OJSS Home

2022 - Volume 6 - Number 1

Stepping Towards Technological Innovation in Journalism: Barriers for the Use of Artificial Intelligence and Automation in Developing Newsrooms

Sadia Jamil * sadia.jamil@ymail.com * ORCID: 0000-0003-0524-7355
Asian Media Information & Communication Centre, AMIC Country Representative, UAE (Former postdoctoral fellow Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi, UAE)

Open Journal for Sociological Studies, 2022, 6(1), 27-34 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.32591/coas.ojss.0601.03027j
Received: 11 May 2022 ▪ Revised: 10 July 2022 ▪ Accepted: 12 July 2022

LICENCE: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

ARTICLE (Full Text - PDF)

ABSTRACT:
The impacts of digital technology on news media industry manifest itself in different parts of the world. Many big media organizations, in developed Western countries, are now using AI technology and automation in their newsrooms. This is somehow not the case in developing countries that confront multi-facet challenges to embrace AI-related technological advancements in their news ecologies. This study specifically focuses on the case of Pakistan’s mainstream news media. Despite economic and technological constraints, the country’s news media is considered as vibrant and vocal within South Asia with massive expansion in the past fifteen years. Nevertheless, it is still in nascent stage in terms of technological advancements in news media industry. Therefore, using diffusion of innovation theory, this study aims to address issues in the adoption of AI technology and automation by Pakistan’s mainstream news media. To achieve this aim, this study employs the qualitative method of in-depth interviews. Findings suggests that the adoption of AI technology and automation is not without potential challenges at various stages of the diffusion of technological innovation. The Pakistani journalists from the Urdu language’s newspapers, regardless of their age and gender, are substantially resistant to accept technological innovations as compared to their colleagues from television news channels and English-language’s newspapers. This study highlights that the Pakistani journalists’ lack of awareness and their limited interest into AI-driven transformations underpin their resistance and fear to adopt technological innovations in routine practice. Interviewed journalists, regardless of their gender and age, express their concern that the use of automated journalistic tools can result in job redundancy in local news media ecology. This study highlights other obstacles too for the adoption of AI-driven journalistic practice in Pakistan’s mainstream news media including: economic and technological constraints, a lack of journalists’ training and an absence of government’s strategies and policies to deploy AI technology in news media industry like other sectors in Pakistan, and the country’s existing digital divide.

KEY WORDS: Artificial Intelligence (AI), journalism, media, automation.

CORRESPONDING AUTHOR:
Sadia Jamil, Asian Media Information & Communication Centre, AMIC Country Representative, UAE. E-mail: sadia.jamil@ymail.com.

REFERENCES:

Ali, W., & Hassoun, M. (2019). Artificial intelligence and automated journalism: Contemporary challenges and new opportunities. International Journal of Media, Journalism and Mass Communications, 5(1), 40-49.

Bernard, M. (2013). Big Data and Robots – Together They Might Challenge You for Your Job. KPI Library. http://kpilibrary.com/topics/big-data-and-robots-together-they-might-challengeyou-for-your-job.

Carlson, M. (2015). The Robotic Reporter: Automated journalism and the redefinition of labor, compositional forms, and journalistic authority. Digital Journalism, 3(3), 416-431.

Caswell, D., & Dorr, K. (2018). Automated Journalism 2.0: Event-driven narratives. Journalism Practice, 12(4), 477-496.

Chawla, V. (2020). Why Google Wants Journalists to Learn Machine Learning? https://analyticsindiamag.com/why-google-wants-journalists-to-learn-machine-learning/.

Diakopoulos, N. (2019a). Automating the news: How algorithms are rewiring the media. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Diakopoulos, N. (2019b). Towards a design orientation on algorithms and automation in news production. Digital Journalism, 7(8), 1180-1184. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2019.1682938

Hansen, M., Roca-Sales, M., Keegan, J., & King, G. (2017). Artificial intelligence: Practice and implications for journalism. Tow Centre for Digital Journalism, Columbia Journalism School, New York. https://towcenter.org/research/artificial-intelligence-practiceandimplications-for-journalism/.

Jamil, S. (2022). Evolving newsrooms and second level of digital divide: Implications for journalistic practice in Pakistan. Journalism Practice (published online first on 27th January). https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2022.2026244

Jamil, S. (2021a). Automated journalism and the freedom of media: Legal and ethical implications in competitive authoritarian regime. Journalism Practice (published online first on 1st October). https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2021.1981148

Jamil, S. (2021b). The monitored watchdogs: Journalists’ surveillance and its repercussions for their professional and personal lives in Pakistan. Journalism Studies, 22(7), 878-895.

Jamil, S. (2020). A widening digital divide and its implications for democracy and social inequalities in Pakistan. In M. Ragnedda & A. Gladkova (Eds), Digital inequalities in the global south (pp. 59-78). London: Palgrave MacMillan.

Jamil, S. (2019). Mobile phone usage and its socio-economic impacts in Pakistan. In Xiaoge Xu (Ed.). Impacts of mobile use and experience on contemporary society (pp. 112-127). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.

Lewis, S. C., Guzman, A., & Schmidt, T. (2019). Automation, Journalism, and Human– Machine Communication: Rethinking Roles and Relationships of Humans and Machines in News. Digital Journalism 7 (4), 409-427. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2019.1577147

Lewis, S. C., Sanders, A., & Carmody, C. (2018). Libel by algorithm? Automated journalism and the threat of legal liability. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 96(1), 60-81. http://jonathanstray.com/papers/Lewis%20-%20Libel%20by%20Algorithm.pdf.

Linden, C. (2017a). Algorithms for Journalism. The Journal of Media Innovations, 4(1), 60-76.

Linden, C. (2017b). Decades of automation in the newsroom: Why are there still so many jobs in journalism? Digital Journalism, 5(2), 123-140.

Newman, N. (2018). Journalism, Media, and Technology Trends and Predictions. Digital news project. https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/our-research/journalism-media-and-technologytrends-and-predictions-2019.

Smith, A., & Anderson, J. (2014). AI, robotics, and the future of jobs. Pew Research Center. http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/08/06/future-of-jobs/.

Smith, R., & Eckroth, J. (2017). Building AI Applications: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. AI Magazine (Spring). https://www2.stetson.edu/~jeckroth/downloads/smith-eckroth-2017.pdf.