New Lecture Series Explores Transformation in Media, Cultural Governance

The Media Governance and Industries Research Laboratory of the Department of Communication at the University of Vienna, in collaboration with Webster Vienna Private University, recently launched the public lecture series, Transformation and Pressure in Media and Cultural Governance.

The inaugural talk by Giota Alevizou, PhD, took place on April 28 at Webster Vienna Private University. The event, “From Wikipedia to ChatGPT: Knowledge, AI and Power,” examined how artificial intelligence is reshaping the governance of knowledge. Rather than viewing artificial intelligence (AI) as a sudden technological rupture, the talk situated AI within a longer historical trajectory of encyclopedic media, from Britannica to Wikipedia and today’s large language models, such as ChatGPT.

Drawing on her recently published book "The Web of Knowledge (Polity, 2026)," Alevizou argues that AI represents a new regime of knowledge governance. Decisions about data, infrastructure and authority have quietly reorganized who gets to produce, validate and circulate truth in the digital age. By reframing encyclopedias as epistemic infrastructures, the lecture highlighted what is at stake politically in the current AI moment — not only questions of accuracy or bias, but the very conditions under which knowledge remains accountable, contestable and public.

The event opened with an address by Samuel R. Schubert, PhD, Chief Academic Officer of Webster Vienna Private University, followed by an opening note from Katharine Sarikakis, PhD, Director of the Media Governance and Industries Research Laboratory. A response to the talk was presented by Nicole High-Steskal, PhD, Wikidata expert with Wikimedia Austria.

“Today, society is long on information and yet too often short on trust. Universities remain among the last bastions of open, evidence-based debate and WVPU is honored to advance this conversation with the University of Vienna and contribute to Vienna’s intellectual and civic life,” Schubert said.

Alevizou is the Co-Director of the Digital Futures MA program, Digital Humanities and Culture at King’s College London. Her research explores civic media, platforms, encyclopedias and emerging AI systems as key sites where authority, expertise and trust are negotiated.

“We tend to think of AI as something new. But the question of who gets to decide what counts as knowledge is as old as the encyclopedia. What is new is the scale of the enclosure we are now witnessing — and the urgency of the governance response it demands,” Alevizou said. “The most important questions about AI are not technical. They are about power: who owns knowledge, who produces it and who bears the cost when the infrastructure of knowing is reorganized without consent. That is, I’d say, the conversation this series is built for.”

At a time when Europe and the world face changes and crises of unprecedented scale, this series will focus on today’s most pressing challenges: the rise of techno-authoritarianism, advancement and automation of the military-industrial complex, monopolization in the media and cultural sector and state-facilitated undermining of artistic freedom and freedom of expression.

“This is a space for serious engagement with governance as a structural problem, aiming to bring together academic, policy and cultural actors working at the forefront of these transformations,” Sarikakis said.

This inaugural lecture offered a critical perspective on how knowledge is structured, controlled and contested in an age increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence.