RECONCEPTUALIZING CRITICAL ACADEMIC LITERACY UNDER CONDITIONS OF ALGORITHMIC AUTHORITY: REDEFINING THE EPISTEMIC FOUNDATIONS OF ACADEMIC KNOWLEDGE

Abstract

The emergence of generative artificial intelligence has exposed a theoretical limitation in Critical Academic Literacy (CAL) by challenging its long-standing assumption that academic knowledge is primarily legitimized through human epistemic authority. As epistemic authority becomes increasingly distributed across human and algorithmic actors, existing conceptualizations of CAL no longer adequately explain how learners critically establish the legitimacy of academic knowledge in higher education. This theoretical tension underscores the need to reconceptualize Critical Academic Literacy. To address this theoretical limitation, this study aims to reconceptualize Critical Academic Literacy under conditions of Algorithmic Authority through the development of a conceptual framework for AI-mediated higher education. Adopting a theory-building conceptual design, the study employs systematic conceptual analysis and theoretical integration to reconstruct the epistemic foundations of existing CAL. The analysis demonstrates that the limitation of existing CAL is contextual rather than conceptual, as its explanatory power is constrained by assumptions of predominantly human-centred epistemic authority. In response, the study repositions the evaluation of distributed epistemic authority as the central object of critical academic engagement and proposes a conceptual framework explaining how learners recognize, evaluate, justify, and negotiate knowledge claims across human and algorithmic sources. Rather than extending CAL with AI-related competencies, the study redefines its epistemic foundations, providing a new theoretical explanation for critical academic engagement in AI-mediated higher education.