Description of the project
Firstly, the project explored audience perceptions of automated journalism. Many of the quantitative studies that had been carried out previously were limited by small and unrepresentative samples, the experimental stimuli used, and the questions asked. Therefore, we conducted exploratory qualitative research to properly understand how readers evaluated automated journalism. That knowledge fed into the development of our survey, which was fielded to a large and representative sample of readers. We explored the effects of different levels of automation—from human-written through co-created to highly-automated—and minimized confounding variables by using a wide range of stories that were relevant to readers’ interests and ensuring that the differently authored stories were in the same genre and based on the same underlying data.
This project also began the process of exploring how local news media can adopt AI responsibly. We investigated the use of—and potential for—AI in local journalism; built an interdisciplinary consortium and network of industry collaborators; secured further funding; and began work on the follow-up, VolkswagenStiftung-funded project “Towards responsible AI for local journalism”.
Finally, the project explored the use and consequences of automated journalism in newsrooms internationally. Leveraging the international, comparative Worlds of Journalism Study project, we developed questions about the use of automated news writing and content personalization that were fielded to journalists in over 70 countries. Preliminary analysis of the data from one country indicates journalists working in newsrooms where such automation is used have higher levels of job insecurity and lower levels of editorial autonomy. Further analyses are planned using the full international dataset.
Keywords
Adoption & consequences of computational journalisms | Responsible AI for local journalism | Audience perceptions of automated journalism
LMU research areas involved
The project includes several research projects within LMU. That's because it's great and very interdisciplinary.
