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<p>The diffusion of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is transforming platform media from infrastructures that mainly curate and monetize attention into infrastructures that increasingly produce, rank, authenticate, and commercialize synthetic meaning. This article develops a communication political economy account of this transformation by connecting three concepts: generative cognitive capitalism, cognitive externalities, and cognitive infrastructure. It argues that GenAI changes platform value creation by lowering the marginal cost of content production, turning users and professionals into providers of cognitive data and post-generation labour, and expanding platform power over the visibility and credibility of public knowledge. Methodologically, the article adopts qualitative comparative institutional analysis rather than a quantitative regulatory index. It compares the United States, the European Union, and China through a ten-dimension interpretive codebook and treats the resulting profiles as institutional logics rather than objective measurements of regulatory effectiveness. The analysis shows a fragmented field: the United States prioritizes innovation, market-led experimentation, and ex post mechanisms; the European Union builds process accountability through the AI Act and Digital Services Act; and China combines industrial promotion with content-security, algorithmic filing, and administrative compliance obligations. The article further argues that platform strategy should be understood as compliance-cost minimization under regulatory fragmentation, not simply as malicious evasion. It distinguishes formal compliance from substantive accountability and gives particular attention to the limits of official-text analysis in the Chinese context, including enforcement gaps, platform heterogeneity, and the difference between filing and technical auditability. The conclusion advances a cognitive justice agenda centred on institutional transparency, interoperable provenance, independent audits, researcher access, and mechanisms for supporting public knowledge institutions.</p>

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Reconstructing cognitive infrastructure in platform media under the generative AI wave: attention politics, cognitive externalities, and governance paradigm transformation: a comparative institutional analysis of the United States, the European Union, and China

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年7月10日

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  • Yichuan Zhang,
  • Guoming Yu,
  • Suiyue Shang

摘要

The diffusion of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is transforming platform media from infrastructures that mainly curate and monetize attention into infrastructures that increasingly produce, rank, authenticate, and commercialize synthetic meaning. This article develops a communication political economy account of this transformation by connecting three concepts: generative cognitive capitalism, cognitive externalities, and cognitive infrastructure. It argues that GenAI changes platform value creation by lowering the marginal cost of content production, turning users and professionals into providers of cognitive data and post-generation labour, and expanding platform power over the visibility and credibility of public knowledge. Methodologically, the article adopts qualitative comparative institutional analysis rather than a quantitative regulatory index. It compares the United States, the European Union, and China through a ten-dimension interpretive codebook and treats the resulting profiles as institutional logics rather than objective measurements of regulatory effectiveness. The analysis shows a fragmented field: the United States prioritizes innovation, market-led experimentation, and ex post mechanisms; the European Union builds process accountability through the AI Act and Digital Services Act; and China combines industrial promotion with content-security, algorithmic filing, and administrative compliance obligations. The article further argues that platform strategy should be understood as compliance-cost minimization under regulatory fragmentation, not simply as malicious evasion. It distinguishes formal compliance from substantive accountability and gives particular attention to the limits of official-text analysis in the Chinese context, including enforcement gaps, platform heterogeneity, and the difference between filing and technical auditability. The conclusion advances a cognitive justice agenda centred on institutional transparency, interoperable provenance, independent audits, researcher access, and mechanisms for supporting public knowledge institutions.