Final Pre-Event Press Release for Online Roundtable Discussion

Jan 19, 2026 | Events, Uncategorized, Webinars

Online Roundtable Discussion to Examine the Impact of Artificial Intelligence and Social Media on Elections in Asia

BANGKOK, Thailand — The Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC), in partnership with the Chulalongkorn University, will convene an online roundtable discussion titled “Artificial Intelligence, Social Media, and Elections in Asia” on 21 January 2026, marking the opening of the Talk AMIC 2026 Dialogue Series. 

The forum responds to growing regional and global concern over the role of digital technologies in democratic processes. The year 2024 was described by the United Nations as a global “super year for elections,” with billions of citizens worldwide — including across Asia — participating in national and local polls. While digital platforms and artificial intelligence (AI) have expanded access to political information and participation, they have also introduced new risks, including disinformation, micro-targeting, data misuse, cyber threats, and the erosion of public trust in elections. 

Grounded in the principles of freedom of expression and suffrage enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the roundtable will examine how AI and social media have shaped electoral processes before, during, and after elections in Asia. It will draw on recent experiences from countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, and Thailand. 

The discussion will also engage with international policy frameworks, including UNESCO’s Guidelines for the Governance of Digital Platforms (2023) and the Consultation Paper on AI Regulation (2024), assessing their relevance and applicability to diverse Asian political and media environments. 

The virtual roundtable, which is supported by UNESCO and the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL), brings together leading political communication scholars, media researchers, election experts, and a UNESCO policy specialist actively engaged in digital governance initiatives, as follows: 

  • Dr. Danilo A. Arao
    College of Media and Communication
    University of the Philippines, the Philippines 
  • Prof. Dr. Wijayanto
    Vice Rector for Research, Innovation, Collaboration, and Public Communication
    Universitas Diponegoro, Indonesia 
  • Dr. S M Shameem Reza
    Department of Mass Communication and Journalism
    University of Dhaka, Bangladesh
  • Emeritus Dr. Pirongrong Ramsoota
    Commissioner, National Broadcasting
    and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC), Thailand 
  • Dr. Muneo Kaigo
    Dean, Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences
    University of Tsukuba, Japan 
  • John Reiner Antiquerra
    Senior Program Officer for Outreach and Communication
    Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) 

Participants will include media and communication educators, researchers, election management officials, technology experts, and regulators from across Asia. Each country expert will deliver a short case presentation, followed by interactive discussion with participants. 

Organizers

AMIC is a 54-year-old professional association of Asian communication and journalism educators, researchers, and practitioners dedicated to advancing media scholarship and practice in the region.

Faculty of Communication Arts, Chulalongkorn University: A global Thai communication school dedicated to academic excellence and global commitment. We are recognized for our pioneering work in the responsible use of generative AI in higher education, empowering a better society through the power of creative and impactful communication. 

Expected outputs from the forum include comparative country case studies, a synthesis of policy approaches to AI and social media in elections, and constructive inputs to ongoing UNESCO policy discussions on digital platforms and AI regulation in the Asian context. 

Date: 21 January 2026, 1-3 PM BANGKOK TIME (GMT+7)
Format: Online (registration required)

For further information and registration details, please contact the forum organizers via info@amic.asia  or commarts.interaffairs@gmail.com 

AJC: Call for Papers

Nov 13, 2025 | Asian Journal of Communication

CFP: AI for Governance in Asia: Power, Politics, and Ethics

Co-edited by: A/P Jian Xu (Deakin University, Australia)
Prof Terence Lee (University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China)
Prof Gerard Goggin (Western Sydney University, Australia)

In recent years, AI governance has emerged as a critical – and inescapable – topic in digital media and communication studies, amid a global ‘race to AI regulation’ (Smuha, 2021). Scholars have examined the frameworks, policies, institutions, and practices that shape how AI is developed, deployed, and regulated worldwide. Xu, Lee, and Goggin (2024) had taken the lead in this topic when they co-edited the first special issue on AI governance in Asia – in Communication Research and Practice journal (Volume 10, Issue 3) – which offered significant insights into the regulation, governance, and geopolitics of AI in the region and beyond.

For this proposed special issue with the Asian Journal of Communication, we invite a shift in perspective from ‘AI governance’ (governance of AI) to ‘AI for governance’ (governance by AI) — examining how AI itself is used as a tool for governance. This approach does not render AI governance research obsolete; rather, it complements and enriches it by critically exploring how states, institutions, and organisations deploy AI to achieve governance goals, such as policy administration, service delivery, social welfare, security, policing, surveillance, smart city, propaganda, digital diplomacy, and automated decision-making.

