6. The AI News Anchor in Asia: Cultural Identity, Belonging, and Communication Patterns

This chapter aims to examine the AI news anchor phenomenon while focusing on Asian media. With this primary objective in mind, the present empirical study addresses how the representation of android AI news anchors in various Asian countries connects with classical approaches in (1) cultural studies and (2) communication sciences while integrating (3) an ethical perspective. In order to address this objective satisfactorily, a qualitative research approach combining content analysis (n=148) with video data analysis (n=78) was deemed most appropriate. As secondary objectives, we seek to explore (i) the self-asserted identity of AI news anchors, (ii) the human anchor–AI anchor interaction, communication, and dynamics, and (iii) to highlight future directions of progress and challenges in Asian media ecologies, with an inevitable impact at a global level. The ground-breaking innovation of this research is two-fold. To the best of our knowledge, our scholarly contribution represents the first academic examination of a substantial number of AI news anchors and demonstrates the existence of sociocultural and religious identity markers in the screen activity of Asian AI news anchors while advancing the idea that the academic field of communication sciences is facing a fundamental paradigm transformation.