Assistance or Resistance? Evaluating the Intersection of Automated Journalism and Journalistic Role Conceptions

Newsrooms are a social context in which numerous relationships exist and influence news work - be it with other journalists, the audience, and technology. As some of these relations change due to technological innovations, new hybrid contexts - technologies that are interwoven with newsroom values, routines, and socio-cultural experiences - can emerge. One key question is how journalists conceptualise and interact with such technologies, and to what degree they retain (creative) agency in the process. Therefore, this study evaluates the intersection of automated journalism and journalistic role conceptions. Using Hanitzsch’s and Vos’s circular model of journalistic roles (2017) and Deuze's understanding of journalism as an ideology (2005) as a theoretical framework, this study examines some of the discursive aspects of automated journalism by asking: To what extent are journalistic roles (a) challenged or (b) advanced as a result of automated journalism? Our findings more closely align with the latter, pointing to a strong sense of discursive maintenance of journalists’ roles and their core skillset and thus suggesting a high degree of ideological continuity in the face of industrial disruption. It concludes with an agenda for future research and stresses that at times when journalism and automation intersect, the field would benefit from incorporating emerging conceptual frameworks such as human–machine communication

Live blogs, sources, and objectivity: The contradictions of real-time online reporting

Live blogs, also known as live pages or streams, allow journalists to report on events, including breaking news stories, as they happen. Their prevalence and popularity make them an important format, through which many of the developments in contemporary journalism can be observed and analysed. Using the Egyptian revolution of 2011 as a case study, we carried out a large-scale content analysis across six national UK news publishers, to analyse the differences and similarities between live blogs (n=75), traditional online news articles (n=842), and print articles (n=148). The findings reveal significant differences, for example the extent to which live blogs quote their sources directly and, also, rely on previously-published media reports as a source. The findings demonstrate how, with the expansion of real-time online reporting, journalism may be becoming more transparent yet also more reflexive; prompting, perhaps, reassessments and even redefinitions of media plurality and journalistic objectivity

Out-of-the-box versus in-house tools: how are they affecting data journalism in Australia?

The proliferation of data journalism has enabled newsrooms to deploy technologies for both mundane and more sophisticated workplace tasks. To bypass long-term investment in developing data skills, out-of-the-box software solutions are commonly used. Newsrooms today are partially dependent on third-party platforms to build interactive and visual stories – but the business models of platforms are predisposed to changes, frequently inducing losses of stories. This article combines in-depth interviews and an ancillary survey to study the status quo and identify future challenges in embracing out-of-the-box and in-house tools, and their impact on Australian data journalism. Results indicate a dichotomy between commercial and public service media organisations. Commercial outlets are heavily reliant on out-of-the-box solutions to develop stories, due to a lack of skillsets and a shortage of skilled labour. By contrast, public service media are developing their own in-house solutions, which reflects their desire for the continuous digital preservation of data stories despite the challenges identified

Automated journalism: expendable or supplementary for the future of journalistic work?

Automated journalism, or robo-journalism, is a relatively novel, but growing phenomenon in which journalistic texts are created based on set and clearly defined algorithms. Such output requires clean, structured and reliable data to safeguard the accuracy of the generated text. At this stage in its evolution, the use of automated journalism in newsrooms is still somewhat limited to sports and financial news. However, given the increased sophistication of the technology, future uptakes are to be expected. This shift raises pressing questions for journalistic accountability, ethics and transparency, and has led to concerns about the future of journalistic work if human journalists are potentially replaceable in beats prone to automation. This chapter discusses the value of artificial intelligence for the creative economy, and journalism in particular, and provides an evidence-based assessment for such predictions. It further contributes topical insights into the future of a creative industry characterised by precarious employment patterns