Florida Tech faculty members Moti Mizrahi, Ted Petersen, and Heidi Hatfield Edwards earned a grant from the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication to fund research examining how news media cover artificial intelligence (AI).
The Page Center’s 2025 Page/Johnson Legacy Scholar grants were awarded to proposals centered around the ethics of generative AI in public communication. Florida Tech’s project, “AI Hype Machine: Understanding the News Media’s Role in and Ethics of Hyping Generative AI,” was one of nine chosen from nearly 90 proposals – a “record amount” of submissions, the Page Center noted.
The nine accepted projects feature 22 scholars from 13 different universities. They address topics such as biases in AI, transparency, engagement and misinformation.
Over the next year, Edwards, Petersen and Mizrahi will study how AI is hyped in the media and the ethical implications of that hype. Noting hype as “one of the enemies of truth” in their abstract, they will examine how anthropomorphic language that overinflates, overestimates, exaggerates or misrepresents the capabilities of GenAI may conflict with media ethics by altering public perception.
“We know from research that how we think about issues, including new technology, is often shaped by how those issues are discussed in media,” Edwards said. “Our perceptions can affect personal and policy decisions.”
The $6,000 grant will help Edwards and her team fund student involvement and software that can aid data analysis.
As the funded scholars work on their projects, the Page Center’s blog will spend the summer highlighting each research topic in weekly posts. The year will finish with the Page Center’s virtual Research Roundtable, where each team will present their findings to scholars, research fellows and Page Center advisory board members.
