Santosh Kumar Biswal, Anand J. Kulkarni - Exploring The Intersection of Artificial Intelligence and Journalism - The Emergence of A New Journalistic Paradigm (2024, Routledge India) - Libgen - Li

“Technology has always been a disruptor of the status-quo and creator of
new paradigms. News media has experienced this change from the beginning.
The latest entrant in the long list of disruptive technologies is AI, which is
changing the media ecology with great speed. New forms of journalism are
being created. New questions related to journalistic ethics are emerging in the
light of intersection of AI and journalism. This book, one of the pioneers in
this domain, discusses these issues and attempts to answer some of the emerg-
ing questions. It is useful for understanding what AI is doing and can do in
the field of journalism and other social studies and how one should effectively
engage with it.”
Professor Mrinal Chatterjee, Regional
Director, Indian Institute of Mass
Communication, Odisha, India
“Generative Artificial Intelligence is very easy to use, which has led to its
rapid uptake and current widespread use. With it, however, comes a series of
very important considerations. As automatic text generation becomes increas-
ingly sophisticated and nearly indistinguishable from an author’s creation,
questions of ethics, copyright, truthfulness of information, and provability of
statements come to the forefront. This book provides an intriguing set of pos-
sibilities, and a novel journey into uncharted territory that is both compelling
and realistic. It is an enjoyable, thought-provoking read.”
Professor Luigi Benedicenti, Dean, Faculty
of Computer Science, University of New
Brunswick, Canada
Exploring the Intersection of Artificial
Intelligence and Journalism
This book studies the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in journalism. It traces
the origin, growth and development of the media and communication industry
in the globalized world and discusses the implications of technologies such
as augmented reality, virtual reality and extended reality, which have helped
foster a communication revolution across the globe. The volume discusses
technology-centric media theories in the context of AI and examines whether
AI has been a boon or bane for data journalism. It also looks at artificial
intelligence in beat reporting and citizen journalism and analyses the social–
cultural implications of artificial intelligence-driven journalism and the
ethical concerns arising from it.
As an important contribution this book will be indispensable for students
and researchers of media studies, communication studies, journalism, social
media, technology studies and digital humanities. It will also be useful for
media professionals.
Santosh Kumar Biswal (PhD), Associate Professor and Head, Department

of Journalism and Mass Communication, Rama Devi Women’s University,
Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India.
Anand J Kulkarni (PhD), Professor and Associate Director, Institute of

Artificial Intelligence, MIT World Peace University, Pune, Maharashtra,
India.
Exploring the Intersection
of Artificial Intelligence
and Journalism
The Emergence of a New Journalistic
Paradigm
Santosh Kumar Biswal and

Anand J Kulkarni
First published 2024
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2024 Santosh Kumar Biswal and Anand J Kulkarni
The right of Santosh Kumar Biswal and Anand J Kulkarni to be identified as
authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Biswal, Santosh Kumar, 1979- author. | Kulkarni, Anand Jayant,
author.
Title: Exploring the intersection of artificial intelligence and journalism:
the emergence of a new journalistic paradigm / Santosh Kumar Biswal,
Anand J. Kulkarni.
Description: London; New York: Taylor & Francis, 2024. | Includes
bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2023044159 (print) | LCCN 2023044160 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781032716893 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032716886 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781032716879 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Journalism–Technological innovations. | Artificial
intelligence. | Journalism–Objectivity.
Classification: LCC PN4784.T34 B57 2024 (print) | LCC PN4784.T34 (ebook)
| DDC 070.4/3–dc23/eng/20231017
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023044159
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023044160
ISBN: 978-1-032-71689-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-71688-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-71687-9 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781032716879
Typeset in Sabon
by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
The authors dedicate this book to their parents. Also, love to
Anand’s son Nityay and Santosh’s daughter Nivanshi.
Contents
Author Biographies xi
Foreword xiii
Preface xv
1 Introduction to Journalism: The Journey and Experience

from Stone Carving to ChatGPT 1
2 Understanding Artificial Intelligence 19
3 From Stone Carving to ChatGPT: Understanding the

Changing Role of Technologies in Journalism 23
4 Deliberating Theoretical Justifications in the Prism

of Journalism and Artificial Intelligence: A Revisit of
Theories in Media and Communication 51
5 Situating Artificial Intelligence in the Space of

Development Journalism: A Revisit of Development
Communication 72
6 Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism:

Situating the Changing Nature of Technologies in the
Ecology of News Media 96
7 Data Journalism and Artificial Intelligence: Interrogating

the Data with Machine 119
8 Data Journalism with Artificial Intelligence: An

Ambivalence of Good and Bad 151

x Contents
9 Artificial Intelligence in Fostering Citizen Journalism:

Investigating the New Form of Participatory Journalism 181
10 Deliberating Artificial Intelligence in the Prism of Citizen

Journalism: Comparative Perspectives and Competing
Explanations 210
11 Socio-cultural and Economic Implications of Artificial

Intelligence on Society: Understanding the Mediating
Role of Journalism 239
12 Incorporation of Artificial Intelligence into Newsrooms:

Negotiating with Newer Ethical Issues and
Responsibilities in Journalism 252
13 Foundations, Ferment and Future of Artificial Intelligence

in Journalism 274
Index 291
Author Biographies
Santosh Kumar Biswal is an Associate Professor and Head of the Department

of Journalism and Mass Communication at Rama Devi Women’s
University, Bhubaneswar (India). He holds a PhD from Osmania
University, Hyderabad (India), on the representation of the disabled in
print media in India. He was the topper and gold medalist in his mas-
ter’s program. He has worked at the Symbiosis Institute of Media and
Communication, Symbiosis International (Deemed University), Pune
(India) from 2015 to 2022. Previously, he worked at the Andhra Loyola
College (Autonomous), Vijayawada (2009–2014) and Hindustan Times,
New Delhi (2006–2009). He has coedited two books: Social and Cultural
Dynamics in Indian Cinema (2020) and Holistic Approaches to Brand
Culture and Communication Across Industries (2018). He has published a
number of research papers in ABDC and Scopus-indexed journals. He has
published business cases on reputed platforms including SAGE. He has also
published a number of popular columns in national English dailies includ-
ing The Indian Express, The Asian Age, The Telegraph, Hindustan Times,
The Pioneer, The Statesman and Deccan Chronicle. He has contributed
MOOCs for SWAYAM and e-PG Pathshala – MHRD, Government of
India. He has delivered 15 radio talks at Rainbow Krishnaveni FM (102.2
MHz), All India Radio (AIR), Vijayawada Station, Andhra Pradesh, India
(2012–2014). Currently, he is the Associate Editor of Media Watch, a
media and communication journal.
Anand J Kulkarni is currently working as Professor and Associate Director
of the Institute of Artificial Intelligence at MITWPU, Pune, India. He
holds a PhD in Distributed Optimization from Nanyang Technological
University, Singapore; MS in Artificial Intelligence from the University
of Regina, Canada; Bachelor of Engineering from Shivaji University,
India; and Diploma from the Board of Technical Education, Mumbai. He
worked as a Research Fellow at Odette School of Business, University
of Windsor, Canada. Anand worked with Symbiosis International
University, Pune, India, for over six years (2014–2021). His research inter-
ests include optimization algorithms, multiobjective optimization, contin-
uous, discrete and combinatorial optimization, swarm optimization and

xii Author Biographies
self-organizing systems. He pioneered optimization methodologies such

as Cohort Intelligence, Ideology Algorithm, Expectation Algorithm and
Socio Evolution and Learning Optimization Algorithm. He is the founder
of Optimization and Agent Technology Research Lab and has published
over 70 research papers in peer-reviewed reputed journals, chapters and
conferences along with 5 authored and 15 edited books. He also writes
on AI for several newspapers and magazines. He has delivered expert
research talks in countries such as the United States, Canada, Singapore,
Malaysia, India and France.
Foreword
The intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and journalism is a rapidly

evolving field that has the potential to revolutionize the way we produce and
consume news. This book explores the latest research on the use of AI in
journalism, from fact-checking to automated reporting. It also discusses the
ethical and legal challenges that need to be addressed as AI becomes more
integrated into the news media. It attempts to understand the paradigm shifts
in journalism.
The book begins by providing an overview of the history of AI and its
potential applications in journalism. It then discusses the challenges and
opportunities that AI presents for the news media. One of the biggest chal-
lenges is the potential for AI to be used to spread misinformation. AI-powered
bots can be used to generate fake news articles and social media posts that
are difficult to distinguish from real content. This can have a serious impact
on public discourse and democracy. Another challenge is the ethical implica-
tions of using AI in journalism. For example, should AI be used to automate
the process of fact-checking? And who is responsible for the accuracy of
AI-generated content?
This book unravels the space of AI in development communication and
development journalism. It deliberates on the dimensions of citizen journal-
ism, which has become the larger discourse in media and communication. It
also discusses the opportunities that AI presents for journalism. For example,
AI can be used to automate tasks such as data collection and analysis, freeing
up journalists to focus on more creative and investigative work. AI can also
be used to personalize news content for individual users. The book concludes
by calling for a responsible and ethical approach to the use of AI in journal-
ism. The authors argue that AI can be a powerful tool for informing and
empowering the public, but it is important to use it in a way that respects
human values.
I believe this book is an important contribution to the field of journalism.
It provides a comprehensive overview of the latest research on the use of AI
in journalism and raises important ethical and legal questions that need to
be addressed. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the future of
journalism.

xiv Foreword
I hope this book will inspire readers to learn more about the intersection
of AI and journalism and contribute to the development of this exciting field.
I also hope this book will encourage future researchers to explore the ethical
and legal challenges of using AI in journalism. This is a complex and chal-
lenging field, but it is also one with the potential to make a real difference in
the world.
Pratyush Ranjan
Senior Journalist, Head of Digital Services,
Multimedia, Social Media and Fact Checking
Press Trust of India, India
Preface
It was the year 2018. We were then working with Symbiosis International
(Deemed University), Pune (India). We heard about the world’s first artificial
intelligence (AI) news anchor. China’s state news agency Xinhua could do
this. News was all around about the use of AI in journalism. We were think-
ing of writing a book on this subject. Moreover, our association with journal-
ism and technology for around two decades was another factor behind this
book. The idea for the book was materialized when we met each other in the
campus of Symbiosis. Santosh and Anand were from Symbiosis Institute of
Media and Communication and Symbiosis Institute of Technology, respec-
tively, from the same university campus of Symbiosis.
The book could emerge from our observation and discussions that were
taking place on a global scale. We could realize that change is the only thing
that is constant in journalism. With the advent of newer communication tech-
nologies, the academic and practice of journalism are ceaselessly undergoing
numerous changes. Modern communication technologies such as augmented
reality, virtual reality, AI, machine learning, metaverse and blockchain have
started influencing the journalistic practice, which precisely include the ecol-
ogy of journalism – production, distribution and consumption of news. AI,
one of the major technologies, has added value to the existing state of jour-
nalism. There are several reasons why the incorporation of AI tools in jour-
nalism is increasingly becoming worthy. So, understanding, examining and
evaluating the assimilation of AI techniques with journalism remains crucial.
The journey of writing this book was a learning curve for both of us.
In this book, we attempt to critically explain the use of AI in various
facets of journalism. Introduction to journalism; understanding artificial
intelligence; understanding the changing role of technologies in journalism;
revisiting theories in media and communication; development journalism in
the age of AI; changing nature of technologies in the ecology of news media;
data journalism and artificial intelligence; artificial intelligence and citizen
journalism; sociocultural implications of AI-driven journalism; ethical issues
and responsibilities in AI-driven journalism; and foundations, ferment and
future of AI in journalism have been discussed. We hope that the insights
and arguments deliberated in the book will facilitate and foster debates and
engagements among academics and industry persons.

1 Introduction to Journalism
The Journey and Experience from Stone
Carving to ChatGPT
1.1 Introduction
“Artificial Intelligence” (AI) is the buzz word in the world today. Usually,
when people hear the word AI, they tend to think of robots. AI refers to the
simulation of human intelligence by employing software-encoded heuristics.
Today, this code is extensively used in everything from cloud-based enter-
prise applications to consumer applications to embedded firmware. AI has
the ability to meet human being’s requirements through technical solutions.
Solutions could be in the form of text, images and videos or a combina-
tion of all these three. AI has numerous applications in different industries
and fields, each with the capability to reduce human effort by automating
and doing everything through machine algorithms. Predictive analytics and
AI will unquestionably play a greater role in content creation and software
development in the future. AI has started transforming industries and help-
ing solve complex problems, and many predict that such trends will continue
unabated.
The uses of AI are endless. This technology can be applied in many fields
and industries. AI has a wide range of applications in today's society. AI
is making our daily lives easier and faster. It is becoming more and more
important in modern times as it enables us to solve complex problems using
competent methods in varied industries such as education, business and mar-
keting, healthcare, astronomy, entertainment, finance, travel, tourism, media
and communications, automotive, agriculture, gaming, data security and the
like. For instance, the implications of AI tools in the field of education are
apparent. AI tools can address the issues in the field of teaching, education
and pedagogy and transform the field which could ultimately expedite the
progress toward the realization of sustainable development goals. However,
speedy technological development inevitably brings with it many challenges
that so far go beyond political debates and regulatory frameworks. UNESCO
attempts to help the member states to recognize the potential of AI technol-
ogy and apply it to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Education with the princi-
ples of inclusiveness and equity.
Essentially, UNESCO’s mandate for human-driven method to AI is praise-
worthy. The role of AI in mitigating today’s disparities, which can deliver
DOI: 10.4324/9781032716879-1
equity to access to holistic development comprising knowledge, technological

developments and cultural freedom. This further fosters a sense of diversity
in the spheres among global citizens. The clarion call “AI for All” envisages
the advantages of technological innovations for each and everyone on the
globe (UNESCO, 2022a). Precisely, AI needs to be inclusive in nature. Like
in the field of education, the presence of AI in the domain of media and com-
munication, in general, and journalism, in particular, is getting prominent.
The uses and gratification of journalism is not a new concept. From ancient
times to modern cyber era, journalism has implications on human society.
Humans crave for news and events that are happening around. Journalism
acting as the fourth estate, remains a watchdog (McNair, 2009). News con-
sumption was also existed in ancient times. The journey of journalism with
the help of stone carving to ChatGPT, an AI tool has been dynamic and ever
insightful.
Whatever the form of journalism, whether it is print, electronic or digi-
tal, the basics of journalism remain the same. In this context, understanding
the fundamentals of journalism is of paramount importance. Encyclopedia
Britannica (2022) defines,
“journalism, the collection, preparation, and distribution of news and

related commentary and feature materials through such print and elec-
tronic media as newspapers, magazines, books, blogs, webcasts, pod-
casts, social networking and social media sites, and e-mail as well as
through radio, motion pictures, and television. The word journalism
was originally applied to the reportage of current events in printed
form, specifically newspapers, but with the advent of radio, television,
and the Internet in the 20th century the use of the term broadened to
include all printed and electronic communication dealing with current
affairs.”
Going beyond, American Press Institute (2022) defines,
“journalism is the activity of gathering, assessing, creating, and pre-

senting news and information. It is also the product of these activities.
Journalism can be distinguished from other activities and products by
certain identifiable characteristics and practices. These elements not
only separate journalism from other forms of communication, they are
what make it indispensable to democratic societies. History reveals that
the more democratic a society, the more news and information it tends
to have.”
The gathering, assembling and presentation of news are the fundamentals of

journalism. Even though journalists are engaged in creating a variety of con-
tents, these contents are facts-driven. These are nonfiction material in nature.
Additionally, journalists typically work for a news organization that compiles
Introduction to Journalism 3
their work and distributes it to the general audience. So, for instance, a non-
fiction piece on a current election would be considered as a journalistic piece.
The exact timing of the information presented in a journalism piece varies
greatly, but in general, it will be connected to something current enough
to potentially have an impact on readers’ lives. When conducting research
for a story in journalism, biases are not allowed to enter the equation. For
each story that is covered, it is necessary to gather competing viewpoints and
convey both of them without having one’s personal perspective influence the
article. The audience is able to create their own opinions as a result.
Journalism is one of the industries with the broadest range of opportuni-
ties. If one wants to pursue and succeed in this field, they must be willing
to dabble in a wide range of diverse things on a regular basis. Information
gathering, analysis and dissemination are all steps in the journalism process.
This indicates that it is a profession with a significant social responsibility
component. Because of this, journalists must adhere to the highest ethical
standards, including independence from all commercial or political interests
and accuracy, balance, objectivity and truthfulness.
In order to inform and educate the readers and viewers and shaping up
the public policies, journalism attempts to help people comprehend various
issues and development of society. In addition, there is a desire to amuse,
though it is still secondary. Therefore, the purpose of journalism is to present
reality in the most lucid and accurate way possible. It helps maintain public
trust and engagement in the institutions that shape their lives by encourag-
ing public discourse, examining pertinent problems of public concern and
holding decision-makers responsible. Whatever the event to be covered, jour-
nalism has certain objectivity, which needs to be adhered in the process of
production, distribution and consumption of news.
1.2 Objectivity of Journalism
Objectivity of journalism deserves due discussions. Journalists strive to con-
vey information to the audience that is pertinent to their daily lives when
they are writing articles. It is crucial that journalism is to be both accurate
and helpful (Harcup, 2009). An ethical journalism provides information on
people, events and topics that have an impact on society or on daily life.
Journalism is a vital component of a democratic society. In a democracy,
journalists have also the responsibility of making sure that the populace is
informed so that they may comprehend their government and cast their votes
accordingly. Journalism is essential for getting this information out to the
public so that voters can be aware of the candidates and the topics at stake in
their elections. Journalists can expose corruption and serve as whistleblowers
(Di Salvo, 2009) in addition to informing the voters. Countries with press
freedom typically do better than those with journalistic constraints. Countries
with severe press censorship are frequently not at all democratic in nature.
The objectives of journalism remain pious whatever the genres of journalism
are. There are some typical categories of news media reporters, along with
descriptions of their primary coverage areas. Recent newsworthy occurrences
are covered by breaking news reporters. They are considered generalists and
frequently write on a wide range of topics. When asked to define a reporter,
most people immediately think of these journalists. There are different types
of journalists, and their works are different in terms of nature and working
mechanism. It largely indicates the nature and forms of journalism.
1.3 Nature and Forms of Journalism

So far as the nature and forms of journalism are concerned, they are var-
ied. Broadly, different types of journalism include investigative journalism,
crime journalism, political journalism, civic journalism, lifestyle or celebrity
journalism, art and culture journalism, business journalism and sports jour-
nalism. Investigative journalists create in-depth and lengthy reports on top-
ics that the general public does not fully or adequately understand (Gaines,
2007). Investigative reporting typically, but not always, focuses on systemic
failure in the public or commercial sectors or corruption inside such institu-
tions. Criminal justice news is the primary focus of crime reporters. They
discuss criminal trends, court proceedings, arrests and how the public might
defend itself against various crimes.
Reporters who cover politics concentrate solely on political issues. Their
works cover political scandals, new laws, elections and other government-
related topics. The news that is important to health and healthcare is the
main emphasis of health and wellness journalists. Their articles cover themes
related to public health, including fresh information on various pharmaceu-
ticals, nutrition trends and research into various disorders.
Culture, media and leisure are the main topics covered by arts and lifestyle
reporters. These journalists write articles on topics including interior design,
food, movie reviews and advice columns. Lifestyle or celebrity reporters
cover influential persons, such as actors, musicians and bloggers. They might
speak with their subjects in-person or just write a report on their most recent
deeds. The objective of editorial, opinion and op-ed writers is frequently to
persuade the readers to share their opinions by writing articles with a bla-
tant, declared slant. While some media outlets employ opinion writers full
time, others rely on freelancers to provide this type of content. Whatever
the formats of journalism, knowing the origin and growth of journalism is
imperative.
1.4 Origin and Development of Journalism

Journalism is not a recent phenomenon. The era of journalism started with
Acta Diurna in 59 BC. Acta Diurna was a daily official announcement of the
Roman government written in Latin on stone or metal plates and dissemi-
nated in various platforms (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1911). The times have
changed the nature and implications of journalism. The passage of journalism
from the era of stone craving to social media and then from times of social
media to artificial intelligence and ChatGPT has been fascinating, yet some-
times unpredictable. The technology-based journalism media has enhanced
the flow of news, and subsequently the production, consumption and distri-
bution of news have substantially increased (Widholm, 2019). However, a
study finds that interests for and consumption of news among younger and
older generations are different from each other (Boulianne & Shehata, 2022).
For this evolving pattern, social media has immense implications. Thanks to
social media driven by technologies.
Social media has started providing personalized news contents along with
pictures, videos and gaming for free of cost (Westcott et al., 2022). The use of
social media for news is prevalent more among younger people. Social media
and digital media have strengthened local news media outlets (Newman et
al., 2021). Thanks to the diverse nature and pattern of geography, language,
demographic to which the news consumers belong to. With the proliferation
digital media, the 24-hour news flow has been intensified. The convergence
media has further propelled the pace of production, distribution and con-
sumption of news. Especially, digital media has given birth to citizen journal-
ism which is of the citizens, by the citizens and for the citizens. Such forms of
journalism has democratized news among citizens on a wider scale. Overall,
the media and communication industry keeps on experiencing persistent
changes. With the passage of time and ceaseless applications of communica-
tion technologies, socio-economic, business and cultural dimensions of jour-
nalism are experiencing changes.
Metaverse is a part of technological innovations in the field of journalism.
Metaverse provides ample opportunities in newer forms to the ecology of
journalism. Journalism through this technology enables news reporting in
a virtual reality (VR) environment. It is seen as an evolution of traditional
journalism, enabling and empowering reporters to deliver more immersive
and engaging stories and experiences to their audiences. Metaverse provides
ample opportunities to change the process of news reporting and dissemina-
tion. Such technologies equip the reporters to conduct and cover the events
in virtual space. Precisely, with the assistance of such technologies, audiences
are experiencing immersive journalism. Thanks to the information and com-
munication technologies.
With the assistance from metaverse, immersive journalism has become
possible. Immersive journalism is a subcategory of journalism, which uses
augmented reality (AR) technology to immerse the viewers in stories. This
allows the viewer to better understand the meaning of the information and
delve deeper into the narrative setting. The course of storytelling and report-
ing are subsequently changed with the interventions from immersive tech-
nologies. Immersive technology has the ability to reconstruct storytelling and
reporting. The Weather Channel (TWC), based on the technologies of mixed
reality, tends to broadcast natural calamities including tornadoes and floods
(Forbes, 2020).
Augmented reality (AR) can give readers a real sense of context and brings
to life topics to the viewers. Without AR tools, viewers won’t be able to
experience such topics and contexts. This renders the viewers of news with
feelings. Virtual reality (VR) enables the reporters to add and strengthen the
scope of reporting. Such technologies are impactful in the domain of journal-
ism. Precisely, metaverse is an immersive form of storytelling and interactive
communication that could have a profound impact on journalism and media
professionals.
ChatGPT, the latest addition of technological tool in the arena of com-
munication technologies, has started influencing the domain of journalism.
This AI tool can analyze news articles, social media posts and other rel-
evant sources to gain a deeper understanding and comprehension of spe-
cific topics. This comprehensive perspective facilitates more detailed and
insightful reporting, enabling journalists to provide their readers with a
deeper understanding of complex issues. This AI tool helps the editors and
reporters understand the news quickly and decide how to cover it at the
same time. For instance, give a long document to ChatGPT and it will find
big topics quickly and apparently reliably. Some newsroom working groups
have developed guidelines and are exploring how journalists can use the
chatbots.
This AI tool has implications for everything from teaching and class-
room assignments to journalism and marketing. Suffice to say, we all know
from years of research that people are always using technology in ways the
developers or creators didn’t intend. For the betterment of society, govern-
ments and administrative agencies create rules, laws and regulations to limit
the malicious or dangerous use of technologies (Niemann Institute, 2023).
However, the use of ChatGPT has erupted new ethical, legal and theoreti-
cal questions in the arena of production, distribution and consumption of
news.
1.5 Socio-economic and Cultural Dimensions of Journalism

