Global Perspectives
Asynchronous Session
Featured 9/11, Language, Islam, and the Arrogance of Ignorance View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Sara Mirza
The US media has played an increasingly important role in shaping the Muslim identity. An Anti - Muslim rhetoric led by news channels only promoted fear and anxiety amongAmericans towards the Muslim world post 9/11. This paper explores one such news channel - CNN and its contribution towards demonizing, vilifying, and racializing the Muslim world hence, reducing it to one region and language. In doing so, the researcher contends the existence of a systemic web which operates in conjunction to maintain the dominant ideology about Muslims. By means of critical discourse analysis it is argued that CNN under the pretense of its liberal stance has managed to reproduce the same rhetoric which re- instates the many stereotypes existing with regard to Muslims. However, this research also examines the representation of Arabic language and the subtle ways in which fear and negative connotations around Arabic has been induced among the audience.
Artificial Intelligence in Classrooms in China and AI-powered Military Weapons in Israel: Case Studies from Ethical Perspectives View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Dilli Bikram Edingo
Mehan (2022) precisely explains AI as “intelligence exhibited by machines, where a machine can learn from information (data) and then use that learned knowledge to do something” (p. 10). Generally, we come to interact with different types of AI in our current daily digital and social lives such as AI in Google search, email spam filters, Siri by Apple, Alexa by Amazon, facial recognition and finger-touch passwords and AI in Health apps. However, the AI machines that are designed to perform with capabilities equal to or above human abilities have incurred serious problems of human rights violations and ethical issues because of algorithm bias and unwanted consequences. This paper takes up (a) the use of artificial intelligence in classrooms in China and (b) the use of AI-powered weapons by the Israeli Army as two distinct case studies for critical studies of AI from the ethical perspective. This paper examines how kids have been used as guinea pigs for AI experiments in classrooms, what happens if AI-powered guns that have been designed to constantly keep surveillance on and recognize persons carrying weapons and shoot them right away fail to differentiate between persons with and without weapons and if it is ethical to keep people in constant fear of it. This paper employs the digital method to collect data and the argumentative method (method of an argumentative essay) to analyze data.
Thou Shalt Not Infringe: Intellectual Property and the U.S. Protestant Church View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ryan Geesaman
Religion and popular culture are often thought of as being at odds with one another. Christianity, however, has a history of utilizing popular culture as a tool to reach people outside of the faith – to stay relevant in culture. In modern times, this has included the introduction of popular music styles in the worship environment. U.S. pastors have also long enjoyed using clips from movies as sermon illustrations. Churches have held movie nights or other events involving screening films in public performances. Churches have continued to push the boundaries of showing films and incorporating them into sermons. These efforts not only blur the lines between sacred and secular but also the lines between legal and illegal regarding copyright protections. This creates an ethical dilemma for churches that want to reach their communities but not break the law. This ethical and legal dilemma is considered through relevant ethical approaches and U.S. case law.
The New Pravda: How U.S. Media Is Morphing into One Politically Slanted News Organization View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ed Lindoo
Between the early 1700s and through the 1900’s, newspapers appeared around the world. xcept Russia and other communist and dictatorship counties, young people worked at attaining apprenticeships and attended college to become journalists-- training in ethics to report accurate, unbiased information. This practice continued into the early 2000s. But with the advent of the Internet in the late 1990’s, new information known as social media, for example, Twitter, Facebook, etc., became popular however, with no real basis behind it. This resulted in regular news channels such as CNN, MSNBC, FOX, and others sensationalizing the news to attract more viewers. Because these organizations tend to lean politically one way, we are seeing the entire news system in America morphing into one big “Pravda”. The purpose of this research is to review history and consider where things are headed in the United States, and perhaps around the world.
Artificial Intelligence, Political Manipulation, and Digital Authoritarianism: Reflections on Habermas's New Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Michael Hofmann
The rapidly improving accessibility and deceptive qualities of AI Deepfakes facilitate a new dimension of political manipulation in democratic elections like the upcoming presidential race in the United States in 2024..Successful templates like the infamous "Willie Horton" (1988) and "Swift Boat" (2004) attack commercials can be emotionally supercharged to become viral videos on social media. Sophisticated digital technology and techniques allow for precision-targeted ads to reach decisive swing voters in battleground states which elected President Trump with 0.07 percent and President Biden with 0.03 percent of all votes cast as their respective margins of victory. Habermas's recent essay on a new structural transformation of the public sphere points to the deceptive power of "fake news" as a key factor for the loss of trust in political opinion- and will-formation among the democratic electorate. This paper argues that civic literacy to combat political manipulation of citizens can only be safeguarded by public service media dedicated to an ethical and responsible use of artificial intelligence in the political public sphere. Conversely, the digital authoritarianism that staged the election victory of a dictator's son in the Philippines in 2022 and will, in all likelihood, do the same for the Indian prime minister in 2024, rests on the state control of most media and on the persecution of independent investigative journalists like the Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa, head of the online news site "Rappler." in the Philippines. :
