MeLCi Lab Autumn School 2025 – AI Research Practice and Media and Communication

An online bootcamp, running between 11 and 14 November 2025, online. The bootcamp summer school is conducted in English and is organised by CICANT – MeLCi and AISIC Labs and the Lusófona University in Portugal. 

Interested participants should express their interest in the Autumn School's workshop by 26 September 2025. 

Background and context

Recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI), particularly in developing Large Language Models (LLMs) such as GPT-4 or Gemini, are reshaping the research landscape across disciplines. In communication, media studies, and audience research, AI technologies are increasingly used for tasks ranging from literature findings and data annotation to audience segmentation and discourse analysis (Natale, 2021). These tools offer unprecedented speed, scale, and efficiency, but also raise significant methodological and ethical challenges concerning transparency, bias, and the implications of AI-generated knowledge (Ferrara, 2024).

At the same time, the broader media environment is studied a profound transformation driven by algorithmic mediation, datafication, and the personalisation of information flows. This context demands that researchers adopt new methodological tools and critically engage with AI’s political, social, and ethical consequences in media ecologies.

About the summer bootcamp

Bridging the use of AI in research with critical inquiry into its societal impacts requires an integrative, interdisciplinary approach. Researchers must develop technical techniques with AI tools while maintaining a reflexive stance towards the broader power structures and biases these technologies can perpetuate. In this light, the 2025 MeLCi Lab Autumn School plans to offer a platform to address these dual imperatives – fostering methodological innovation alongside critical literacy about the role of AI in communication and media studies.

More information and expression of interest 

Find more information and send your application in by 26 September 2025 via here.