The Cultural Impact of Visual AI on Youth Perceptions of Literacy

This is a Leverhulme/British Academy funded project by Elisa Serafinelli. The project investigates how children and young adults engage with AI-generated visuals and the implications of these interactions for visual literacy, creativity, and cultural understanding. As algorithmically produced images proliferate across platforms (e.g., TikTok and Midjourney), young people encounter new forms of visual representation that challenge established notions of realism, authorship, and truth. Despite their ubiquity, little is known about how such images are interpreted, experienced, and appropriated by younger audiences. Through creative participatory workshops, embedded dialogue, and semiotic analysis, this study explores how AI-generated images are made meaningful by participants aged 10–21. Drawing on theories of technological mediation and visual culture, the project foregrounds youth perspectives to enrich the current understanding of algorithmic visuality. In doing so, it contributes to broader debates in digital media, science and technology studies, and visual communication, offering novel insights into the visual and cognitive cultures emerging in an AI-saturated world.

Elisa is a member of our AI Literacies Lab, and a Senior Lecturer in Digital Media and Communication at Manchester Metropolitan University, with over a decade of academic and research experience across the UK and Europe and a wealth of publications on visual digital media, including her recent monograph, Theorising Drones in Visual Culture.