Phd in COMMUNICATION, SOCIAL RESEARCH AND MARKETING

Thesis title: Community-Machine Communication: analisi delle figurazioni di utenti interessati all’AI generativa nelle comunità di Reddit

The thesis investigates the recursive communicative dynamics between algorithmic media and social figurations, exploring the relationship between generative artificial intelligence models and Reddit online communities. The first chapter outlines the theoretical framework, intertwining media ecology and mediatization studies to examine the interdependence between media technologies and user practices. The second chapter delves into the concept of the online community through four argumentative perspectives—neo-tribe, transmedia habitat, community of practice, and pioneering community—analyzing its role in processes of media literacy. The third chapter presents a mixed-method investigation conducted on three subreddits (r/OpenAI, r/StableDiffusion, r/DefendingAIArt), revealing discursive and creative practices that configure a new understanding of AI literacy as social prompt media literacy, in which prompt design itself becomes a socially situated and collectively negotiated practice. The conclusions propose a model of community–machine communication, grounded in a cybernetic and co-evolutionary balance based on the persistence of a systemic feedback logic between the users’ collective intelligence and the artificial intelligence of large language models (LLMs).