Journalism is becoming more a business and political term apart from a pop-
ular term in the field of media and communication, especially news media.
News media is being used for shaping up public opinion, which remains
an important factor for democratic countries. Citizens tend to know the
social realities through news content or journalistic productions. Luhmann
(1996, p. 1) has aptly mentioned, “Whatever we know about our society, or
indeed about the world in which we live, we know through the mass media.”
Media, especially news media, has pivotal roles to play in molding the public
opinion. Considered as the fourth pillars of democracy, media performs the
responsibility of awakening the people on social, economic, political and cul-
tural developments. The agenda of media should be positive in fostering har-
monious development in a given society. In this context, Santos, Carvalho,
and Portugal e Melo (2022, p. 45) assert,
“The media, therefore, earns the opportunity to perform its two main
duties: to manage contingency with the aim of reducing the complexity
of the social world and to couple with its environment and with other
social systems – for example, political and public opinion systems.”
Unfortunately, news media is being maliciously employed for the direction of

propaganda. Fake news is increasing day by day. Misinformation and disin-
formation are causing damages that are beyond repair. Focus on non-issues
in the form of propaganda is on the rise. News is unnecessarily politicized.
As a result, the news values are increasingly diluted. Social responsibility of
news media is being less prioritized. Journalism keeps on changing itself with
the pressure from political, social and economic manipulations.
With the changing pattern of media, new players have emerged and
eventually they are challenging the traditional gatekeepers of news media
(Wunsch-Vincent, 2010). Paywalls, a new pattern of news consumption,
could function as deterrents to the public. However, these are inevitable for
financial prosperity in journalism industry. A lead researcher Felix Simon
asserts,
“We see that a growing number of news organisations across Europe

and in the US are trying to find new, sustainable business models in
order to make up for the revenue shortfall caused by a rapidly changing
business environment. In this context, paywalls are increasingly popu-
lar with publishers, who are challenging the assumption that people
will not pay for digital news. At the same time, recent research shows
that the number of people willing to pay for news is slowly growing.
The challenge for news organizations now is to deliver such quality
content, and the kind of user experience and convenience that people
have come to expect from digital media, and to market their offers to
the many who are currently not paying for journalism, but might do so
in the future.”
(Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, n.d.)
Therefore, the issue of paywalls warrants a delicate and comprehensive solu-

tion. Many such situations raise and debate the ethical standards and the
dimensions of media laws globally in the space of journalism and news media.
1.6 Journalism and Ethical Standards

Ethical journalism occupies a special space in news media. Journalistic ethics
refer to ethics and journalistic practice applicable to news persons or journal-
ists. The UNESCO declaration (1978) instructed certain guidelines related
to media and journalism (Nordenstreng & Hannikainen, 1984). Journalists
should be honest, skilled, accurate and courageous in terms of collecting,
reporting and interpreting the facts or information. They should provide the
context while delivering the facts. They should collect and update the infor-
mation in a continuous manner.
Journalists should have the ability to collect the sources to be used in news
stories. They should provide voice to the voiceless. They should be vigilant
and should try to make the people accountable who possess and exercise
the power. Journalists should act as watchdogs of public affairs and govern-
mental mechanism to bring and raise the level of transparency. They should
not resort to stereotyping the facts which are to be consumed by the public.
They should not plagiarize, rather adequately attribute in the news stories.
Sometimes, self-regulation is imperative in the profession of journalism. It
could an effective tool in mitigating the issues in news media. By doing so,
journalists can be honest and accountable to the society. Ethical journal-
ism has the bearing on freedom of journalists who safeguard the interests of
society. However, journalism in contemporary times is suffering from varied
flaws.
The future of journalism and ethics in the era of ChatGPT is debatable.
While this technology can be used to automate the news editing process and
improve the speed and efficiency of news delivery, it poses varied challenges
to the ecology of news industries. As AI-generated content is increasingly
produced, distributed and consumed, the role of journalists and their respon-
sibility to ensure accuracy, impartiality and ethics has become of paramount
importance in the era of ChatGPT and other AI tools. As a result, journalism
will continue to play an important role in preserving democracy and serving
society.
1.7 Journalism, Yellow Journalism and Fake News

Yellow journalism based on misinformation and disinformation creates a
fabricated scenario of news among the audience. Such a form of journalism
attempts to deceive the news consumption in print, electronic and digital
forms. Sensationalizing the news is the core in yellow journalism. By exten-
sion, the term “yellow journalism” is now used as a derisive word to criticize
any journalism that handles news in an unethical or unprofessional manner.
Journalism is also suffering from fake news. Wardle (2017) has compre-
hensively categorized the fake news. It could be in the form of satire and/
or parody, erroneous connection, deceptive information, erroneous context,
impostor content, manipulating the content and manufactured content.
When false or half-baked information is delivered to the public, it is called
fake news. Through disinformation, false information is getting dissemi-
nated. Disinformation is getting rampant in the time of elections and business
communication worldwide. Misinformation of disinformation equally yields
repercussions on the audience.
With the recent growth of social media outlets, fake news is getting spi-
raled. Excessive employment of technologies, political conflicts and competi-
tions between business entities have infamously contributed to the increase
of fake news. AI techniques are being widely used in manufacturing digital

propaganda. Politicians use every means to win election campaigns. In addi-
tion to technocrats, political advisors and digital strategists are responsible
for the misuse of AI tools. AI tools are being exploited through old images
and videos simply to promote subversive political propaganda into society.
Deepfakes are used in many forms of manipulation using AI and machine
learning tools. Deepfakes, also known as synthetic media, can be used to
blackmail anyone. Extremist and hateful speech on online platforms is a
growing challenge for democratic societies around the world, and in this
digital age, misinformation and hate intersect on social media.
AI technology carries the ugly risk of generating and amplifying extreme
hate speech. Extremist statements on online platforms can pose a threat to
democratic societies around the world. The use of AI is not only heavily used
for extreme language, but it is also used to reinforce extreme language. The
output of algorithms can be inaccurate in all cases if applied blindly without
checking. Certain ethical issues that are not properly managed are on the rise.
As social media takes over the world, disinformation campaigns, fake news
and hacking are getting rampant. AI tools have created more room for disin-
formation and more room for hacking. Automated hacking is also increasing
day by day. AI and machine learning are used to launch cyberattacks against
computer systems. This can lead to physical attacks from antisocial elements.
Criminals, terrorists and others with bad intentions can abuse AI tools for
disinformation and hacking.
AI tools can do wonders and this could be malicious too. With the assis-
tance of AI tools, people’s faces can turn into celebrities and make it look like
they’re supposed to say things they never said. Now, you can find that many
of your friends’ faces available on social media platforms have turned into
faces of Bollywood or Hollywood heroes or heroines. Several social media
users apply Lensa AI for selfies. The users also use AI tools to manufacture
pictures in varied elegances. Lensa AI takes selfies of you, inspects them and
creates machine-based pictures of you or anyone that you or someone can
feed into social media outlets (The New York Times, 2022).
Use of AI tools in the field of journalism is a double-edged sword. It can
be a boon to the professional present in the news industry. Needless to say,
fake news is a constant threat to the truth. However, the scale of fake news
on digital platforms is proving to be deadly in digital discourse, with citizens
worldwide falling prey to deception. In this context, AI tools have proven
to help mitigate the threat of fake news. Tools such as The Factual, Check,
Logically, Full Fact, Fabula AI, Grover, Sensity AI, ClaimBuster, Adverif.a
i, Alto Analytics, Blackbird AI, Defudger and Bot Sentinel can examine the
negative impact of misinformation and disinformation (Trustedweb, n.d.).
Enabled by AI systems, The Factual checks the authenticity of messages. It
also helps to check and verify the credibility of journalists and news sources
as well. Check, a fact-checking tool, has customizable checking platform
options. It also has the ability to arrange information types based on the
users’ needs and requirements by flagging incorrect information. Logically,

you can check the facts and images in our free mobile app. The tool lever-
ages the AI technology to further assist the human fact-checkers and provide
faster service. Full Fact, a fact-checking tool that is inherently automated
by AI, can detect fake news. Based on AI tool, Fabula AI seeks to contain
the threat of fake news by detecting disinformation patterns on the inter-
net. Grover is an algorithm-based tool that checks for fake news by filtering
the language of posts. Language verification also combats misinformation
and disinformation. Equipped with a specific system, Sensity AI attempts to
detect deepfakes that are wildly used in reputational attacks, fake press and
many other fraudulent activities. ClaimBuster is a fact-checking tool that
can check text and written content. The tool is also equipped with advanced
political discussion monitoring mechanisms.
Adverif.ai is an AI tool that detects fake advertisements for users. After
checking and detecting inappropriate content, it also notifies users about fake
content. Alto Analytics can detect disinformation and deepfakes. Blackbird AI
is an AI tool that detects fake content used by governments and private organ-
izations on social media platforms. AI-based Defudgers attempt to inspect
visual content such as videos and images. Using blockchain technology, this
fact-checking tool tends to approve original visual content. Bot Sentinel, an
AI tool leverages the power of AI and machine learning to more accurately
detect fake content on social media. It goes without saying that curbing the
negative effects of fake news has started affecting the media ecosystem.
1.8 Artificial Intelligence, Audience and Media Analytics

Understanding the audience and analytics remain of paramount importance
in the field of journalism. AI tools have much to do in this context. The
advent of digital technology in news production has increasingly intertwined
with click-based and editorial goals, enabling news outlets to measure audi-
ence behavior and engagement in real time. Constant advances in AI tools are
allowing the editors to engage audiences in newsrooms with dedicated tools
like Chartbeat and Google Analytics.
With digital transition and monetizing the news contents, journalists
have started using AI tools to measure the number and nature of audience.
Founded in 2008, Social Blade assembles the data from various social media
outlets, which further helps in creating statistical analysis. This statistical
analysis is instrumental in registering one’s development. Usually, the data
and statistical analysis enable the organizations to predict and assess the
curve of growth. This platform has over 630,000 unique visitors each month.
Social Blade supports the clients through multiple channels. The organization
entertains the questions of users and provides customized response to them
(Social Blade, n.d.).
Social Blade provides all users access to public database. This database
uses cutting-edge technology to provide global analytics for any sort of
content creators, live streamer or brand. Whether you are looking for a pop-
ular YouTube creator or Twitch streamer playing a particular game, Social
Blade has the reach. The organization is constantly striving to expand our
functionality to give our users the best possible experience. It helps rate vid-
eos, find impact and help in growing one’s channel. Social Blade, at present,
follows YouTube, Twitter and other social media platforms. With the help
of data, this platform attempts to foster a sense of belongingness through
the creation and use of social media posts, newsletters and bloggings. The
organization’s website and homepage regularly feature one’s up-and-coming
YouTube creators. It attends industry events and host meetings to bring the
online community into his third dimension (Social Blade, 2008–2023).
One may see multiple different numbers because views can vary between
video watch pages, search pages and analytics. Thankfully, there’s a clear
explanation as to why these view counts seem different. YouTube Analytics
allows the brands to better monitor video viewing with real-time activity met-
rics. This number differs from video watch pages and search pages because
it provides an estimate of potential viewing activity based on video history.
This is possible thanks to AI tools. AI assists the brands to market their
products and services on social media outlets. AI tools also help to creatively
target the audience. One can mechanize the control of one’s contents includ-
ing news on social media platforms. And it supports most of what you see on
certain social networks. Social media posting and engagement are a core part
of most companies’ digital marketing strategies, and AI can help them do
better than ever. As AI tools learn from the data, one can know and act upon
who is the target audience and who can buy or subscribe to your product or
services with your customized messages.
Facebook uses progressive machine learning serving content to recogniz-
ing faces in photographs to navigating the users with ads. Instagram employs
AI tools to identify visual elements. LinkedIn uses AI to suggest job post-
ings and attempts to engage a community with other communities. Snapchat
harnesses the influence of computer visualization. AI technology assists one
to search for facial features that fit to one’s face (Marketing AI Research
Institute, 2022).
1.9 Journalism and Freedom Index of Journalists

The freedom index of journalism is a connected sphere in the realm of journal-
ism. The World Press Freedom Day observed on May 3 endorses and supports
media in the direction of press freedom. It reflects the fundamental princi-
ples of press freedom. World Press Freedom Day has been observed with the
announcement from UN General Assembly (UNESCO, 2022b). The impor-
tance of press freedom is required for several reasons. The theme of press
freedom has been observed since 1998. The themes of press freedom in 2021
and 2022 have been on “Information as a public good” and “Journalism
under digital siege” (United Nations, 2022). The theme highlights how
journalism is under increasing threat. Unnecessary surveillance can cause

damage to the safety of journalists by revealing sensitive private information.
Freedom of journalism reflects the spirit of democracy, which deserves further
discussion.
1.10 Journalism, Freedom of Press and Democracy

