This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
WASP-HS Summer School 2026 — Algorithmic Power and Discourse: AI, Politics, and the Production of Meaning
August 17 @ 13:00 - August 21 @ 12:00
Photo: Mattias Pettersson
Welcome to the WASP-HS Summer School 2026 where we will explore how artificial intelligence is reshaping power, politics, and the production of meaning in contemporary society. This year, the summer school is hosted by the WASP-HS research environment AI, Power and Politics and the DIGSUM Centre for Digital Social Research at Umeå Universiy.
Artificial intelligence is not only a technological development but a transformative force in how knowledge is produced, circulated, and legitimised. From algorithmic decision-making to generative AI, these systems increasingly shape public discourse, political processes, and societal governance. This raises fundamental questions about power, authority, and the conditions under which truth and meaning are constructed.
This summer school creates a forum for WASP-HS PhD students where they can engage critically with these developments. Participants will explore how AI systems operate as infrastructures of power and as “discourse machines” that influence how societies understand themselves, their pasts, and their futures.
The program brings together theoretical perspectives from the humanities and social sciences to examine how artificial intelligence reshapes power, politics, and societal meaning-making. Through lectures, workshops, and collaborative discussions, participants will take a critical perspective on AI as a socio-political force, exploring its implications for knowledge, governance, and public life.
Thematic Areas
The thematic areas covered during the summer school are:
– Algorithmic power and political economy
AI as infrastructure of control, dependency, and profit
– Discourse, knowledge and meaning-making
AI systems as producers and mediators of knowledge and truth
– Platforms, disinformation and information environments
Algorithmic amplification, generative AI, and the dynamics of public discourse
– Governance, legitimacy and regulation
Democratic challenges in AI-driven decision-making
Learning Outcomes
Throughout the summer school, participants will:
– Develop a nuanced understanding of artificial intelligence as a socio-political force shaping contemporary societies
– Critically examine how AI systems influence discourse, knowledge production, and relations of power
– Strengthen their ability to engage in and contribute to interdisciplinary dialogue across fields
– Build lasting academic networks within the WASP-HS community
Program
TBD
Registration
TBD
AI, Power and Politics
Want to know more about the WASP-HS research environment AI, Power and Politics?