New study reviews 25 years of research to map the intellectual trajectory of human-machine communication
A new study systematically examined trends and patterns in human-machine communication from 2000 to 2024 to map the discipline’s intellectual trajectory. Findings include nine coherent research clusters, reflecting a gradual shift from robot-focused investigations toward a broader range of studies on virtual agents, chatbots and generative artificial intelligence (AI).
The findings were featured in “Charting the evolution of human-machine communication: a systematic review of 25 years of empirical research” by Fanjue Liu (Ph.D. 2024), who graduated from the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications (UFCJC) and is currently a Shanghai Jiao Tong University Assistant Professor, doctoral student Xiaobei Chen, and Kun Xu, Media Production, Management, and Technology associate professor of Emerging Technologies and director of the Media Effects and Technology Lab (METL) and UFCJC Research Lab. The article was published on July 28 in the Annals of the International Communication Association.
According to the authors, “In recent decades, AI has garnered increasing attention from communication scholarship, as emerging technologies like social robots and virtual agents are integrated into our daily lives and designed to perform various social roles, such as personal companions, assistants, teachers and decision makers. This dramatic expansion poses new opportunities and risks for technology users and leads to heated discussions within academia about the nature of technology.”
The authors found that based on an analysis of 209 scholarly articles published between 2000 and 2024, this systematic review charts the intellectual trajectory of human-machine communications as an evolving research domain.
They add, “This review highlights a fundamental theoretical question that our field has only begun to address: what capacities must a technology possess to be treated as a communicator rather than merely a channel? As generative AI and large language models become increasingly integrated into social robots, virtual agents, smart devices and algorithmic systems, these communicative abilities blur the line between tools and conversation partners. A crucial next step for human research communication scholarship is to establish more precise conceptual and empirical criteria for identifying when, and under what conditions, machines are considered communicative subjects.”
Category: AI at CJC News, Alumni News, College News, Student News
Tagged: Human-Machine Communication Kun Xu MPMT Xiaobei Chen
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