Freedom of journalism remains imperative for a vibrant democracy.
Journalism and democracy are related to each other. For this purpose, each
and every year, press freedom index is being measured. Reporters Without
Borders (RSF) points out that World Press Freedom in 2021 in blocked in
73% of the 180 countries. RSF recommends that journalism is the vaccine
against fake news and disinformation. The index data argue that people’s
connection to information is on the declining mode. The COVID-19 was
unfortunately used as a reason to limit access to information. In this context,
Reporters Without Borders (n.d.) points outs,
“the journalistic production and distribution are too often blocked by

political, economic, technological and, sometimes, even cultural fac-
tors. In response to the virality of disinformation across borders, on
digital platforms and via social media, journalism provides the most
effective means of ensuring that public debate is based on a diverse
range of established facts.”
Journalism acts as a source of information or facts in a deliberative model

of democracy. Democracy immensely contributes to the functioning of
good governance (McNair, 2009). Besides the role of media in a delibera-
tive democracy, journalism acts as a watchdog of administrative mechanism;
as a mediator/representative between the government and public; and as an
advocate or champion of the people. However, the factors like commerciali-
zation, the crisis in public communication; origin and rise of political public
relations; and hyper adversarial are causing malfunctions in the role of media
in a democratic set-up. If there is no adequate amount of freedom of press,
then the quality of journalism won’t exist. If the quality of journalism is not
there, then democracy cannot be attained or the freedom of people will be
paralyzed.
Sonwalkar (2019, p. 62) has rightly enunciated,
“Journalism does not exist in isolation but is part of a complex matrix

of politics, economy and socio-cultural environment in a democratic
society. The obvious response to the second part would be for the idea,
ideology, and idealism of journalism to be allowed to go back to the
basics so that it can diligently perform its traditional role. But to what
extent it can do so when powerful political, business, and cultural
forces steer it to partisan extremes is open to debate.”
In order to serve the public interest, journalism includes gathering, analyz-

ing and disseminating information. For this reason, it is a profession that
strongly values social responsibility toward the public, effective leadership
and democracy. However, the approach to deal with the freedom of press
and democracy is different in mainstream and alternative media.
1.11 Mainstream Journalism vs. Alternative Journalism

Alternative journalism is a kind of journalism which has evolved and chal-
lenges to the news coverage in the mainstream media. It provides a space for
alternative voice against the mainstream voice (Harcup, 2020). Atton and
Hamilton (2008, p. 1) assert,
“Its critique emphasizes alternatives to, inter alia, conventions of news

sources and representation; the inverted pyramid of news texts; the
hierarchical and capitalized economy of commercial journalism; the
professional, elite basis of journalism as a practice; the professional
norm of objectivity; and the subordinate role of audience as receiver.”
Deuze (2006, p. 263) defines alternative media as the “emergence of all kinds
of community, alternative, oppositional, participatory and collaborative
media practices.”
Alternative platforms of journalism provide alternative public sphere which
is inclusive in nature (Atton, 2002). Such form of public sphere embraces
advocacy and oppositional practices over mainstream and dominant prac-
tices. The supporters of alternative media claim that the mainstream media
invites shortcomings in approach. Such form of media outlets promote advo-
cacy journalism and often endorse specific political views, often dissident
views. Such form of journalism has fostered local journalism. However, there
are growing ethical concerns in practicing local journalism, which erases the
boundaries between the facts and opinion. Alternative media is existent in
various forms including rural journalism, which attempts to cover the issues
of rural regions. Focusing on rural issues through rural journalism signals
one form of development journalism.
1.12 Rural Journalism: A Neglected Area

Rural journalism is a less talked area in the domain of journalism. Even in
a country like India where 64.61 percent of its population resides in rural
pockets of India (Trading Economics, 2022), the news on rural issues is
least prioritized. Rural journalism in India remains in a precarious condi-
tion. Rural issues, especially the farmers’ issues, are often romanticized. Such
issues are being commoditized and manufactured.
The coverage on rural regions in Indian media remains skewed in propor-
tion to news on urban pockets. Suffice to say, news media is urban-based
and biased, which is facing flak from time to time from civil society. The
journalists who are working in so-called mainstream media are not skilled in
reporting in rural areas. Many times, the coverage on rural issues is episodic
in approach, which is heavily criticized by the civil society. The problems of
rural India are in a precarious condition, which warrants sustained coverage.
Sometimes, there are success stories in rural regions. Those cases news media
need to highlight in a pragmatic manner. Media in highlighting the success
stories will foster the pace of rural development, but in vain.
The space for grassroots communication in mainstream media remains
shoddy (Biswal, 2018). The political economy of news media clearly opens
up the systematic flaws in the coverage. Even though rural India has been
reeling under several issues, they are not being considered as newsworthy.
Social responsibility of media had reduced to minimum. Issues pertaining to
primary education, basic healthcare facilities, agriculture and credit facilities
remain grave, which needs to be amicably addressed. However at the same
time, news media is being engaged in irrelevant and personalized coverage
relating to politics, cinema and social taboos. To bridge the gap, few alterna-
tive media platforms like Khabar Lahariya, Gaon Connection, CGNet Swara
and People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI) are attempting to do justice in
terms of media coverage. However, these news media outlets have their own
shortcomings. They are not financially viable. They do not have adequate
journalists who can potentially cover the rural issues from time to time.
1.13 Concluding Remarks
The journey of journalism from the era of stone carving to ChatGPT, an
AI tool, remains thoughtful. In due course of time, the nature and implica-
tions of journalism have been substantially changed. It is becoming more
significant but less robust. In contemporary times, the increasing knowledge
disparity, struggling journalism business models and the function of social
media platforms are the new symptoms of news media outlets. Precisely,
there are technological implications on the production, distribution and con-
sumption of news over a period of time.
We are experiencing a number of major shifts in news media. We have
transitioned from a world where media organizations served as gatekeepers
to one where media organizations are setting the agenda. However, media
outlet continues to control audience access. The nature and dissemination
of news are changing on regular intervals. The production, distribution and
consumption of fair news are influenced by several factors. Of many, politi-
cal and economic factors are immensely influencing the news industry. The
above-mentioned trends will manifest themselves in various ways in the
upcoming years across the world depending on the cultural, economic, politi-
cal and social situation.
As an industry and a profession, journalism today is marked by an ever-
increasing turbulence and change, both good and bad. Deep changes impact
each and a feature of the organization, such as the state of journalism's
financial health, the circumstances its practitioners’ self-understandings, its

capacity to operate as a monitor on consensus, tractions of power, its interac-
tion with and regard for its audience and its potential for the future aspects.
One way to think about this new and dynamic biosphere is as a special con-
stellation of opportunities and difficulties. However, journalism is often criti-
cized as it has reduced from watchdog to lapdog. It is also facing flak as it is
urban-based and urban-biased. It is accused of over-commercialization. The
social responsibility of journalism is weathering away.
Collaborations are becoming more common in journalism. Algo-
journalism or algorithm-based journalism is a newly technical affair, which
needs collaborations among the journalists and technical experts to start the
process. Again, since metaverse is a new term in the field of journalism, it
also demands collaborations from cross-sectional communities. Journalism
has traversed from mainstream to alternatives. Transparency is becoming
a question mark in the domain of news. The future of journalism lies in
news skills with traditional values. Sticking to objective reporting and edi-
torial standards is the first step in building trust among the audience of
news. Transparent publishing is the future of journalism (Forbes, 2021).
Newly trained journalists must grasp a variety of publishing formats in our
ever-evolving environment while still excelling at the fundamentals of jour-
nalism. Jonathan Baker, the author of Essential Journalism, discusses the
significance of conventional journalistic values in the digital age in his blog
post.
The future of journalism is dependent on independent creators and
active communities (Di Salvo, 2020). The COVID-19 economic downturn
had a significant impact on the media sector, but it also spurred digitali-
zation and encouraged journalists to work independently as content crea-
tors. Correspondents now have access to previously unheard-of methods of
monetizing their close connections with audiences because of the growth of
various digital platforms. This mechanism enables the journalists to create
engaged communities. Independent and small-scale journalism can flour-
ish in a content-driven environment dominated by naive podcasters and
YouTubers, opening up new possibilities for cross-collaboration. With the
increasing use of artificial intelligence and the introduction of metaverse,
independent creators and active communities can evolve in the space of jour-
nalism. The traditional role of media has changed with the arrival of artificial
intelligence and metaverse.
Digital transition is happening every other day. Very recently, technol-
ogies used for virtual and meta influencer are being discussed. Computer-
generated imagery (CGI), based on computer graphics, is coming in a big
way. If used properly, it may influence news industry in the future. The digi-
tal transition could result in a significant and long-lasting change in how
news is reported and disseminated to the audience. Some of the journalists
are maximally exploiting the power of digital media for content creations.
At the same time, social media outlets like Facebook are flourishing on the
archetypal of content-sharing. Therefore, both the journalists and the plat-

forms use AI tools for the production, distribution and consumption of news.
The development of journalism comprising the journey and experience
from stone carving to ChatGPT has been significant. The central role of
technologies in shaping the craft and pace of journalism cannot be under-
estimated. Journalism has been changed from a creative platform to entre-
preneur entity. The standalone profession has been turned to a participatory
format. Sometimes, content is the king and sometimes audience control the
content and medium. In a nutshell, the ecosystem of news industry keeps on
changing. The nature and pace of growth of journalism is sometimes unbri-
dled, unpredictable and beyond measure. At the same time, the debates and
deliberations over misinformation and disinformation in the domain of jour-
nalism will be there in the industry as well in academics to make journalism
better than before.
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2 Understanding Artificial
Intelligence
2.1 Characteristics of Natural Intelligence

Intelligence is necessarily characterized by certain attributes that every liv-
ing creature possesses. These attributes are essentially perception, reasoning,
inference, learning, imitation/mimicking /following, creativity and adapta-
tion. Perception refers to the understanding of the environment or getting
insights of certain situations. This is generally possible using the intellectual
capability and ability achieved through different senses such as ears, eyes,
nose, tongue, skin, haptic, past experiences, existing knowledge and a combi-
nation of the situational awareness. For example, if few people with their eyes
blindfolded are allowed to touch only one part of the elephant, then based on
their haptic sense as well as past experience, existing knowledge, the one who
touches only the trunk may perceive it as a hose or a snake, someone who
touches only the leg may perceive it as a tree trunk or an elephant, someone
may touch the tail and perceive it as a rope, someone who touches the ears
may perceive it as a fan, belly as a wall, tusks as spears, etc. Eventually, if
all of the pieces such as snake, tree trunk, rope, fan, spears, wall, etc., are
given the corresponding positions, then all these elements may constitute a
picture like an elephant, which is eventually perceived by sensors such as
eyes as well as the existing knowledge of how an elephant generally looks
like. The characteristic of reasoning is the ability to find the logical reasons
behind or possible facts responsible for a certain fact. This is done through
backward chaining by which facts are linked with one another. For exam-
ple, the diagnosis of a disease is possible when the medical practitioner links
the symptoms with the possible causes, similar cases in the history, patient’s
history, etc. This is basically finding similar patterns even though some of
the information is fuzzy or missing. It helps in reaching certain meaningful
conclusions or drawing meaningful inferences. This helps in classifying the
cases, as well as data available to a very minute level so that when similar
case arises in the future, it can be dealt with certain confidence.
In addition, every individual intends to learn from one another to be bet-
ter in the race. Learning ability is one of the major characteristics of a liv-
ing individual. This makes them compete in the race for survival as well as
evolve. Learning is possible through adaptation to the environment around
DOI: 10.4324/9781032716879-2
20 Understanding Artificial Intelligence
as well as mimicking the behavior of others and/or superiors. For example,

kids not only inherently learn from their parents but also from their peers.
It makes them grow and be competent. In addition, the chameleon adapts to
the environment around by changing to such a skin color that may help it to
disguise. It eventually increases its chances of survival from the predators as
well as helps it reach closer to the prey. Similar examples can be found in dif-
ferent other species such as the camel. Over the years, it has developed its feet
wider so that it is suitable to walk on the sandy desert. In addition, the legs
have grown taller so as to keep the body at a height from the hot sand of the
desert. This adaptation has increased their chances of survival in the sandy
and hot habitat. Furthermore, plants once part of lush green forest have over
the period of millions of years, turned into cactus, the leaves of which turned
into spines for moisture collection as well as reducing the rate of exhaling
and increasing protection. Every species on the earth keeps evolving genera-
tion after generation to survive and flourish.
As mentioned earlier, Darwin’s theory of the “Survival of the Fittest” is
at the heart of all these natural characteristics. These have been adopted and
mathematically modeled by several researchers. Later, with the advent of
computers with memories, mathematical models were coded in computer
languages making the systems think and solve problems.
2.2 Origin of Artificial Intelligence

