Date: Wednesday, March 12, 2024

Time: 2:30-4pm

Venue: LPN_LT (G/F), Y C Liang Hall (LHC), The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Speaker: Prof. Eva Cheuk-Yin LI, Lancaster University

Moderator: Prof. Jia TAN, CUHK

As generative AI technologies become increasingly accessible, fan communities find themselves at the forefront of experimenting with these tools, raising complex questions about creativity, authenticity, and ethics. This talk examines the evolving relationship between fandom and artificial intelligence, revealing how fan practices are not just shaped by AI but actively shape our understanding of AI’s societal impact. I propose the framework of Human-Community-Machine Interactions (HCMI), which helps us understand how individual fans, fan communities, and AI systems interact in ways that create new forms of participatory culture while potentially generating unintended consequences.

Drawing from case studies including fans’ responses to celebrity scandals in Asia, a key focus of this talk is the development of a feminist ethics of care for studying AI in fandom, particularly in the Asian contexts. Moving beyond traditional fan studies approaches, this framework considers not only fans’ interests but also the broader implications of AI-enabled fan practices for celebrities, industry workers, and digital culture at large. Through specific case studies of fans’ responses to celebrity scandals and AI-generated content, this talk contributes to broader conversations about feminist approaches to AI ethics, digital community dynamics, and the future of participatory culture. It suggests how the experiences of Asian fan communities with AI can provide valuable insights for developing more thoughtful and responsible approaches to technological innovation that consider local cultural contexts and feminist concerns.

Eva Cheuk-Yin Li is an Assistant Professor in Media and Cultural Studies in the Sociology Department at Lancaster University. She holds a PhD in Gender, Media, and Culture from King’s College London. Her research interests span queer media, fandom, gender non-conformity, and diaspora media. Her work has appeared in edited volumes, encyclopaedias, and peer-reviewed journals such as European Journal of Cultural Studies, Sexualities, and Crime, Media, Culture. Her current projects include research on Thailand’s Girls Love (GL) media, with a recent article (co-authored with Ka-Wei Pang) titled “Queer Media from the Global South: The Emerging Girls Love (GL) Media Industry of Southeast Asia” in Feminist Media Studies, as well as her first monograph, The Middle Gender: Strategic Resistance Against Gender Binary in Sinophone Asia, which is under contract with Amsterdam University Press.