Essentially, we seek to understand who designs and deploys AI, for what purposes, by what means, and with what consequences; and to critically interrogate how AI reproduces power, inequality, and ideology, and to develop more ethical and sustainable regulatory strategies.

AI is increasingly applied for governance worldwide. For example, Albania recently appointed an AI bot as a ‘minister’ to tackle corruption. In Asia, Hangzhou, China launched City Brain 3.0 in March 2025, integrating AI technologies into urban governance. In India, political parties harnessed AI during the 2024 general elections, while in Singapore and South Korea, AI supports predictive models for disease outbreaks and other public health measures. Asia is particularly compelling for studying ‘AI for governance’ due to its diverse political systems, rapid AI adoption, varying AI readiness, close state–tech partnerships, and large populations with differing attitudes toward privacy and surveillance. Studying Asia offers unique insights into the power, politics, and ethics of AI-empowered governance.

We welcome submissions offering critical, social, political, and cultural analyses of ‘AI for governance’ in Asian societies. Contributions are expected to examine how AI is employed to exercise power, manage populations, and shape social order, as well as to address the questions of accountability, transparency, fairness, ethics, and democracy that arise in the process of ‘governance by AI’.

We hope the contextualised Asian case studies will help shed light on the power relations and dynamics among governments, tech companies, digital platforms, social organisations, families, and individuals involved in AI-enabled governance. We are particularly interested in topics that investigate the Asian contexts (e.g. Southeast Asia), and their minority and marginalised populations (e.g. migrants, refugees, children, and the elderly), which have often been overlooked in existing critical AI literature.

Possible topics may include (but are not limited to):

AI and public administration/management;
AI and service delivery (e.g. healthcare, aged care, social welfare);
AI, policing, surveillance and security;
AI and automated decision-making;
AI, smart city and urban management;
AI and propaganda;
AI and international communication;
AI and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs);
AI and labour governance;
Bias, discrimination and exclusion in AI-enabled governance;
Ethical dilemmas and social inequalities in AI for governance;
Platforms and AI for governance;
State-tech relations in AI-enabled governance;
Resistance and activism in response to AI for governance;
Technological determinism in the age of AI;
AI for governance and its disciplinary effects on individuals

Timeline for publication:

Abstract submission: January 19, 2026
Notice of acceptance: February 9, 2026
Invited full paper submission to the journal for peer review: July 31, 2026
Special issue publication: Mid-2027

Interested authors are invited to submit an abstract of 300-500 words, including the paper title, central argument, and methodology. A short author biography should also be provided. Please send both the abstract and author biography to the special issue editors by January 19, 2026:

Jian Xu: j.xu@deakin.edu.au
Terence Lee: terence.lee@nottingham.edu.cn
Gerard Goggin: g.goggin@westernsydney.edu.au

Asia’s Best in AMIC

Oct 10, 2024 | Annual Conference

Asia’s Best in 30th AMIC Conference

Asia’s best were featured as keynote and plenary speakers and moderators in the 30th Annual Conference of the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC). Two non-Asian public intellectuals, but with strong links to Asia, completed the list of plenary speakers and moderators.  Below is the Who’s Who in the plenary sessions:

PROFESSOR SHAHBAZ KHAN is the Director of UNESCO Regional Office for East Asia and UNESCO Representative to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Japan, Mongolia, and the People’s Republic of China.

SHOUXUN LIU is Vice President of the Communication University of China. 

YAN SUI is Distinguished Professor of the Changjiang Scholars Program of the Ministry of Education of China, convener of the 8th Discipline Evaluation Group for Journalism and Communication under the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council, Vice Chairman of the Academic Committee at the Communication University of China, Dean of the School of Journalism, and Editor-in-chief of Modern Communication.

FUTAO HUANG is a Vice Director and Professor at the Research Institute for Higher Education at Hiroshima University, Japan. He has significantly contributed to the field of the internationalization of higher education.

JANETTE MALATA-SILVA is the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs at the University of the Philippines – Los Baños, and also serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities.

ROMYEN KOSAIKANONT is Director, Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization Regional Centre in Higher Education and Development. 

MAYOR JEANNIE N. SANDOVAL is the Mayor of Malabon City, National Capital Region, Philippines and Chairman of the Board of Regents of the City of Malabon University (CMU). Some of her local government projects have received recognitions for innovation and social impact.

CHANDRABHANU PATTANAYAK is the Director of the Institute of Knowledge Societies, an interdisciplinary institute dedicated to research and education on the interface between modern technologies and traditional knowledge systems.

