On June 20, 2024, when the northern hemisphere welcomed the summer solstice, Nvidia surpassed tech giants Apple and Microsoft as the world's most valuable company at USD 3.34 trillion – almost all of it driven by demand for its Graphic Processing Units (GPUs), the backbone for Artificial Intelligence and machine learning. Less than a week later, however, it had lost $500 billion in value and fell to third place displaying the uncertainty that surrounds AI. Thus the meteoric rise of this company's stocks has to be juxtaposed with the lack of understanding of this evolving technology and the resulting uncertainty in the minds of the general populace, including the educated. A 2023 Pew Research Center survey of Americans revealed that only 30% had a high awareness of AI use in their daily lives. The same study revealed that 38% of Americans are more concerned than excited about AI vis-a-vis ethical issues vs. only 15% who were more excited than concerned. Almost everyone seems to be playing 'catch-up' to the daily advances of this, as yet unproven, technology. 

Public relations and communication management is no exception. AI, in particular generative AI, is transforming public relations and public communication practice beyond recognition. It is improving communication content creation (writing, editing, designing...) as well as the dissemination of messages. It is also helping in communication research and social listening thereby increasing efficiency and effectiveness. One can then identify AI as a boon for communication practitioners and scholars. Not so fast! Even in its infancy, the advantages of AI are accompanied, some may say overshadowed, by its many disadvantages such as standardization, a lack of creativity and originality, passivity among practitioners, and a lack of reflexivity.  Concerns such as data privacy and protection, authenticity of messages and sources, pagiarism, mis- and dis-information and the increasing potential for multiple forms of manipulation abound. Because few people really understand this evolving phenomenon, it is fair to say that most people are shooting in the dark to address these concerns. As educators, we also face the challenge of our students, digitial natives, having a better handle on how to use AI than we do and therefore few of us may be equipped to detect, let alone deter, dishonorable use of AI for scholastic purposes. 

Boon or curse, the AI genie is out of the proverbial box and so we have to learn to live with it – and the uncertainties that surround it – and strive to figure out ways of using it productively, prosocially and ethically. 

These strong reasons led us to select the nexus between AI and public relations as the theme for BledCom 2025, with the knowledge that discussing AI will probably be part of every BledCom in the foreseeable future. 

We invite scholars, practitoners, and educators to share their experiences with AI and how they have coped with the rapidly evolving technology. We realize that we may not have all the answers but it is important that we begin to ask the right questions along the lines posed above as a robust starting point so that we can strive to build a body of knowledge that is helpful to both scholars and practitioners.

Call for Abstracts and Panels:

We invite abstracts that are between 500 and 800 words (including title and keywords) with up to 5 references. Please note that as has been the norm in the past, BledCom welcomes ALL papers that are relevant to public relations and communication management and not just papers that discuss the conference theme. We also welcome panel proposals.

Please use the following guidelines to present your abstract and kindly supply the word count at the end of the submission.

Format for the Abstract:

Please use the American Psychological Association (APA) style manual (latest edition) for your abstract and paper.  Further, please note that the chances of your abstract being accepted are enhanced if you observe the following format in preparing it:

Introduction and purpose of the study (and research question if there is one) – helps summarize the purpose and rationale of your study. Literature review – Helps place your work in context with the existing body of knowledge. Methodology – Define the main method used for gathering data including sample size, and state the rationale for using this method. Results and conclusions – Helps summarize the answers to the research questions while also outlining the implications of the results. Also summarize the limitations of the study and offer suggestions for future research. Practical and social implications – Offer the potential implications both for practice and society. Also provide us with 3 to 5 keywords that highlight your study. Abstracts should come as blind copies without author names and affiliations, who are to be identified on on a separate cover page. Please use the suggested headings to structure the abstract. A list of literature is not necessary, but if it is provided it is included into the word count.

Panel proposal are also welcome. The proposal should describe the title and focus of the panel, name of the chair of the panel, and names of every member of the panel and title or focus of each presentation.

Deadline:

Paper abstracts and panel proposals should be submitted via email to bledcom@fdv.uni-lj.si no later than February 3, 2025. Decisions will be made by March 3, 2025 after peer review. Full papers not exceeding 6.000 words will be due by September 15, 2025 for inclusion in the conference proceedings.

Program Committee:

·      Dejan Verčič, University of Ljubljana and Herman & partners, Slovenia

·      Krishnamurthy Sriramesh, University of Colorado Boulder, USA

·      Ana Tkalac Verčič, University of Zagreb, Croatia