Search results

This study/paper aims to understand the public perceptions of AI through mass media discourse. In the past few years, significant progress has been made in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). The benefits of AI are obvious, but there is still huge uncertainty and controversy over the public perception of AI. How does the mass media conceptualize AI?

In this paper, the authors analyze the evolution of AI covered by five major news media outlets in the past 30 years from 7 dimensions: scientific subject, keyword, country, institution, people, topic and opinion polarity.

First of all, different subjects are competing for and dividing up the right to speak of AI, leading to the gradual fragmentation of the concept of AI. Second, reporting on AI often includes reference to commercial institutions and scientists, showing a successful integration of science and business. Moreover, the result of topic modeling shows that news media mainly defines AI from three perspectives: an imagination, a commercial product and a field of scientific research. Finally, negative reports have focused on various issues relating to AI ethics.

The results can help bridge various conversations surrounding AI and promote richer discussions, increase the participation of scientists, businesses, governments and the public and provide more perspectives on the functions, prospects and pitfalls of AI.

Theory is a kind of condensed human knowledge. This paper is to examine the mechanism of interdisciplinary diffusion of theoretical knowledge by tracing the diffusion of a representative theory, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM).

Based on the full-scale dataset of Web of Science (WoS), the citations of Davis's original work about TAM were analysed and the interdisciplinary diffusion paths of TAM were delineated, a supervised machine learning method was used to extract theory incidents, and a content analysis was used to categorize the patterns of theory evolution.

It is found that the diffusion of a theory is intertwined with its evolution. In the process, the role that a participating discipline play is related to its knowledge distance from the original disciplines of TAM. With the distance increases, the capacity to support theory development and innovation weakens, while that to assume analytical tools for practical problems increases. During the diffusion, a theory evolves into new extensions in four theoretical construction patterns, elaboration, proliferation, competition and integration.

The study does not only deepen the understanding of the trajectory of a theory but also enriches the research of knowledge diffusion and innovation.

The study elaborates the relationship between theory diffusion and theory development, reveals the roles of the participating disciplines played in theory diffusion and vice versa, interprets four patterns of theory evolution and uses text mining technique to extract theory incidents, which makes up for the shortcomings of citation analysis and content analysis used in previous studies.