YUEZHI ZHAO is Humanities Chair Professor and Director of Research Center for Marxist Perspective on Journalism and Journalism Education Reform at Tsinghua University, China. She is also Professor Emeritus, School of Communication, Simon Fraser University, Canada, and a Fellow of Royal Society of Canada.

SAULE BARLYBAYEVA is with the Faculty of Journalism of the Al-Farabi Kazakh National University. In 2019, S.H. Barlybayeva was awarded the State Award of the Republic of Kazakhstan – Medal for Labor Valor and was awarded Best University Teacher of the Republic of Kazakhstan in 2007 and 2018.

KARLYGA MYSSAYEVA is an associate professor in the Journalism Department at Al-Farabi Kazakh National University in Kazakhstan. She had stints at Ohio University, a George Washington University and Oklahoma State University, and Strasbourg University in France.

FERNANDO dl. PARAGAS is the Dean of the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication (UPCMC) and a Professor at its Department of Communication Research. Dr. Paragas is the Convenor of the Program on Higher Education Research and Policy Reform at the UP Center for Integrative Development Studies.

DAYA THUSSU is President of the International Association of Media & Communication Research (IAMCR). He is Professor of International Communication at Hong Kong Baptist University and a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Commonwealth Studies, University of London.

S M SHAMEEM REZA is a Professor of Mass Communication and journalism at the University of Dhaka. Besides his extensive contributions to the field of communication and media scholarship, he is known as a leading social advocate for democratization of community media, and communication for change.

GUY BERGER is Professor Emeritus, Rhodes University, South Africa; Distinguished Fellow Research ICT Africa; and DigiPol Fellow at the University of Liverpool. He was a senior director at UNESCO.

SADIA JAMIL is an Assistant Professor and Director of Research at the School of International Communications, The University of Nottingham in Ningbo, China. She is the Chair of the Journalism Research and Education Section of the IAMCR.

MOHAMMAD SAJJAD YASA is a war journalist, researcher, and writer renowned for his reporting and engagement with conflict zones, particularly in Afghanistan. Yasa was awarded the Wazir Mohammad Akbar Khan Memorial Medal in Afghanistan.

BIDU BHUSAN DASH is an Associate Professor and Acting Dean at the School of Mass Communication, Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT). He is a scholar of Communication Studies in South Asia.

DANILO ARAÑA ARAO is an associate professor of the Department of Journalism at the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication (UP CMC). He is also a special lecturer of the Department of Journalism at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP). He is the editor of Media Asia.

DADANG RAHMAT HIDAYAT is the Dean of the Faculty of Communication Sciences of the Universitas Padjadjaran, Bandung, Indonesia. He served as the President of the Indonesian Communication Scholar Association (ISKI).

JACK LINCHUAN QIU is Shaw Foundation Professor of Media Technology, Chair, Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Before joining NTU, he was a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and National University of Singapore.

JOHN A. LENT is the first AMIC Asia Communication awardee in 2006. He taught journalism and mass communication in the United States of America and several Asian countries. Prof. Lent pioneered in the study of development communication and mass communication and popular culture, comic art, and animation, in Asia.

MIRA K. DESAI is Head, Department of Extension and Communication In-charge Head, Department of Food Science and Nutrition SNDT Women’s University, India

PROFESSOR PENG HWA ANG is the current chairman d’honneur of AMIC and was Chairman of AMIC from 2004 to 2013. He teaches at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He was President of the International Communication Association in 2015, the first Asian so elected. He is currently editor of the Asian Journal of Communication.

AMIC Beijing Declaration

AMIC Beijing Declaration

Oct 10, 2024 | Annual Conference

AMIC 2024 Beijing Conference Declaration on Collaboration Among Higher Education Institutions Offering Communication and Journalism Programs in Asia

Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC)

Pursuing Knowledge Sharing through Internationalization in Higher Education

The AMIC 2024 Beijing Conference (hereinafter ‘the conference’) acknowledges that higher education is now moving towards internationalization and transnationalization.

Internationalization involves integrating international perspectives, experiences, and activities into the core functions of a higher education institution (HEI), namely teaching and learning, research, and community engagement. Transnationalization involves establishing physical campuses or academic programs in countries outside the institution’s home country.

The conference participants recognize that pursuing internationalization and transnationalization, especially among HEIs offering communication and journalism programs in Asia, is beneficial for all. It is enthused by the desire to highlight Asian paradigms and theories; facilitate sharing and/or exchange of education resources; offer world-class and quality higher education for all; and globalize or increase interconnectedness of economies, cultures, and societies.