Since the first Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries, the con-
cept of automation was also incepted. Moreover, the market-driven industry
and economies invested huge efforts in making the machines and indus-
tries more automated. After World War II, the industry and academia were
focusing their research on numerically controlled machines as well as robot-
ics-driven automation. The concept of robotics or human-like machines
was limiting the idea of the development of machines that can think. The
computers in the decade after World War II were too expensive for the
universities and industries to afford and importantly the computers had no
memory. This limited most of the applications or problem-solving capabil-
ity. Later in 1956, John McCarthy organized the eight-week Dartmouth
Summer Project workshop in Dartmouth College, Hanover, the USA, where
renowned scientist, mathematicians, professors and economists from all
over the world were called to churn out machines that can think (Jmc, n.d.).
The workshop intended to come up with ideas that can break the barrier of
merely making the robots work like humans. During the workshop, John
McCarthy coined the term referred to as artificial intelligence (AI). With the
advent of computer memories soon after the workshop, several industries
and universities look lead in developing AI-based methods and computer
programs. The Japanese Fifth Generation Project a national-level initiative
was the driver in growing and flourishing AI in Japan as well as producing
a fleet of thousands of young and intelligent scientists. They served not only
Understanding Artificial Intelligence 21
for the Japanese technology to grow but also gave a direction for the entire
world to progress.
Since the early 1990s and later, computers started becoming cheaper with
the increase of storage space that almost doubled every couple of years. This
helped several university professors, scientists and research students to study
and implement intelligence in nature in the form of computer coding. Several
heuristic and intelligent algorithms inspired from natural entities and phe-
nomenon were mathematically modeled and coded on several computing
platforms. For example, the bio-inspired algorithms such as genetic algo-
rithm (GA) (Holland, 1992; Goldberg, 1989), differential evolution (DE)
(Kulkarni, Krishnasamy, & Abraham, 2017), artificial immune systems,
artificial neural networks (ANN) (Kulkarni et al., 2017), swarms algorithms
are ant colony optimization (ACO) methods (Dorigo, 1992), particle swarm
optimization (PSO) methods (Kennedy & Eberhart, 1995), firefly algorithm
(FA) (Deshpande, Phatnani, & Kulkarni, 2013), socio-inspired methods are
cohort intelligence (CI) (Kulkarni et al., 2017), league championship algo-
rithm (LCA) (Husseinzadeh Kashan, 2014), etc., are to mention a few. These
algorithms are necessarily artificial versions of the natural intelligence asso-
ciated with living creatures. It is important to mention that as real-world
problems are becoming more interdisciplinary and their complexity is grow-
ing. The limited ability of the traditional methods dealing with the complex
nonlinear problems gave rise to the use of AI-based methods as they could
handle such problems more efficiently.
2.3 General Applications of Artificial Intelligence

Since then, AI methods have been quite successfully applied in numerous
applications such as transportation and supply chain management, health-
care, manufacturing, wildlife conservation, crime prevention, pollution con-
trol, smart homes, waste management, traffic control, journalism, etc. The
problem of efficient transportation of vehicle fleet management is based on the
delivery dates, locations, distances from the origin point to the destinations,
cost, etc., is quite a complex problem involving several thousand variables
and is solved using techniques such as GA (Arokia Durai Raj & Rajendran,
2012). The efficient doctors’ assignments to the surgery rooms so as to mini-
mize the maximum resource requirement in the recovery rooms is solved
considering static and dynamic scenario (Kulkarni, Baki, & Chaouch, 2016;
Li, Zhu, Baki, & Chaouch, 2018). The companies such as Bin-E have come
up with machine learning application, which helps in sorting the waste in the
bins based on certain criteria of degradable, nondegradable, etc. (Bin-e, n.d.).
The mobile-based Wastebox application helps the construction site rubble
get cleared time to time by automatically assigning the dumpers in the close
neighborhood (Wastebox, n.d.). It saves huge costs and keeps the site cleaner.
Zen Robotics is one of the leading waste segregation companies. It sorts or
segregates different types of waste based on intelligent image-processing tool
22 Understanding Artificial Intelligence
(Zenrobotics, n. d.). Winnow Solutions in the UK identifies the type of food

wasted using intelligent machine learning image-processing tools. It gives
the restaurant manager ideas about the kind and amount of food wasted
(Winnowsolutions, n. d.). Google Waymo is an example of driverless car,
which analyzes the traffic situations in 360 degrees and decides the speed
and direction reaching the destination (Waymo, n. d.). These are very few
applications of the AI methods and approaches in day-to-day life. This book
focuses on an entirely new aspect of AI application for media and journalism.
References
Arokia Durai Raj, K. A., & Rajendran, C. (2012). A genetic algorithm for solving the
fixed-charge transportation model: Two-stage problem. Computers & Operations
Research, 39(9), 2016–2032.
Bin-e. (n.d.). https://www.bine.world/ (Last visited: June 15, 2022)
Darwin, C. (1859). On the origin of species by means of natural selection (1st ed.).
London: John Murray.
Deshpande, A. M., Phatnani, G. M., & Kulkarni, A. J. (2013, June 13–15). Constraint
handling in firefly algorithm. In Proceedings of IEEE international conference on
cybernetics (pp. 186–190). Lausanne, Switzerland.
Dorigo, M. (1992). Optimization, learning and natural algorithms (PhD thesis).
Politecnico di Milano, Italy.
Goldberg, D. (1989). Genetic algorithms in search, optimization and machine
learning. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Professional.
Holland, J. (1992). Adaptation in natural and artificial systems. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press.
Husseinzadeh Kashan, A. (2014). League championship algorithm (LCA): An
algorithm for global optimization inspired by sport championships. Applied Soft
Computing, 16, 171–200.
Jmc. (n.d.). http://jmc.stanford.edu/ (Last visited: June 15, 2022)
Kennedy, J., & Eberhart, R. (1995). Particle swarm optimization. In Proceedings of
IEEE international conference on neural networks, 4 1942–1948).
Kulkarni, A. J., Baki, M. F., & Chaouch, B. A. (2016). Application of the cohort-
intelligence optimization method to three selected combinatorial optimization
problems. European Journal of Operational Research, 250(2), 427–447.
Kulkarni, A. J., Krishnasamy, G., & Abraham, A. (2017). Cohort intelligence: A
socio-inspired optimization method. In J. Kacprzy and L. C. Jain (Eds.), Intelligent
systems reference library, 114). Switzerland: Springer.
Li, X., Zhu, L., Baki, F., & Chaouch, A. B. (2018). Tabu search and iterated local
search for the cyclic bottleneck assignment problem. Computers & Operations
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Wastebox. (n.d.). https://www.wastebox.biz/en/homepage/ (Last visited: June 15,
2022)
Waymo. (n.d.). https://waymo.com/ (Last visited: June 15, 2022)
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2022)
Zenrobotics. (n.d.). https://zenrobotics.com/ (Last visited: June 15, 2022)
3 From Stone Carving to ChatGPT
Understanding the Changing Role of
Technologies in Journalism
3.1 Introduction
Technology is closely related to the discipline of communication. The history
of communication has shared its space with the tools of technologies from
time to time. Communication technologies have transformed the profession
of journalism from intervention of stone carving to the ChatGPT crossing the
phases of telegraph, telephone, radio, television, artificial intelligence, block-
chain and metaverse. So, technologies have not been isolated compartments
whenever there are deliberations on technologies used in the field of media
and communication. Needless to say, the pivotal role of technologies cannot
be denied. However, sometimes excessive employment of technologies draws
flaks from several quarters of society including the domain of journalism. In
this context, holistic understanding of technologies and their exposure in the
space of journalism has become paramount. This calls for an understanding
of technologies from larger perspectives.
3.2 Technology in Journalism
The impact of technology is present in every aspect of professional lives.
And journalism is no exception. COVID-19 that caused lockdowns and
other restrictions have forced the stage of journalism for rapid digital change.
Moreover, the troubled times have sparked more radical experimentations.
Focus on sustainable innovation has emerged. Email has fueled and given
rise to entrepreneurial journalism. New platforms like Substack, TinyLetter,
Lede or Ghost are technologically driven and showing a new roadmap for
journalistic narratives. The pandemic has pushed for faster change toward
an all-digital future (Newman, 2021). Technological innovations have revo-
lutionized the industry of media and communication, especially the field of
journalism. There are other factors – increasing role of social media in news
dissemination; evolution and rise of chat bots in social media; robots turning
into reporters; 360° content on news reports; and virtual reality (VR) becom-
ing apparent in news dissemination – where technology has larger role in the
field of journalism.
DOI: 10.4324/9781032716879-3
Discussing the role of technologies in the domain of journalism navigates

scholars to revisit the communication revolution. Technological innovations
in the field of journalism is nothing but a form of communication revolution.
3.3 Revisiting Communication Revolution

The role of technology in the revolution of communication has been immense
and it has brought numerous deliberations across the disciplines. The jour-
ney of communication revolution from smoke signals to ChatGPT has its
own story, and each and every part of such revolution has evoked unique
discussions. In ancient times, certain kind of hammers and skills used to be
employed for stone carving which was further used for communicating var-
ied messages. Carey (1965) points out that western countries in the 18th
and 19th centuries encountered the waves of the revolutions – the Industrial
Revolution and communication revolution.
Taking the case of communication revolution in India, Singhal and Rogers
(2001) confirm that Indian society has undergone social changes with the
advent of new communication technologies. They further stress on the role
of government and private enterprise, technology parks and the internet
revolution which mobilized the pace of social change and development.
Understanding and remeasuring information society is of importance while
revisiting communication revolution on a global scale.
3.4 Role of Technologies in Print, Electronic and Digital Journalism

Over the decades, journalism has been ceaselessly going through major trans-
formations. The implications of technologies are apparent in the practice of
journalism covering the production, distribution and consumption patterns
of news contents. Technological changes have influenced the areas pertaining
to the journalists’ work profiles, the content of news, structure and functions
of the newsrooms and relationship or interaction between news organiza-
tions and news consumers. Further, Seethaler (2017) finds that the adoption
of technologies in newsrooms has affected the news business models. The
paywall strategy of news business models is one of the most striking business
patterns. This has ultimately caused the working journalists in the state of
overloaded and pressure.
3.4.1 Print Media and Journalism
Communication revolution started in the field of newspaper with the devel-

opment of the printing press by Johann Gutenberg in the 14th century (Koch,
1991). Pavlik (2000, p. 229) has rightly quoted,
“Journalism has always been shaped by technology. Since Julius Caesar

ordered the Acta Diurna in AD 59, distributing information about the
important events of the day has been enabled, if not often driven, by
From Stone Carving to ChatGPT 25
technological advances. Gutenberg’s printing press not only made pos-

sible the printing of the Bible and other religious texts; it also laid the
foundation for mass literacy and the invention of the newspaper.”
Of course, the printing technologies have been transformed over the years
and the level of automation has been increasingly incorporated. It was fol-
lowed by the invention of the telegraph and the evolution of photography.
Photography remains an important tool for a journalist. Digital camera has
further innovated the pace and dynamics of print journalism. With the advent
of computers, print journalism has further undergone drastic changes. Word
processors have enabled the reporters and the subeditors who are engaged
with newspapers and magazines. Internet publishing of newspapers and mag-
azines has been the latest addition in terms of technological innovations in
the field of print journalism. E-newspapers and e-magazines are being widely
accepted by news consumers across the globe. Consumers’ involvement is
getting redefined with each passing day. Newspapers’ websites are facilitat-
ing news consumers to comment on news contents in various social media
networks and engagement with the audience is increasingly prioritized.
3.4.2 Electronic Media and Journalism
Like print journalism, electronic journalism has been witnessing the adoption
of numerous technological innovations from time to time. Instances revealed
that radio has adapted to newer technologies. Radio stations have gradually
turned to online streaming and podcasts which is becoming more convenient
for smartphones. Acceptance of television cannot be ignored. Technology
has changed the face of cable and satellite television. ATS-3.0 is the latest
broadcasting innovation which provides top-quality interactive experience
to customers (Dialani, 2020). As news consumers continue to access various
online platforms, it is imperative for the television journalists to meet the
consumers’ needs and demands.
3.4.3 Digital Media and Journalism
Digital media have created a space in the field of journalism. Digital media
technologies have influenced the nature and format of journalistic narratives
over the years. It is worth discussing mobile journalism, multimedia jour-
nalism, podcast journalism, immersive journalism, social media journalism
and usages of artificial intelligence, 5G, blockchain, metaverse and ChatGPT
while deliberating on digital media technologies in the space of journalism.
3.4.3.1 Mobile Journalism
Audiences have increasingly used mobile for news consumption. The situa-
tion has also changed. The technological convergence of mobile emerged in
the 1990s. However, the proliferation of the Internet and touchscreen mobiles
propelled legacy news media houses to repurpose or customize journalistic

