Emerging Issues
AI and Deepfakes in Contemporary Documentary: Negotiating a New Real
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Sean Maher
Artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models (LLMs) are transforming media production. The internet re-organised distribution of screen content now AI is disrupting production processes. Documentary filmmaking and the convergence of AI-driven automation and deep generative techniques is reconfiguring how documentary narratives are constructed and perceived. Authenticity, authorship, ethics and reception are intersecting with unprecedented technological capabilities. The paper explores AI and deepfake technologies in documentary practice focusing on the negotiation between creative potential, ethical responsibility and transparency. Tensions between technological innovation and documentary’s foundational commitment to representing the real means AI technologies, while offering powerful tools for re-enactment, archival reconstruction, and language translation, also challenge audience trust (Lees, 2023; Lu, 2025). The discussion proposes urgent re-thinking is required in approaching critical, ethical and regulatory frameworks that can guide the use of AI in documentary contexts. From algorithmic transparency to audience disclosure practices, there is growing consensus that innovation must be underpinned by professional standards driven by transparency. As AI technologies outpace existing legal and ethical codes, documentary filmmaking and its reception must proactively establish new norms that continue to safeguard against misinformation, creative dilution and exploitation. Providing a timely intervention into the growing discourse on AI in nonfiction storytelling the presentation argues that negotiating deepfakes and AI in contemporary documentary requires balancing creative affordances of new technologies and upholding the epistemological commitments that distinguish documentary as a truth-claiming genre. Lees, D. (2023). Studies in Documentary Film, 18(2), 108–129. Lu, Z., (2025). Journal of Artificial Intelligence Practice, 8(2), 2025) 88-92.
Digital Skin and the Politics of Embodiment, Recognition, and Extraction in Post-Photographic Media: Rethinking Skin’s Representation in Pixel-Based Media and Its Effects on Intercorporeal Perception and the Construction of the Self
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ophir Amitay
This paper introduces the concept of digital skin to examine how skin is visually represented, modified, and circulated in contemporary media culture. Across diverse media platforms, skin becomes a surface of aesthetic legibility and affective regulation; no longer organic or tactile, but smooth, optimised, and flattened for visibility and, ultimately, extraction. In this regime, digital skin is a media-material condition: a surface interface that reflects the politics of individualisation, subjectivation, cultural representation, recognition, and control. Building on feminist theory, media phenomenology, and psychoanalytic thought, I argue that digital skin functions as a site of mediated subjectivation, where the skin itself is calibrated for participation in dominant visual economies. Within this context, facialisation operates as a mechanism of the symbolic order, determining what becomes legible, what is excluded, and what forms of bodily presence are visually registered. In this process, digital skin becomes a visual threshold through which subjectivity is encoded, aestheticised, and made extractable. This paper critiques the cultural logic of digital skin as a visual economy that extracts from the psychopolitical field of subjectivation and displaces the intercorporeal dimensions of being, reducing the body to an image optimised for legibility, surveillance, and aesthetic coherence. It argues that digital skin reconfigures the relationship between image and selfhood, contributing to new forms of mediated identity shaped by algorithmic visibility, aesthetic labour, and the demands of algorithmic capitalism. At stake is not only how we see ourselves, but how the body is made knowable, governable, and exchangeable through visual regimes of power.
Empowering Informed and Engaged Citizens - Redesigning Media Literacy Education for the Digital Age: Preparing Students to Navigate, Analyze, and Contribute to a Complex Media Ecosystem
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Sam Nkana
In the digital age, the ability to critically engage with information has become an essential skill for informed citizenship. This paper explores the urgent need to redesign media literacy education to better equip individuals for the complexities of modern media landscapes. With the rise of social media platforms, deepfakes, misinformation, and echo chambers, traditional models of media literacy are increasingly insufficient. It is important to examine how to reshape media literacy programs to emphasize critical thinking, ethical consumption, and the ability to navigate diverse, often conflicting, sources of information. There’s a need for individuals to explore new frameworks that focus on digital literacy, fact-checking tools, and the understanding of algorithms shaping content delivery. By empowering citizens with these skills, we can foster a society where individuals not only consume media responsibly but also contribute to a more transparent, inclusive, and informed public discourse. There’s a great need to provide insights and available resources for educators, policymakers, and communicators interested in transforming media literacy to address the challenges and opportunities of the digital era.
