This book advances critical AI literacy by providing educators, students, and scholars with a rigorous conceptual framework for understanding, analyzing, and teaching artificial intelligence in its social, political, and educational contexts.

Its primary objectives are threefold: first, to offer a comprehensive critical AI literacy framework that equips educators with the tools to foster analytical and reflective engagement with AI; second, to demystify AI by clarifying its technical, social, and ideological dimensions for a broad audience; and third, to provide readers with the conceptual language and contextual knowledge necessary to understand AI's role in shaping knowledge, decision-making, and civic life. By situating AI within the broader frameworks of critical media literacy and the propaganda model, the book emphasizes the ways in which AI is not neutral but operates as a socio-technical system embedded with ideological, economic, and political forces. It fills a significant gap in scholarship by addressing the scarcity of resources that combine critical theory, pedagogy, and practical strategies for engaging with AI.

This volume empowers students and scholars of media studies, communication, journalism, education, and beyond to critically evaluate AI's influence on society, education, and democracy, while providing educators with the means to integrate these insights into teaching, research, and civic discourse.

Nolan Higdon is lecturer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, USA. Higdon has authored numerous books including United States of Distraction: Media Manipulation in Post-Truth America (And What We Can Do About It) (2019); The Anatomy of Fake News: A Critical News Literacy Education (2020); Surveillance Education: Navigating the conspicuous absence of privacy in schools (2025); and MAGAcademy: How Corporatism Paved the Way for the Hostile Takeover of Higher Ed (2026).