contents (Westlund, 2013). Mobile journalism (MOJO) is a journalistic revo-
lution which demands a renewed and pragmatic approach to skills for the
news industry (Salzmann, Guribye, & Gynnild, 2021). In order to tap this
platform, the BBC has developed its Portable News Gathering (PNG) which
facilitates recording, editing and required things for multimedia format of
storytelling (WNIP, 2021). News media houses with cross-media portfolios
are being hugely benefited. Moreover, ample of use of mobile phone has
fueled the growth and prospects of citizen journalism around the globe. It
has democratized media contents and created a space in the domain of alter-
native media. MOJO has fostered the sense of participatory journalism in
which citizens are the mainstay in the production, distribution and consump-
tion of news contents. It has been able to curb the monopoly of so-called
mainstream media and posed a threat to the functioning and revenue pat-
terns of mainstream media.
Precisely, with the rapid evolution of technology and online publishing,
mobile journalism has grown to the next level. Such form of journalism has
fueled the convergence form of journalism which has further transformed the
production, dissemination and consumption of news contents. It reflects the
radical structural changes in the journalism industry. News through mobile
remains the principal of the digital media network. It has further strength-
ened the digital culture. Stalder (2018, p. 22) has rightly enunciated, “the
space of networks, communities, and informal cooperation—the space of
sharing and exchange that has since been enabled by the emergence of ubiq-
uitous digital communication” as a “new interstitial space”.
MOJO is getting popular in the domain of news media as it’s a new way of
storytelling. It is free from much security hassle. Subjects or people are least
intimidated. Such form of journalism is getting widely accepted because of its
advantage of mobility. Journalists are no longer waiting for OB van for the
live programs. Adopting this form of journalism is also curtailing the produc-
tion costs by avoiding ENG cameras and OB vans. However, MOJO suffers
from certain shortcomings. Mobile journalists are sometimes perceived as
“a burden” and as being “the harbinger of changes to come” (Perreault &
Stanfield, 2019, p. 339). Hadland, Borges-Rey and Cameron (2019, p. 18)
point out, “The journalists might face the problems in integrating the new
technologies for the output required for the newsrooms and usually it hap-
pens due to “professional journalists’ ambivalence to new technologies”.
3.4.3.2 Multimedia Journalism
Since media convergence is a multi-dimensional concept, it invites numerous

disciplines for deliberations. And the discipline of journalism is no exception
to it. Journalism is not a motionless occupation and the news media are con-
stantly evolving. The content and organization of news are also evolving. The
practice of multimedia journalism enables the distribution of news contents
by using two or more media formats (Deuze, 2004). Smith (2014) points out
multimedia journalism is the mixture of computing and information technol-
ogy, communication networks and digitized media content. The rapid and
sustained pace of technological development has propelled multimedia jour-
nalism to the next level (Kartveit, 2020). It is invariably pertaining to the
media convergence which is an amalgamation of multiple media platforms.
It has challenged the traditional modus operandi of production and distribu-
tion of news contents. It is somewhat treated as a transformation in informa-
tion and communication.
Multimedia format of journalism creates and intensifies the experience
of immersion among the audience. The distinctive features of text, image,
video, audio and graphic animations boost the narrative techniques which
are part and partial of multimedia journalism. The integration of all these
features is enabling the smooth functioning of storytelling in the field of
journalism, the narrative form of information is well accepted among the
audience.
Usually, journalists are the storytellers. The rise of multimedia journalism
has given birth to digital storytelling. Multimedia journalists are the ones
who work across many dimensions. They tend to use the combinations of
text, images, sound, video and graphics. Multimedia storytelling on various
social media platforms has transformed the level of interactive and engage-
ment face which has further enlarged the scope of journalism. Such forms of
telling news stories brings and enhances the journalists’ own narratives to the
events. As a result, such forms of digital convergence adds to the news values.
Multimedia journalism and digital storytelling are interrelated. Digital
storytelling is the marriage between journalism and digital technologies.
Many a time, digital storytelling is in visual storytelling which is becoming
more apparent. Writing, editing and designing have become integral parts of
visual storytelling. Video, infographics and other visual elements are driving
forces which further influence the nature and pace of visual storytelling. It
has somewhat disrupted the usual form of storytelling. Leading news media
organizations are exceptionally good in this format in terms of news dissemi-
nation. The adoption of the fusion of news and creative design is grabbing
the eyeballs of news consumers, especially the younger generations. This has
further reshaped digital journalism to be sharper and poignant in contem-
porary times. Interactive journalism has been progressively felt and it has
further customized accordingly to capture the audience’ market. However,
journalists are frightened that news storytelling format can bring dilution in
disseminating the facts. In this context, Boesman and Costera Meijer (2018,
p. 6) argue,
“Some journalists are afraid that storytelling will bring Hollywood in

journalism. In Hollywood, everything is devoted to storytelling. Even if
a story is based on true facts, those facts are transformed if they do not
fit the story. And that is what a lot of people are afraid of: that the facts
in journalism will also be moulded into a form that fits within a certain
story structure. That is of course not the intention.”
To some, journalists have landed in a worse situation to cope with the anxiety
between storytelling and truth-seeking in journalism. As of now, it remains
a debatable topic.
3.4.3.3 Podcast and Journalism
A podcast, also known as audioblogs, comprises a series of spoken word

digital audio files for the purpose of listening. Pew Research Centre (2006)
asserts,
“podcasting is a way to distribute audio and video programming over the

Web that differs from earlier online audio and video publishing because
the material is automatically transferred to the user’s computer and can
be consumed at any time, usually on an Apple iPod or another kind of
portable digital music player commonly known as an MP3 player.”
The narrative podcasts have created a niche in the space of digital literary
journalism (McHugh, 2021). Some of the news podcasts have a wider reach
than newspapers and television channels. Usually, podcasts are intimate in
nature which captivates the listeners. Journalists are found using this medium
to create and showcase their personal brands to their target audience. It acts
as a democratic alternative to radio and an individual with microphone could
make his/her voice heard. Moreover, through this medium, they are able
to create and engage their target audience in hyper-specialized journalism.
In this context, Chan-Olmsted and Wang (2020, p.13) have rightly argued,
“Podcasting is, at its core, about content and a unique way of delivering that
content on demand, as entertainment, information, and audio platform supe-
riority were found to be the three most important motivators”.
The production, distribution and consumption of quality content in pod-
casts can be a potential reason for niche journalism. It has further promising
avenues for entrepreneurs and adequate business projects. In this context, the
feasibility and possibility of native podcasts in journalism is the larger ques-
tion which needs to be scientifically probed. Native news podcasts are aimed
at the interests of local audience. Needless to say, the importance and inter-
ests of the local audience are increasingly prioritized in contemporary times.
However, the use of podcast suffers from certain shortcomings. Newman
and Gallo (2020, p. 34) point out,
“For legacy print and digital-born publishers, news podcasts represent

a different dilemma. It is easier to embrace new thinking and create
entirely new formats, but the infrastructure and skills need to be built
from scratch. That requires considerable investment which, at a time
of declining revenue, in the middle of a global pandemic, requires both

commitment and nerve.”
Nevertheless, the use of podcast is getting positioned as an alternative media

which can address the topics which remain unaddressed by the mainstream
media. The trailblazer for this unique form of journalism with a different
format of storytelling has become a reliable revenue stream for news media
outlets.
3.4.3.4 Immersive Journalism
Immersive journalism is an emerging style in news media industry. Such form

of journalism places the audience in the context of the happening or event.
Immersive journalism permits the audience to enter virtually into the event by
representing the story (Johnson, 2020). Since news consumption is undergo-
ing transformations because of the arrival of newer technologies, this genre
or format of journalism needs to be discussed for wider understanding and
applications for the practicing journalists and audience as well.
De la Peña et al. (2010, p. 292) underlines,
“The fundamental idea of immersive journalism is to allow the par-

ticipant to actually enter a virtually recreated scenario representing the
news story. The participant can also enter the story in one of several
forms: as oneself, a visitor gaining first-hand access to a virtual version
of the location where the story is occurring, or through the perspective
of a character depicted in the news story. Whether visiting the space as
oneself or as a subject in the narrative, the participant can be afforded
with unprecedented access to the sights and sounds, and possibly, the
feelings and emotions that accompany the news.”
Further, De la Peña et al. (2010, p. 291) assert,
“The combination of VR and journalism has led to the emergence of

the so-called ‘immersive journalism’, defined by Nonny De la Peña as
“the production of news in a form in which people can gain first-person
experiences of the events or situations described in news stories”.
With the advent of 5G, immersive format of journalism is going to be trans-

formed. In this context, Newman (2021, p. 33) asserts,
“For news organisations, 5G will eventually enable reliable high-defi-

nition mobile reporting and make it easier to work and package media
from any location. For consumers, 5G will bring benefits to applica-
tions like video livestreaming, gaming, and immersive technologies
like virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). Faster speeds and
better screens will also accelerate the push to personalised news, mobile
formats and more visual journalism.”
Reputed international media houses like The New York Times and The
Guardian are utilizing the tools of immersive journalism for better recep-
tion of the audience (Rogers, 2020). Knight Center for Journalism in the
Americas (2021) underlines,
“You can immerse yourself into a picture, where you can look around,
without need for explanation. Immersive journalism lets the reader
act upon their curiosity. Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality have
been growing in popularity among the journalism community for many
years, but they are now in rivalry with photogrammetry.”
Immersive technologies have the power and ability to mold the process of
storytelling and reporting. This makes the journalism more impactful than
the traditional format of journalism. The technologies are able to engage and
create empathy with the audience. Such technologies try to create link/cue
between the users and the news story employing varied forms of immersion
and presence. Moreover, technologies in the news media field are capable of
attracting new audience along with retaining existing ones. The participation
of the audience in immersive journalism creates a digital avatar which can
move across the recreated scenario in the given news story. The news story
told in the immersive format is equipped with the required technologies to
control the participants or audiences who can enter into the story. This digi-
tal avatar is nothing but a special kind of audience engagement.
Immersive journalism has a lot to play in the format of reporting also.
Immersion as a reporting technique enjoys paramount importance in the
age of digital communication. Thanks to the evolution and revolution in the
field of communication. It provides ample scope for narrative opportunities.
Empathy, understanding and being placed in locations are the driving forces
for immersive journalism (VIAR, 2020). However, Livingstone (2004) finds
that in the trajectories of online journalism, immersive journalism covers the
seemingly elusive audience. Immersive journalism enjoys certain advantages.
The immersive format of storytelling on affective, cognitive and associative
empathy is immense. Studies find that experiencing a news story through
360° remains appealing and impactful (Cummings et al., 2021). The immer-
sive format of journalism attempts to render the promise of transparency
(Johnson, 2020). Moreover, Dominguez (2017) finds that news media organ-
izations are resorting to newer forms of immersive techniques for better user
experience.
Despite a number of advantages, immersive journalism suffers from cer-
tain shortcomings. Needless to say, immersive technology should not be
treated as a silver bullet. Sometimes, they can be appropriate to the news-
rooms and sometimes they can be debarred because of privacy and sensitivity
issues. Immersive technologies are yet to be inclusive across all newsrooms.

