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Paper short abstract

This paper discusses (1) national policies that regulate and promote AI in media production; (2) the practices of media workers who critically adopt, adapt, and evaluate AI technologies in their creative work; and (3) audience and platform responses to AI-generated content.

Paper long abstract

The rapid emergence of generative AI has profoundly reshaped creative industries and intensified global debates about the future of cultural production. Within this context, media industry workers and media artists encounter both new opportunities and significant challenges. To examine how generative AI is transforming media industries in Japan, this paper analyses three interrelated layers: national policies that regulate and promote AI in media production; the practices of media workers who critically adopt, adapt, and evaluate AI technologies in their creative work; and audience and platform responses to AI-generated content that shape market trends and value hierarchies in media production. Combining 20 semi-structured interviews with media industry professionals and digital media artists in Japan who critically engage with generative AI, alongside document analysis of policy papers and industry association reports, the paper presents three key findings concerning media industries and media policy in Japan. First, the Japanese government actively promotes the adoption of generative AI across media sectors ranging from advertising to film and television, guided by an AI-friendly and innovation-oriented policy framework. However, an unintended consequence of this approach is the marginalisation of media workers’ concerns regarding autonomy, authorship, and copyright. Second, the paper identifies diverse forms of critical engagement among media producers, who use generative AI at different stages of the creative process while holding varied conceptions of its role. These include viewing AI as a tool to accelerate production and democratise creative opportunities, as a creative partner for idea development that still requires human refinement, and as a conventional or socially consensual reference point that creators deliberately challenge through human creativity. Finally, the paper demonstrates that Japanese fan communities exhibit mixed responses to generative AI, ranging from the legitimation of AI-generated media as an emerging artistic genre to strong criticism of its use in popular culture, which some fans regard as a form of cheating or betrayal. By foregrounding the Japanese case, this paper highlights how the impacts of generative AI are shaped by specific policy and cultural contexts, contributing to the de-westernisation and internationalisation of research on AI and media production.