Prof. Dr. Pilar Lacasa

About

Pilar Lacasa is Professor Emerita of Audiovisual Communication at the University of Alcalá (Spain). At the Weizenbaum Institute she works on the project “Imagining AI futures: citizens or spectators?”, which examines how audiences of institutional and popular-culture AI actors on TikTok and Instagram imagine the future of artificial intelligence.

Trained in psychology and philosophy (PhD, Complutense University of Madrid), she studies how digital platforms shape everyday life, civic participation and young people’s imagination of the future. Her methodological work explores how qualitative and mixed-methods research can integrate digital tools and generative AI without giving up interpretive depth.

She has supervised 55 doctoral theses and held research stays at MIT, USC, RMIT University and Freie Universität Berlin. She serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning and Human Technology; her books include Adolescent Fans (Peter Lang, 2020).

Research Unit: Weizenbaum Panel (9.11.-4.12.2026)