UB symposium to explore how social media and AI persuade

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Four leading communication experts from across the country will be at the University at Buffalo for a one-day symposium to explore urgent questions about social media, artificial intelligence, and how these technologies shape users’ beliefs and decisions.

“Rethinking Persuasion: From Social Media to AI” will be held Friday, Oct. 2, from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. in Greiner Hall (116 B) on the UB North Campus.

Guests must register for the symposium by Sept. 4.

Many notable social media platforms debuted in the early 2000s. Over those two decades, their presence has steadily reshaped how we communicate and make decisions, according to Yini Zhang, PhD, an associate professor of communication at UB, and co-organizer of the symposium with Alison Zhou, PhD, an assistant professor of communication at UB.

“With the recent arrival of generative AI, and the ways it is being integrated into social media, it’s time to begin thinking about the relationship between these two technologies and whether the accumulated knowledge gathered about social media over the last 20 years is relevant to AI,” says Zhang, an expert on media ecosystem and information diffusion. “AI and social media are part of nearly all communication, raising questions about how we interact and how they affect what we do in public life, with our politics, and in our classrooms.”

Do these systems persuade or reinforce existing views? How does AI’s persuasive logic compare to social media? What impact do these systems have on public life, civic engagement, teaching, learning and media literacy?

The symposium will touch on all these questions with presentations from scholars specializing in political persuasion, communication technologies, chatbots and AI governance.

• Ethan Busby, PhD, assistant professor of political science at Brigham Young University, specializes in research related extremism and public opinion.
• Maria Molina, PhD, assistant professor of advertising and public relations at Michigan State University, is an expert on online persuasion in the contexts of digital health, misinformation and online privacy.
• Erik Nisbet, PhD, professor of communication at Northwestern University, researches the intersection of media, public opinion, and public policy in the areas of science, technology, democracy and international security.
• Jingwen Zhang, PhD, associate professor of communication at the University of California, Davis, is an expert on understanding, designing and testing emerging persuasive technologies with the potential to shape attitudes and behaviors.

“These technologies have woven themselves into nearly all aspects of communication, and the consequences extend from individual decision-making and public life into the classroom,” says Zhang. “The implications touch on teaching, learning curriculum development and how educators can prepare students to critically evaluate these systems.

The time is right for a symposium like this.”