Yishu Mao (dark long hair, white shirt) smiling into the camera
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Yishu Mao

Predoctoral Scholar (Aug 2020–Aug 2025)

Mao Yishu is a PhD candidate at the Department of Communication and Media Research, University of Zurich. Her project examines the emerging AI governance regimes in China, the EU and the US with comparative policy analysis and Science and Technologies Studies (STS) approaches. She holds an MA in global studies from Humboldt University in Berlin, and spent parts of her studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi as well as the Latin American Social Sciences Institute (FLACSO) in Buenos Aires to conduct research on globalization from the Global South perspective. Before that, she studied literature with concentration on experimental humanities at Bard College in New York.

Previously she worked at Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) on a range of topics including the ideology of Chinese overseas students, digital policy, and the intersection of online public opinion and policymaking in China. Yishu was also a group member of the “Academies for Global Innovation and Digital Ethics” at the Austrian Academy of Sciences from 2022–2024, where she contributed to the report Narratives of Digital Ethics.

Her current research interests include the co-production of science and social order, sociotechnical imaginaries and communicative construction of AI, as well as global governance of AI. 

Projects

Taming the Artificial, Ordering the Social: Divergence and Convergence in Emerging AI Governance Regimes in China, Germany/the EU and the US

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Turbulent Transmissions: The Public Roles of Chinese Scientists in the Covid-19 Crisis

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No projects were found for this scholar.

Selected Publications

Wendehorst, Christiane, Magdalena Eitenberger, Jana Winter, Astrid Mager, Barbara Prainsack, Astrid Weiss, and Yishu Mao (2024). Narratives of Digital Ethics: Agide (Academies for Global Innovation and Digital Ethics) Report. Vienna: Austrian…

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Mao, Yishu and Kristin Shi-Kupfer (2023). “Online Public Discourse on Artificial Intelligence and Ethics in China: Context, Content, and Implications.” AI and Society 38 (1): 373–389. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-021-01309-7.

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Mao, Yishu and Kristin Shi-Kupfer (2020). “What’s hyped and what’s real: The State’s Innovation Ambitions versus Society’s Concerns — Social Media Discussions on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Ethics in China.” In Deutsch-chinesische…

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Arcesati , Rebecca, Anna Holzmann , Yishu Mao, Manlai Nyamdorj , Kristin Shi-Kupfer, Kai von Carnap, and Claudia Wessling (2020). China’s Digital Platform Economy: Assessing Developments Towards Industry 4.0. Challenges and opportunities for German…

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Presentations, Talks, & Teaching Activities

How the Chinese Public View AI

Leverhulme Center for Future Intelligence, Cambridge University
Berggruen China Center, Peking University

Program and Abstracts
AI Ethics in China

Science Fiction from China, Freie Universität Berlin

Key Opinion Leaders on Social Media and Policymaking in China

Center for Cultural Studies on Science and Technology in China, Technische Universität Berlin

Imaginaries of Artificial Intelligence: Science and Politics in China, Germany, and the US

University of Trier

D(AI)chotomy of technological leadership

Chinnotopia Talk Series, Technical University of Berlin

Media