Newsrooms have not been fully familiarized with the technologies in several
parts of the world. Even the newsrooms which use immersive technologies
are yet to fully exploit the power of immersive technologies.
It is no wonder immersive journalism is equipped with emerging technolo-
gies with promises and perils. For successful ideation and execution of such
form of journalism demands a lot of new equipment that further warrants
huge investments (Johnson, 2020). It is posing a barrier to greater adoption
across the globe. So, several dimensions to these technological advancements
are in diluted forms and negotiated to the maximum. Such a form of tech-
nological adoption has been a question mark and the debates continue. In
what ways, the technologies are going to influence the course of journalism
remains a matter of scientific study and deliberations.
Along the lines of ethical codes and perspectives, Kool (2016, p. 3) argues,
“Is it ethical to erase the mark of the journalist who still has a large stake
in the orchestration, construction, and communication of her narrative?”
It raises the large of picture ethical codes and execution in the journalistic
practice. One of the perils of immersive technologies is posing a threat to
journalistic values.
As Johnson (2020, p. 79) comments,
“attention should stay focused on maintaining journalistic values such

as credibility, transparency in methods, accuracy, and independence.
This need not be a conservative activity, that is, it does not have to
mean that journalism stays as it always has been. Values are realized
in different ways in different modes of journalism. As with any new
mode of journalism, it is important to engage with the new possibilities
created while at the same time ensuring that the new forms stay true to
essential values, even if they are reconfigured. What should be avoided
is undermining essential values such as trust and accuracy. Whether or
not IJ will undermine or enhance journalistic values is yet to be seen
because IJ is still in the making.”
Whenever there is a discussion on immersive technologies for immersive

journalism, usually understanding the nature, growth and positioning of aug-
mented reality and virtual reality come to the fore.
3.4.3.4.1 AUGMENTED REALITY AND JOURNALISM
Azuma (1997, p. 355 & p. 356) maintains that augmented reality (AR)
“is a variation of virtual environments (VE), or virtual reality as it is

more commonly called. VE technologies completely immerse a user
inside a synthetic environment. While immersed, the user cannot see
the real world around him. In contrast, AR allows the user to see the
real world, with virtual objects superimposed upon or composited with

the real world.”
With its unique features, AR has started influencing several sectors includ-
ing journalism. AR is all set to transform the mode of storytelling in the
field of journalism. AI tools have enabled several industries to create the
contents in numerous formats. With the power of such technological tools,
newsrooms are able to develop contents which further enhance the consum-
ers’ engagements.
The AR technologies make news coverage more interesting and believable.
By employing AI tools, a news story becomes less abstract. When interacting
with AR augmentation tools, news consumers can experience a sort of pres-
ence, what Lee (2004, p. 27) describes as, “a psychological state in which
virtual objects are experienced as actual objects”. As a means of storytelling,
journalism is persistently stimulated to employ modifications in the format
of disseminating information to the public. For these kinds of constant shifts,
current journalism needs to focus on content innovation, keeping an eye on
the changing digital ecosystem. The duty of journalism is to deliver news
as quickly as possible with a sense of credibility. On the other hand, news
consumers ask to get closer to the news story through immersive media tech-
nologies. Aiming to foster transparency, news media can deliver information
which is legitimate in nature.
New forms of storytelling in digital media journalism have creatively
engaged the citizens and the relevance,context, nuance and texture to news
issues are appropriately justified. AR as a storytelling medium in journalism
has transformed the nature, context and pace of journalism. Unique storytell-
ing forms have emerged in this convergent environment which also comprises
of AR technologies. The visual storytelling capabilities of AR are delivering
the desired output to the news media industries and ultimately better audi-
ence engagement is becoming feasible.
The benefits of AR technologies for immersive journalism have been
immense in numerous respects. AR technologies help the newsrooms in
repackaging the news. It enables to boost augmented reporting. The technol-
ogy helps to improve higher accuracy across certain elements of journalism.
A journalist can bring and pose past quotes to take on the speakers in real
time in a press conference. Fact-checking in real time has become possible.
This facilitates the journalists to keep the speakers more accountable and
pushes the reporting to the next level from the perspective of quality. The
technologies have enabled journalists to redefine the level of creativity in
presenting news, features and videos to the audience.
The storytelling formats of news media have been transformed into more
interactive. The geo-locative nature of AR is assisting place-based traditions
of news reporting. It has the ability to provide news stories with a level of
precision. Moreover, geo-tagging can push the profession of journalism to
accept and execute the notion of data mining and help to change into entirely
new ways of news presentation. The visualizations created through AR tech-

nologies for the dissemination of news articles are able to mediate informa-
tion in scaffolded augmentations projected onto a space, offering numerous
layers of information to the news consumers. With the emergence of compu-
tational image processing, advanced AR experiences have become possible.
Online communication comprising hypertextual content and audio-visual
tools enabled the digital ecosystem to share and disseminate information in
an efficient manner.
Needless to say, the technology of AR is getting interdisciplinary. Apart
from journalism, AR has made its space significant in the domain of business.
Apart from news industries, AR technologies attempt to engage customers
and transform their brand experience. These days, firms are curious to invest
and experience AR technologies at a macro level. The use of AR technolo-
gies tends to facilitate product evaluation which has larger bearings on the
sales. Tan, Chandukala and Reddy (2021) claim that AR is the most effec-
tive tool when product-related uncertainty pertaining to information is high.
The technologies come in handy in lessening the level of uncertainty in order
to enhance the level of sales. The expectations from AR from micro and
macro perspectives are there (Liao & Iliadis, 2021). AR mirrors the popu-
lar and accepted marketing tools which permit virtual try-on of products,
such as makeup. AR further influences consumer perception of the self in the
domain of product marketing. The technology also assists in finding out the
gap between actual and ideal attractiveness.
Steve Johnson, the founder of SeeBoundless, explains,
“You know the size of your house or your car. When you put an object
next to it, your brain is now processing a contextualized image in rela-
tion to what you are already familiar with, as opposed to the size of the
screen of a desktop or a smartphone.”
(Rogers, 2020)
The technology is rapidly growing in this area. Social media outlets

like Facebook and Instagram have productively created AR platforms.
Commercial opportunities for journalism driven by AR technologies have
been immense. These technologies are being used by marketing agencies to
optimally exploit business avenues. Suffice to say, commercial avenues and
explorations have the bearings on the journalistic process and output.
The AR technologies have been fruitful for immersive journalism. However,
such technologies also suffer from certain shortcomings. AR technologies
delineate the virtual from the real. Heemsbergen, Bowtell, and Vincent (2021)
argue that future research can be conducted on how perceptible spatial com-
putation is important and how it increases relations between objects. The AR
technologies are bringing rapid developments in the field of journalism. News
consumers have started learning about features, qualities and possibilities
of this technology. AR journalistic storytelling capabilities and possibilities
are on the rise. As Nielsen and Sheets (2019, p. 12) rightly put, immersive
journalism can “add value to many journalistic productions. Specifically,
six interconnected gratifications from using IJ were identified: immersion,
transportation, emotion, empathy, information, and control”. The need and
demand for audiovisual contents at a greater pace have hiked the importance
of AR technologies in news industries. Such kind of technologies are becom-
ing increasingly inevitable and have forced journalists to adopt this new for-
mat of working in the newsrooms.
3.4.3.4.2 VIRTUAL REALITY AND JOURNALISM
Immersive news provides the news with a difference. The virtual reality (VR)
technologies have their stakes in it. News organizations are not far behind in
utilizing the VR technologies to “transport viewers to places and events—to
understand the world in new ways” (Watson, 2017, p. 7). However, these
technologies are being used for the last few years.
The introduction and application of VR technologies are not completely
new. They came into existence in the 2000s (Hardee, 2016). Kukkakorpi
and Pantti (2020) assert that VR and other such immersive technologies have
heralded an era of emotionally compelling narratives and user agency. The
mediated set-up through various VR stories fetches the scope for interaction
for the users who can attend and respond to the given surroundings. It elicits
a sense of presence of users within the created world.
When news stories are comparatively less emotional and powerful and not
adequately narrated to grab the eyeballs of the users, technological interven-
tions could be a felt need. Virtual reality and 360° video can be beneficial in
this journalistic context. This form of immersive journalism is being slowly
accepted. These immersive technologies have been considered as credible
innovation for journalism. However, the story content, perceptions of cred-
ibility and empathy are being questioned at the same time.
Mabrook and Singer (2019, p. 12) rightly states,
“Virtual reality, 360° video, and other rapidly developing forms of
immersive storytelling offer enormous scope for investigation by jour-
nalism studies scholars. In this essay, we have highlighted just three of
the many possibilities for thematic exploration, and with a few excep-
tions, the questions we suggest as starting points have been descriptive
in nature. This seems to us appropriate for a topic about which we cur-
rently know so little. But opportunities abound for more theoretically
driven research, and those opportunities will expand in tandem with
our baseline of knowledge. From media effects theories to diffusion
studies to approaches encompassing political economy and cultural
appropriation, VR journalism promises to be richly informative.”
Since journalism is a format of storytelling to the users, the deliberations on
the usages and vitality of VR technologies have become noteworthy. The
applications of VR technologies have been useful in journalistic storytelling.

A growing number of newsrooms are experimenting with VR technologies.
In such type of storytelling, the journalists usually have to tell less and VR
experience remains the core. The users tend to learn through engagement and
embodiment. The aesthetic and symbolic qualities of spatial storytelling have
been the core of attraction in the process of storytelling. Usually, the users go
through spatial narrative and sense of place in which they are into the emo-
tional engagement with VR news. In course of time, immersive technologies
tend to evoke emotion in creating rich experiences among the users.
Immersive journalism by employing VR technologies provides umpteen
advantages to the journalists who eventually connect to the users. In such
form of journalism, a first-person experience of events or happening, loca-
tions and stories are at best in terms of delivery. Bringing audiences closer
to reality has been the responsibility of journalists and VR technologies have
the incredible power to offer this multimedia experience to the users. The
importance of VR technologies has been becoming increasingly paramount
in the ever more fragmented media world. Audiences are becoming volatile
and tend to switch from one media to another. The technologies have suc-
cessfully addressed the financial woes that have plagued the news business
which is suffering from ailments like generating revenues.
Collaborative enterprises are emerging in the field of journalism (Owen,
2017). Since immersive journalism demands diverse, multifaceted and spe-
cialized skilled persons, it fosters a collaborative culture. The VR technolo-
gies have the potential to create more transparent form of journalism which
is absent in traditional form of journalism. Like the AR, the utility of VR is
getting interdisciplinary. Apart from journalism, VR has made its space in
the domain of business. The VR technologies have proven benefits in terms
of mediating role of reasoning explanation. AR and VR are beneficial for
business activities and output (Park & Kim, 2021). It does have larger impli-
cations on purchase intentions for the browsers.
As Wu, Cai, Luo, Liu, and Zhang (2021, p. 9) have rightly put,
“From the perspective of interaction, in VR news with interaction,

users take a strong initiative, and their perceptions and intents can
significantly impact the immersive news experience, so the interaction
provided by the system can guide users to focus their attention on the
information news content producers that aim to convey such that the
levels of concentration and immersion can be improved. Moreover,
interaction also provides users with multiple opportunities to obtain
information, and they can avoid overlooking important information
due to temporary distraction. In addition, through active interac-
tions, particularly those from the first-person perspective, users may
have expectations regarding the result of the interaction; thus, they can
obtain information more efficiently and relate to it emotionally, thereby
generating more profound perceptions of the news content.”
Moreover, Biocca, and Levy (1995, pp. 137–138) have rightly enunciated,
“As a mass medium, virtual reality could fulfill the oldest dream of the
journalist, to conquer time and space. Virtual news environments would
invest journalists with the ability to create a sense on the part of audi-
ences of being present at distant, newsworthy locations and events.”
Marcelle Hopkins, Co-director of Virtual Reality and Deputy Director of

