hallucination, and the uneven representation of languages and cultures in training data shape cultural representation and knowledge production? Faced with the rapid expansion of generative media, how do we articulate what in cultural values cannot and should not be reduced, replaced, or optimized away?

Visiting Period
The visiting scholars participating in the workshop are expected to stay in Hong Kong for 13 days from January 18, 2027, to carry out intensive academic exchange and research. The School will provide a daily living allowance of HK$450 and accommodation for each visiting scholar. All visiting scholars are required to submit a paper in Chinese and present at the workshop, which will be held on January 21-23, 2027, with all presentations conducted in Mandarin.

Submission Guidelines
All Chinese-speaking scholars with an active interest in the aforementioned topic and engaged in academic research are welcome to apply, regardless of position or place of residence.

• Applicants are required to submit a curriculum vitae and an extended abstract in Chinese not exceeding 2,000 words by August 1, 2026. Each scholar may submit only one abstract as the first author. Abstracts should be uploaded via the following link, with a clear indication of the relevant sub-theme: https://cloud.itsc.cuhk.edu.hk/webform/view.php?id=13731084
• Scholars are also encouraged to submit supplementary materials, which may include preliminary research findings (particularly charts and figures) or draft manuscripts.
• The workshop committee will review all submitted abstracts and provide revision recommendations to authors of provisionally selected papers.
• Approximately 12 scholars will be invited to participate; the first author of each accepted paper will be invited to visit The Chinese University of Hong Kong. The workshop committee will announce the first round of selected papers by August 20, 2026. First-round selectees must submit full papers by November 20, 2026. The workshop committee will further review and announce the accepted papers by November 30, 2026.
• All papers must adhere to the style guidelines of Communication & Society and APA format. Papers should not exceed 18,000 Chinese characters (including tables, figures, and references).

The Annual Workshop Committee

Prof. Francis Lee (Standing Convener)
Prof. Jian Lin (Theme Convener)
Prof. Joseph Chan
Prof. Donna Chu
Prof. Hsuan-Ting Chen
Prof. Hai Liang

Enquiry

Dr. Daisy Cheng
Phone: 3943 8709
Email: daisycheng@cuhk.edu.hk