Abstract

The perception that exists in the professional and academic sector about the use of artificial intelligence in journalism is analyzed. The work has been developed over eleven months through interviews with heads of innovation from several national media (N=10) and university professors (N=10) and questionnaires to journalists (N=251) and students of Journalism and Audiovisual Communication (N=194). The results show a coincidence in both discourses in that this technology will not have a negative impact on the journalistic labor market. There is also a consensus that the quality of automated news presents some important shortcomings, as well as the need to bet on a solid training of journalists that integrates the use of emerging technologies.

Abstract

Journalism has been able to adapt quickly to technological innovation, especially in recent years. The application of algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) to this discipline is a phenomenon that has developed rapidly in a very short time. This is therefore a research area that, in spite of its short life, deserves special interest. The objective of this review article is to map and analyze the global scientific production on this topic and to identify which countries are most focused on this issue, which areas are studied most and using which methodological approaches, how and where it is evolving, and the gaps present in this research. The review of 358 texts confirms the considerable attention from academia during the last decade, especially between 2015 and 2020, and that the USA is, by far, the country with most publications on this subject. Most of the published works are research articles carried out, above all, using qualitative methodologies. The areas that have attracted the most interest to date are data journalism, robot writing, and news verification. As is to be expected in a developing discipline, others such as the review of the role of the journalist, the personalization of content, or the incorporation of AI into teaching of journalism have not yet been sufficiently explored but surely will be in the near future.

Abstract

High technology is driving most of the innovation and debates in journalism today. Artificial intelligence and journalism are walking hand in hand in the current phase, defined by processes of digitization. Studies on the state of the art of such technology in the media reveal a clear tendency towards the use of more sophisticated tools. Furthermore, this research highlights how journalists are increasingly using such approaches in challenging situations. This shift has thus led to more debate on the threats and opportunities of the introduction of such technologies into a communication ecosystem that is already in need of models that can produce high-quality information. This study thus describes the state of the art on the integration of high technology into daily routines in the media.

Abstract

As artificial intelligence (AI) gains space in the media, public broadcasters are testing and experimenting with these technologies to raise their services to the new standards of the audiovisual ecosystem. From algorithms that help recommend the most suitable content for users, to others that detect news and automate some of the tasks of journalists, these tools are increasingly present in public audiovisual corporations. The data were obtained from semi-structured in-depth interviews with a convenience sample of 15 corporations from 12 countries. The results reflect a heterogeneous application of artificial intelligence in corporations, oriented towards the automatic creation of content from structured data, the improvement of audience interaction through chatbots, and personalisation or verification. The implementation of these technologies also poses major challenges. Firstly, the economic cost of adapting these systems to each corporation and the difficulties in hiring experts to develop AI solutions prevent a complete deployment of these tools in public broadcasters. As main conclusions, we have understood that AI as a “culture” is believed to be vital for the public audiovisual services of the future, although its application is still far from being a standard and generally does not occupy a relevant strategic position in the innovation departments of corporations.