Generative AI as Semiotic Technology: Policies, Platforms and Practices in the Communication Industries (ComAI)

The project ComAI examines how generative AI (GenAI) is transforming the communications industry in Sweden by studying three interconnected domains: policy, platforms, and practices. ComAI contributes knowledge about how GenAI is legitimized within the communications industry, which platforms are used and how they contribute to shape the messages that are produced, as well as how professional communicators use, evaluate, and adapt these tools in their everyday work.

The project is grounded in a Semiotic Technology approach that conceptualizes AI systems, their interfaces, and their outputs (text, image, video, and audio) as interconnected technologies for meaning making and consists of 3 WPs. WPA analyses policy documents and focus group discussions to investigate how the use of GenAI is legitimized. WPB identifies the  communicative affordances and constraints offered by GenAI platforms through interface analyses of GenAI platforms and multimodal analyses of AIgenerated artefacts. WPC conducts ethnography within communications departments to capture how professional communicators use and evaluate GenAI. The project addresses a significant knowledge gap by providing timely, practical, and theoretical insights into GenAI in the communications industry and its democratic implications.