Rationale for Internationalization and Transnationalization

Promoting internationalization and transnationalization among Asian HEIs is driven by an emerging movement toward Asianization or Asiacentricity; digital transformation of Asian communities; and a commitment to diversity, equity, and social inclusion. Asian HEIs are among the global leaders offering communication and journalism programs, and many Asian communication professionals are recognized as world-class educators and practitioners.

The conference highlighted that fostering internationalization and transnationalization among HEIs offering communication and journalism programs in Asia facilitates the sharing of lessons and experiences on adaptable communication strategies and tools which address common development issues and challenges in this continent such as poverty, social justice, and climate change.

Areas for Collaboration and Networking

Many Asian HEIs offering communication and journalism programs have achieved world-class status. Under their leadership, they can provide support to other HEIs seeking to achieve higher education standards.

Recognizing the need for more venues for networking and collaboration, the conference called for increased cooperation among Asian communication professionals, practitioners, and HEIs. These include collaborative programs and activities in such areas as research, publications, capacity building, faculty/student exchanges, access to (online) libraries, regular/offshore course offerings, and dual or joint degree programs, among others.

Anchoring in Current Regional Initiatives

The conference participants noted that initiatives toward pan-Asia internationalization and transnationalization should be anchored in ongoing regional initiatives.

This AMIC 2024 Beijing Conference Declaration acknowledges the recently-issued ASEAN-SEAMEO Joint Declaration on the Common Space in Southeast Asian Higher Education adopted on 25 August 2024, which seeks to uphold quality in the provision of higher education across all ASEAN Member States and SEAMEO Member Countries, improve regional academic mobility, and strengthen solidarity through enhanced higher education in-person mobility of students, scholars and lifelong learners.

In South Asia, policy framework and modalities for regional collaboration and integration are in the agenda of several regional forums such as the Regional Cooperation for Higher Education Development: Options for South Asia held in Colombo, Sri Lanka in June 2023.

In Central Asia, a forum fostering cooperation, knowledge sharing, and resource pooling among Central Asian universities was held in Tashkent in September 2023. During the conference, the report Towards Higher Education Excellence in Central Asia: A Roadmap for Improving the Quality of Education and Research through Regional Integration was presented.

In conclusion, the 30th AMIC Annual Conference in Beijing, China held from September 24 to 26, 2024 provided a platform for collaboration in diverse areas among HEIs offering communication and journalism programs in Asia. It reaffirmed the commitment to continue dialogue, cooperation, and shared learning toward internationalization and transnationalization of Asian HEIs.

For more information and updates on the AMIC Conference, please visit: https://sites.google.com/amic.asia/30thamicannualconference/home

Contact: info@amic.asia

AMIC announces 2023 and 2024 AMIC Asia Communication Awardees

AMIC announces 2023 and 2024 AMIC Asia Communication Awardees

Sep 18, 2024 | AMIC Communication Awards

AMIC announces 2023 and 2024 AMIC Asia Communication Awardees

Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC) announces the selection of two Asian communication icons as recipients of the 2023 and 2024 AMIC Asia Communication Award.

The Award honors outstanding Asians who have made significant contributions to the Asian and global communication setting, said Dr. Crispin C. Maslog, chairperson of the AMIC Board of Directors.

The awardees are Dr. Arvind Singhal, professor at the University of Texas at El Paso, and Dr. Cherian George of the Hong Kong Baptist University.

The conferment will be held at the opening of the 30th AMIC Annual Conference to be hosted by the Communication University of China in Beijing, September 24 – 26 .

Dr. Arvind Singhal, AMIC Communication Awardee for 2023, is recognized for his important contribution to communication education, research, publications, and extension work. “The communication paradigms and strategies now etched in our toolbox have been enriched by Dr. Singhal’s four decades’ worth of contributions,” says the AMIC Award citation.

Dr. Singhal is known internationally for his research on the diffusion of innovations, entertainment-education strategy, positive deviance approach to social change, development communication, and liberating interactional structures.

He has led 34 funded research projects on these areas in many countries in Asia and other continents. He is currently the Samuel and Edna Marston Endowed Professor of Communication at The University of Texas at El Paso.

Dr. Cherian George, AMIC Asia Communication Awardee for 2024, is recognized for his work in journalism, academia, communication and media research, and socio-political advocacy, which he has accomplished “with excellence, integrity, and a deep understanding of the Asian contexts.”

Before transitioning to academia, Dr.  George had a distinguished career in journalism in Singapore where he set high standards for investigative reporting and insightful commentary. This has accorded him a solid foundation in pursuing journalism education, communication, and media studies. He is currently a journalism professor at Hong Kong Baptist University.

AMIC established the AMIC Asia Communication Award in 2006 and has since conferred the award to 23 communication scholars, educators, and practitioners.