THE DISCURSIVE CONSTITUTION OF THE READER-SUBJECT IN DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS: RESPONSIVITY, LITERACY AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Abstract

Digital reading takes place in environments that organize content, compete for attention, and shape readers’ pathways; therefore, the expansion of generative artificial intelligence makes the distance between mastering a tool and critically engaging with what it provides more visible. This article analyzes how students constitute themselves as reader-subjects in digital practices and discusses their possibilities for participation in relation to automated systems, although artificial intelligence was not part of the original corpus. The qualitative-dialogical study was designed as action research, draws on Lüdke and André (1986), and involved 46 first-year students enrolled in integrated technical secondary education at the Goiânia Campus of the Federal Institute of Goiás. The corpus comprises an online questionnaire, interviews conducted during synchronous meetings, field diary records, and digital productions. The analysis mobilizes the notions of subject, discursive formation, discursive memory, and interdiscourse, based on Pêcheux (1990) and Orlandi (1999, 2001, 2003), together with dialogism, utterance, verbal interaction, and responsivity, discussed by Bakhtin (1992) and Bakhtin and Volochínov (2006). The statements associate digital environments with speed, access, and learning, but also with fatigue, distraction, and difficulty separating study from rest, showing that readers’ choices are constituted through relations with peers, teachers, institutions, and media. The study argues for source evaluation, textual revision, and justification of choices, while raising questions about authorship and critical reading in AI-mediated school activities.