Abstract
Research (Vasilko, 2023) has shown that higher education outlets have comparable behavioral influence, impact societal construction of meaning, and serve as crucial components of actualizing visions of social change and innovation, comparable to how mass media can define cultural conventions and propagate global ideology (Artz, 2022a; Artz, 2022b; Bajwa-Patel, Hazenberg, and Rivers, 2015; Cooper, 2021; Lavigne, 2018; Patrick, 2020). The dominant competitive structure of the higher education landscape plays a role in reinforcing the current dominant social order, which includes oppression, domination, hierarchy, division, and inequality, enacting “capitalist cultural imperialism” (Vasilko, 2022) as a vessel facilitating consent for the hegemony of the corporate elite. This study explores how the negative effects of artificial intelligence use, such as reduced critical thinking skills, communication and information gaps, diminished self-disclosure and reflection, and reduced empathy, may further capitalist cultural imperialism when used in the higher education landscape. This process can severely threaten identity formation, innovation, collaboration, and mobilization, impacting the construction of reality and collective citizen participation, as psychological empowerment is an equally crucial component of citizen participation (social movements), and requires a cognitive component of critical awareness and resource mobilization (Barthes, 1991; Christens, 2012; Lears, 1985; Scipes 2011; Scipes, 2022; Totu and Yakin, 2014) that artificial intelligence may impede.
Presenters
Kayla VasilkoInstructor; Communication Specialist , Communication; Service-Learning , Ivy Tech Community College; Purdue University , Indiana, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Communication, AI, Hegemony, Higher Education, Social Change, Human Connection
