A Review of Research on the Communication Effects and Ethical Controversies of AIGC Online Micro-Short Dramas

Abstract

With the deepening application of AIGC technology, production logic, communication mechanisms, and ethical boundaries have become highly discussed issues in online micro-short dramas. Taking journal literature published from 2020 to 2026 as the core texts, this paper reviews existing studies from three dimensions: technological production, audience acceptance, and ethical controversies. The study finds that the technological production dimension has revealed the evolutionary path by which AIGC shifts from a tool to a subject; the audience acceptance dimension has formed a progressive understanding from viewing motivations to addiction mechanisms and then to aesthetic transformation; and the ethical controversy dimension focuses on four core issues: alienation of subjectivity, copyright infringement, algorithmic risks, and distortion of the pseudo-environment. However, insufficient dialogue still exists among the three sections. Studies on technological production and ethical risks focus on the production end and the text end, while audience studies concentrate on the consumption end, and systematic attention is still lacking to the possible logical chain through which communication effects lead to ethical controversies. Future research may deepen the study of the uniqueness of addiction mechanisms in AI micro-short dramas under an analytical framework that integrates the three sections, and may further promote empirical investigation of copyright infringement and deep synthesis governance.