Addressing the Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Journalism: the perception of experts, journalists and academics

Over the last decade, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become gradually more prevalent in mass media and news agency newsrooms. This growing tendency has prompted intense debate about the negative impact on journalism, particularly on quality standards and ethical principles. Taking an explorative approach, this study aims to analyse the application of AI in newsrooms, focusing on the impact on news-making processes, media routines and profiles, highlighting the benefits and shortcomings, and finally, analysing the rise of ethical dilemmas. For this purpose, 15 in-depth interviews were conducted in two rounds, in 2019 and 2021, with a sample of journalists and other media professionals, academics, experts on the media industry, and providers of technology leading the work on AI. The international sample includes interviewees from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Spain. The interviewees agree that AI will enhance journalists’ capabilities by saving time, augmenting the efficiency of the news-making processes and, therefore, increasing mass media industry productivity. However, a change of mind-set in the media environment is needed, and training on the use of these tools must be a priority given the lack of knowledge observed. Finally, the emergence of ethical issues underlines the need for continuous control and supervision of the processes undertaken by AI

Ideology of objectivity in political journalism. Attitudes, values and beliefs around truth as a possible horizon?

Desde un enfoque crítico-discursivo se analizan contenidos automáticos y reflexivos en torno a la “objetividad”, como código estilístico-normativo y dispositivo cultural de contornos míticos, compartido por periodistas y audiencias de la información política. Con base en entrevistas realizadas bajo un enfoque etnográfico entre 2012 y 2014, a profesionales de diferentes medios masivos de Córdoba-Argentina, primero se discuten la auto-percepción de su rol contemporáneo y las condiciones de su vínculo cotidiano con fuentes y acontecimientos. Dado el carácter inter-subjetivo del fenómeno, en un segundo momento se incluye el contraste entre las perspectivas periodísticas y las percepciones de audiencias locales, recopiladas en sesiones experimentales simultáneas. Mediante una estrategia de triangulación analítica, se advierte un significativo vínculo de circularidad entre definiciones profesionales y expectativas de consumo.From a critical-discursive approach, automatic and reflexive contents are analyzed around "objectivity", as a stylistic-normative code and cultural device with mythical contours, shared by journalists and audience of political information. Based on interviews to professionals from different mass media in Córdoba-Argentina (conducted under an ethnographic approach between 2012 and 2014), firstly the self-perception of their contemporary role and the conditions of their daily link with sources and events are discussed. Given the inter-subjective nature of the phenomenon, in a second moment the contrast between the journalistic perspectives and the perceptions of local audiences, gathered in simultaneous experimental sessions, is included. Through an analytical triangulation strategy, a significant circularity link between professional definitions and consumption expectations is noticed.From a critical-discursive approach, automatic and reflexive contents are analyzed around “objectivity”, as a stylistic-normative code and cultural device with mythical contours, shared by journalists and audience of political information. Based on interviews to professionals from different mass media in Córdoba-Argentina — conducted under an ethnographic approach between 2012 and 2014 —, firstly the self-perception of their contemporary role and the conditions of their daily link with sources and events are discussed. Given the inter-subjective nature of the phenomenon, in a second moment the contrast between the journalistic perspectives and the perceptions of local audiences, gathered in simultaneous experimental sessions, is included. Through an analytical triangulation strategy, a significant circularity link between professional definitions and consumption expectations is noticed.Fil: Paz Garcia, Ana Pamela. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba; Argentina. Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas (IIPsi), CONICET - Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba; Argentin

Artificial Intelligence and Journalism: Current Situation and Expectations in the Portuguese Sports Media

With an important presence in various sectors of activity, Artificial Intelligence has also reached journalism, mostly in the field of natural-language processing, in the detection of informational trends or in the automatic production of texts. The fact that sport is one of the first to test AI is not a coincidence: it is a subject in which there is a lot of information online and where data is essential, so it is simpler to resort to natural language processing to transform them in texts with little or no human intervention; this work sought to understand if Artificial Intelligence is already used in Portuguese sports media, but also in mainstream media sports sections, whether they are newspapers, radios, TVs or online natives. A survey was sent only to decision-makers, that is, editors and coordinators. The study seeks to understand to what extent journalists expect AI to help journalism, what are the greatest difficulties of its use and what threats it represents. We can conclude that Portuguese sports journalism is aware of the potential of AI, although for now it is not used in newsrooms due to economic and professional constraints.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Journalists' Perceptions towards Employing Artificial Intelligence Techniques in Jordan TV's Newsrooms

