Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy Statement

The Southeast Asian Media Studies Journal (SEAMSJ) recognises that generative artificial intelligence (AI) and other AI-assisted technologies are increasingly used in academic research, writing, editing, and publishing. The journal permits responsible and transparent use of such technologies, subject to the principles of academic integrity, authorship accountability, confidentiality, and research ethics.

Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, and scholarly quality of all submitted work, regardless of whether AI-assisted technologies were used during its preparation. AI tools cannot be listed as authors or co-authors because they cannot take responsibility for the content of a manuscript, approve its final version, disclose conflicts of interest, or respond to questions regarding the integrity of the work.

Authors may use generative AI or AI-assisted technologies for purposes such as language editing, improving readability, translation, transcription, coding assistance, data organisation, or other forms of research support. Authors must carefully review and verify any AI-generated or AI-assisted material before submission. The use of AI does not remove the author’s responsibility to check factual claims, citations, quotations, interpretations, data, and references.

Substantive use of generative AI in the preparation of a manuscript must be disclosed. This includes the use of AI to generate, substantially rewrite, analyse, interpret, classify, summarise, or otherwise produce material that contributes directly to the submitted work. Authors should identify the AI tool used, explain its purpose, and briefly describe the extent of its use. Routine spelling, grammar, formatting, or basic language-editing tools do not normally require disclosure unless they substantially alter the intellectual content of the manuscript.

Authors must not present AI-generated material, references, quotations, data, images, or other content as authentic scholarly evidence without appropriate verification. Fabricated, inaccurate, misleading, or unverifiable references and claims remain the responsibility of the authors and may constitute grounds for rejection or other action under the journal’s research integrity policies.

Authors must also ensure that their use of AI complies with applicable ethical, legal, copyright, privacy, and data-protection requirements. Confidential, sensitive, copyrighted, proprietary, personally identifiable, or unpublished research material should not be entered into external AI systems unless the authors have appropriate permission and can ensure adequate protection of the material.

Reviewers must treat manuscripts and related review materials as confidential. They should not upload submitted manuscripts, supplementary files, reviewer reports, or other confidential editorial materials into publicly accessible or third-party generative AI systems where confidentiality, intellectual property, or data security cannot be guaranteed. Reviewers remain personally responsible for the content, accuracy, fairness, and scholarly judgement of their reviews.

Editors and members of the editorial team must apply the same principles of confidentiality when using AI-assisted technologies during editorial work. Editorial decisions must remain under human responsibility and must not be delegated to generative AI systems. AI-generated assessments should not replace independent editorial or peer-review judgement.

The journal reserves the right to request further information about an author’s, reviewer’s, or editor’s use of AI-assisted technologies when questions arise regarding transparency, originality, confidentiality, research integrity, or ethical compliance.

SEAMSJ may revise this policy as AI technologies, scholarly publishing standards, and relevant ethical and legal requirements continue to develop.