Building international connections on Generative AI and Authenticity
Author
Date 10 October 2025
ADM+S researcher Dr Phoebe Matich recently travelled to the United Kingdom on behalf of the Generative Authenticity project to present at the 2025 Future of Journalism Conference in Cardiff, Wales, and to meet with international research partners working at the intersection of generative AI, authenticity, and public service media.
While in the UK, Dr Phoebe Matich met with colleagues from the Responsible Innovation Centre for Public Media Futures, based within the BBC’s Research and Development teams at Media City, Salford, Manchester, and the ESRC Digital Good Network at the University of Sheffield. The visit aimed to find points of connection between our projects and topic areas and present emerging conceptual work from the ADM+S Generative Authenticity project.
At the Future of Journalism Conference, Dr Matich presented recent research from the Generative Authenticity project analysing how generative AI technologies configures authenticity issues in two instances of AI-generated media “witnessing”.
The presentation formed part of a broader discussion on the ambivalent and context-dependent nature of generative AI, and drew strong interest from researchers from Palestine, Canada, and Ireland.
“There’s a clear interest in the ambivalence of GenAI and its contingency on uses that may be benevolent in some ways, as well as malevolent use-cases,” Matich said.
During the visit, Dr Matich also met with Professor Stephen Hutchings and his team of misinformation researchers at the University of Manchester.
Conversations with the BBC’s Responsible Innovation Centre and the University of Sheffield’s Digital Good Network further highlighted shared interests in trust, consent, and authenticity in the context of generative AI and public service media.
Dr Matich reflected, “it’s crucial to tread carefully around the multilayered ethical questions being raised by genAI technologies, which need to be deconstructed rather than taken for granted, and remember that trust in the media is a process rather than a static object at any given moment.”
Dr Matich noted that the trip offered valuable insights into the continued relevance of international approaches and methodologies, including audience research, surveys, interviews, and focus groups.
Key takeaways from the visit include emerging discussions around confidentiality as a potential use-case for generative AI, and the growing significance of “authenticity infrastructure” such as C2PA in journalists’ verification practices. The trip also highlighted the distinction between normative and descriptive approaches to studying generative AI’s role in media and journalism.
The visit was funded by the ADM+S Generative Authenticity project.
