Interview with a vampire: Reviewing the field of digital media and technology through the lens of large language models

This article reviews the evolution of digital media research from the early 1990s to the present through an experimental interview with large language models. Treating generative AI as a situated, fallible “expert,” it combines exploratory review, qualitative probing, and reflexive analysis to trace conceptual shifts in the field, drawing on the archive of MedieKultur. We examine the evolution of digital media technologies and their uses, from online communities to data and AI, as well as changing research agendas, from early techno-utopianism to platformization. Critical towards the epistemic limits of LLMs, we urge to consider its outputs as prompts for synthesis, interpretation, and critical reflection, rather than as evidences.