The study aimed to reveal the perceptions of journalists towards employing artificial intelligence techniques in Jordan TV's Newsrooms. The study sample consisted of journalists working in Jordan TV's Newsrooms. The field study was applied to a simple random sample of (106) through the questionnaire tool. The study used the descriptive exploratory approach. The study concluded that there is a clear effect of employing artificial intelligence techniques according to the perceptions of journalists in the newsrooms of Jordan Television, and the presence of differences between the responses of the respondents of the journalists in the reasons why the newsrooms of the Jordanian television are not ready to employ artificial intelligence techniques. In addition to the above, the study indicated that there were no statistically significant differences in the other reasons for the lack of readiness, where the values of X2 (Chi-squared) were not a significant. However, journalists in the newsrooms of Jordan Television possessed various skills, including: using social networks for research, publishing news stories, and automated content production programs. Finally, there were no statistically significant differences between journalists in digital media skills, and the X2 values were not significant at the significance level (0.05), with the exception of info graphic production skills

The use of Technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution in Arab Press Institutions: An Exploratory Study of Opportunities and Challenges

The study sought to monitor the opportunities offered by artificial intelligence technologies in the press institutions in the Arab world and its challenges by drawing on the tools of examining documents for studies research and codified interviews with media experts academics and artificial intelligence technology experts relying on this on several approaches represented in the anthropological approach Analytical hierarchy approach the inductive approach through five steps represented in Monitoring the techniques of artificial intelligence that can be employed in the media work followed by monitoring the tasks and opportunities that they provide then presenting models for news organizations that employed these techniques then monitoring the requirements for employing these technologies In Arab journalistic institutions from the experts point of view up to the fifth stage which was represented in Monitoring the challenges hindering the possibility of employing artificial intelligence technique

Transforming Media Agency? : Approaches to Automation in Finnish Legacy Media

The algorithmic automation of media processes has produced machines that perform in roles that were previously occupied by human beings. Recent research has probed various theoretical approaches to the agency and ethical responsibility of machines and algorithms. However, there is no theoretical consensus concerning many key issues. Rather than setting out with fixed conceptions, this research calls for a closer look at the considerations and attitudes that motivate actual attributions of agency and responsibility. The empirical context of this study is legacy media where the introduction of automation, together with topical considerations of journalistic ethics and responsibility, has given rise to substantial reflection on received conceptions and practices. The results show a continuing resistance to attributions of agency and responsibility to machines. Three lines of thinking that motivate this stance are distinguished, and their potential shortcomings and theoretical implications are considered.Peer reviewe

When Reporters get Hands-on with Robo-writing: Professionals Consider Automated Journalism’s Capabilities and Consequences

The availability of data feeds, the demand for news on digital devices, and advances in algorithms are helping to make automated journalism more prevalent. This article extends the literature on the subject by analysing professional journalists’ experiences with, and opinions about, the technology. Uniquely, the participants were drawn from a range of news organizations—including the BBC, CNN, and Thomson Reuters—and had first-hand experience working with robo-writing software provided by one of the leading technology suppliers. The results reveal journalists’ judgements on the limitations of automation, including the nature of its sources and the sensitivity of its “nose for news”. Nonetheless, journalists believe that automated journalism will become more common, increasing the depth, breadth, specificity, and immediacy of information available. While some news organizations and consumers may benefit, such changes raise ethical and societal issues and, counter-intuitively perhaps, may increase the need for skills—news judgement, curiosity, and scepticism—that human journalists embody

Automated journalism in UK local newsrooms: attitudes, integration, impact

Automated journalism is increasingly used to produce News content in UK local newsrooms. Although scholars have been discussing the disruptive potential of automation for journalism, little is known about how local media practitioners deploy and perceive automated journalism. This study aims to help fill this research gap using semi-structured interviews with media practitioners from four local news companies. Each use automated content provided by the news automation service RADAR moderated by human journalists at RADAR itself. Typically RADAR identifies important national datasets on release and then uses a human journalist to create an algorithm to analyse the data for local variations. This material is then made available through a subscription service to the end user, the local newsroom. It is for the local newsroom teams to decide what is relevant to their audiences. Our findings show that local journalists evaluate automated journalism based on several occupational influences, that they integrate RADAR’s automated journalism into their own editorial outputs in various ways, and that the use of this automated journalism is having an impacts on shaping local nes agendas and newsroom performance. Our evidence also shows that whilst most media practitioners perceive a limited relevance of automated journalism for local news reporting and continue to stress the importance of human agency in the journalism workflow, what they report is conversely a shift in their practices which actually suggests that automated journalism has greater impact than they are currently willing to acknowledge