Video at The New York Times says,
“We see virtual reality, as well as 360° video, AR, MR, and whatever
comes next, as part of the same spectrum, which is immersive plat-
forms. We see that as part of the future of how people consume media,
including journalism.”
(Rogers, 2020)
There is little doubt that VR technologies have been extensively employed

to carry news. However, it suffers from certain lacunae. The VR technolo-
gies are being confronted with technological challenges. It is often found
that designing for VR and 360° video remains challenging. Sometimes pro-
fessional norms like autonomy, truth-telling and objectivity are being ques-
tioned. Even though VR technologies construct experiences for the users,
journalists often fail to narrate the relationship among themselves, the users
and the subjects of the news stories. This grossly leaves the state of confusion
which may further mar the process of disseminating news. It creates the space
for a narrative paradox in which confusion arises as to which – user engage-
ment or completeness or cohesion of a news story – is to be prioritized.
There is no doubt that VR/360 storytelling has been impactful on the users.
However, to experiment the proliferation of contents, VR technologies have
become cumbersome. Eventually, to understand and execute successfully,
journalists have to devote more time. Journalists keep on experimenting with
technologies on how to make good content for the audience. Moreover, mak-
ing the contents creative with journalistic values for their proper marketing
and monetarization remain a herculean task.
The immersive technologies including VR technologies have been proved
to be conducive in augmenting the level of participation among the news
consumers (Wu et al., 2021). However, despite the increasing acceptance of
using immersive technologies like VR, this is considered as a novel journalist
paradigm. Even journalists in several newsrooms equipped with the required
machines and skills are still experimenting with this paradigm. Using immer-
sive technologies still remain a process in several parts of the world. Several
users are yet to be fully aware of VR implications pertaining to content, con-
tent and attitudes towards know-how and computer hardware.
Since technology is the future of journalism, several newsrooms have
started adapting to newer technologies including VR technologies for a wider
reach to the audience. Journalism needs to function with the pace of tech-
nological advancements. However, the business models of VR technologies
seem uncertain. Moreover, since VR news production and consumption are
costly affairs, certain news stories are selected for the immersive technologies.
Newsrooms will decide what kind of news stories will require VR technolo-
gies for effective outcomes in order to connect to the users. VR technologies
are not universal in nature and they cannot be used in newsrooms for all sorts
of news stories. For example, the adoption of technologies is not feasible for
the scenes of disaster and major historical events. Precisely, the experimenta-
tions with technologies have remained to the core.
As Paino Ambrosio and Rodríguez Fidalgo (2019) argues,
“The arrival of VR to journalism introduces a series of modifications

that require a review of the traditional communication models and the
elements involved in the communication process based on this technol-
ogy. It is evident that the use of VR and 360-degree video can reduce
the distance between the user and the news events, a question that has
to do with the point of view of the user-receiver, who now can be in
the place where the news event occurs and get an eyewitness account of
what is being reported. These technologies imply a significant change
in the traditional communication models. In this regard, we have pro-
posed an “immersive communication model.”
Although the use of VR technologies is in the stage of experimentation, it

creates exciting experiences among the users. For better result and pragmatic
approach to such immersive technologies, news persons and technological
persons should work hand in hand. There are certain dimensions where both
news persons and technological persons need to intervene and collaborate
for the success of technologies. Firstly, news media organizations can focus
on strategy and investment. Secondly, since the content remains pivotal in
journalistic storytelling, many concerns have to be exercised in this direc-
tion. Usually, a content is complicated and confused between technology
and the distribution platform. Therefore, the VR technologies need to focus
and prioritize on news contents, which is the end product in the process of
journalistic storytelling. Thirdly, the focus on audiences and monetization
needs to be prioritized. The accessibility and affordability of technologies
among the users are the important factors which need to be considered for
the wider acceptance of the users. Monetization is such an aspect which can-
not be sidelined if the VR technologies are to be sustainable in news media
industry.
Strategy should be thought for both short term and long term, which can
foster the spirit for collaboration and enterprise in the news media sector.
Sponsorship and branding for the promotion of such immersive technolo-
gies is the need of the hour. With the seamless progress, VR technologies
are widely used in varied fields. Similar such progress and interventions are
required in news media industry to make it fast-paced and sustainable in

nature.
Jason Farkas has rightly stressed,
“although empathy is an important component of some VR, it isn’t the

only one. He wonders if an overemphasis on empathy in the early days
of VR experimentation perhaps limited the range of content explored:
VR for a while was becoming the medium for showing the horrors of
war, and showing struggle – a very dark medium. I think that it’s incred-
ibly powerful on that level, but I also think that VR can be delightful
and fun. You go to an animal sanctuary and you feel like you’re right
up close with these lions and tigers, and that shows you the joyful vir-
tual reality experience.”
(Watson, 2017, p. 21).
The applications of VR technologies are in the infancy state. However, their

vitality and prowess to influence and impact on tomorrow’s audience cannot
be underestimated. Greater and holistic understanding of audiences remains
pivotal when it comes to the application and sustainability of any technology
including the immersive technologies. As Watson (2017, p. 36) puts it,
“perhaps the biggest unknown for VR content (news or other) remains

audience appetite. Fundamental questions – such as what sort of content
will make users bother to put on a VR headset every day – remain largely
unanswered. And those questions begin with content but also include
aspects such as how that content is presented on platforms, through to
the user experience of finding and viewing that content on a headset.”
Precisely, digital transformations and changes in journalism should go hand

in hand. Immersive technologies, part of digital transformation, have a lot
to do with the production, distribution and consumption of news. There is a
little doubt that the use of AR, VR and 360° video has become inevitable. If
immersive technologies are adapted to the newsrooms, it tends to democra-
tize the spirit of innovation. As a result, the technologies will innovate newer
formats of storytelling. However, ethical guidelines for immersive journalism
have to be strictly adhered to the norms of ethical journalistic practice.
Precisely, Jones predicts (2021, p. 44),
“As has been evidenced through movements in video and mobile jour-
nalism, opening access to technology is diversifying narratives and
including more perspectives into the journalistic voice. Through specific
organizations operating in the Global South, training is being offered
to diverse communities to enable an authenticity to storytelling that is
not being delivered through a foreign lens. This is allowing journal-
ism to expand on the mixed narratives that have emerged from digital
journalism practices. Immersive journalism now sits alongside these

with calls for access to technology to enable a narrative and experimen-
tation with story forms that breaks the digital divide.”
3.4.3.5 Social Media Journalism
A day without social media cannot be imagined in contemporary times. With

the rising importance of social media, certain professional fields including
journalism have been deeply influenced (Newman, 2022). In contemporary
news media industry, journalists and news organizations are optimally tap-
ping the power of social media which has influenced the level of gathering
and disseminating the news and audience engagement (Bruns, Enli, Skogerbø,
Larsson, & Christensen, 2016). It is often argued that social media and jour-
nalism are going hand in hand. Journalists are not only relying on social
media outlets for information but also sharing their journalistic contents for
mass consumption. Journalists can resort to social media and foster intimate
connections with their audience. Journalists can be engaged in trending top-
ics and engrossed in chatting with their readers on various contents.
Precisely, social media is enabling journalists to build and sustain reputa-
tion. Journalists are able to push their publications to wider reach through
social media outlets. Social media are able to open up paths for diverse con-
versations on journalists’ contents. Usually, social media platforms are tech-
nology driven and journalists who are engaged here are the news content
creators and news content disseminators. It is a two-way mode of communi-
cation unlike in the format of mainstream media outlets. Precisely, it is the
power of technologies that foster social media journalism, which is arguably
a democratic platform to ventilate news and opinions.
3.4.3.6 Artificial Intelligence, ChatGPT and Journalism
AI is becoming the order of the day. AI is slowly becoming a part and partial
in each and every professional field. With the virtue of AI tools, quantitative
approach is increasingly getting into journalistic narratives (Biswal & Gouda,
2020). Algorithm journalism and automated journalism have been possible.
AI tools are been instrumental in detecting and mitigating the menace of
fake news. The issue of information overload can be overcome. Credibility
is one of the benchmarks in journalistic practice. AI tools can be employed
to maintain the sense of journalistic credibility by erasing the state of shoddy
journalism. Moreover, journalistic practice pertaining to the production, dis-
tribution and consumption of news can be stepped up. However, using AI
tools in the field of journalism has its own limitations.
AI tools have changed the way that photojournalists work and create for
news media. A new disruption in photojournalism may emerge from AI and
drone technology. Drones and AI are related because AI is programmed with
algorithms that ultimately pilot drones and other devices to produce images
and tell visual stories for news media to distribute to consumers. AI tools are
enabling photojournalists to work on multiple projects. Some of the AI tools
– Artificial Studio, DeepSwap, PhotoAiD, Polarr Copilots, Face26, PicWish,
Paint AI, Pics Enhancer, DOMYSHOOT and Topaz – have started influenc-
ing photojournalists. With AI imagery and generators, photographers can
produce images that are technically flawless but lack the imagination and art-
istry found in conventional photography. As a result, photojournalists tend
to rely more on technology than on their own expertise and creativity, which
can result in a decline in the caliber and artistry of their work. The paradox
is that despite being inundated with data, news consumers cannot constantly
double-check the images. An accurate information source is required by the
audience. Therefore, the audience as well as newsroom management are
responsible.
News agencies like the Press Trust of India (PTI) are adapting to chang-
ing times where AI is being increasingly used in newsroom. Pratyush Ranjan
who heads the Digital Services, Multimedia, Social Media & Fact Checking
Unit at Press Trust of India (PTI), a news agency in New Delhi, India,
asserts,
PTI has collaborations with Logically.Ai for the use of AI in fact check-
ing. To quickly and effectively identify and combat harmful and manip-
ulative content, Logically Intelligence uses artificial intelligence. With
the support from Logically, our Fact check desk pulls data and content
from websites, online media sources, and social media platforms. As
a result, we are able to identify, evaluate, and respond to new threats.
With the power of AI, the technology is providing the journalists-cum-
analysts with content analysis tools to detect harmful online narratives
and threats at speed and at scale. Recently during the Karnataka State
election in India, Logically Intelligence, the AI-powered platform, has
enabled our journalists to counter election-related misinformation. PTI
and Logically aim at helping people in India identify and report misin-
formation related to elections.
PTI, as a news agency, is promoting its fact-check journalists to be skilled in

AI tools through the pedagogy of trainings and workshops through expo-
sures to international standards. Pratyush Ranjan points out,
PTI is endorsing its journalists in using AI tools in fighting against

misinformation and disinformation. Recently, Meridian International
Center, based in Washington, sent Pratyush on a reporting tour to
learn more on countering misinformation and disinformation. He also
attended an enlightening session on AI and Deepfakes organized by the
California based RAND Corporation in which I could learn AI and
deepfake technologies for journalism, emphasizing the importance of
staying ahead in the fight against disinformation.
Pratyush Ranjan also adds,
Earlier in my tenure with Jagran New Media, I was associated with

6-month-long ‘JournalismAI’ global project for a comprehensive study
of the role of artificial intelligence in the future of Journalism. It was a
project of POLIS – think-tank of the London School of Economics and
Political Science. I also participated in the 6-month-long Newsroom
Leadership programme by the Columbia University Graduate School
of Journalism. The Google News Initiative network supported the pro-
gramme which could impart training on the use of AI and machine learn-
ing in content planning, production & distribution in the newsroom.
However, there are many languages in India and they are posing a potential
challenge in using AI tools to curb misinformation and disinformation. In a
country where there are less number of official languages, use of AI is becom-
ing fruitful in checking spurious content. In India, the use of AI in this direc-
tion is just the beginning.
ChatGPT is the new entrant in the space of journalism. By assisting with
tasks like news aggregation, data-driven journalism, fact checking and social
media management, ChatGPT is a technology that has the potential to revo-
lutionize the profession of journalism. By automating the creation of news,
this technology may enable journalists to produce content more quickly and
with less manual labor. Around the world, news media organizations and
news agencies are using artificial intelligence to create content, customize
their offerings and increase audience engagement. To learn linguistic nuances
and patterns, ChatGPT is trained on a sizable corpus of text. As a result,
this AI tool can generate news articles with a similar tone and style to those
written by humans. By significantly reducing the time and effort needed to
produce news stories, this technology could free up journalists to concentrate
on other aspects of their jobs.
Maarit Jaakkola, Co-director, Nordicom, Nordic Centre for Media
Research, University of Gothenburg, Sweden points out that the develop-
ment of AI has been very rapid, and breakthroughs may also come abruptly
in future. The release of the user-friendly chatbot ChatGPT by OpenAI in
November 2022 provided larger audiences with the possibility to discover AI
in a very tangible way. Education professionals raised concerns about how
school tasks should be reformulated and academics awakened into the need
for a more rigorous framework, asking, for example, whether AI can contrib-
ute to a text as a coauthor. Also, the availability of AI-based image generators
raised concerns among photojournalists and image professionals about how
the extremely quick and cheap production of images will affect human-based
creative work, giving a cause to invent completely new categories of works
such as promtography and worker categories such as the promptographer –
AI-aided photography, based on prompts written for the bot that generates
the images. An open letter cosigned by Elon Musk, one of the cofounders
of OpenAI, and almost 28,000 persons, including tech leaders, researchers

and media professionals, demanded in March 2023 a six-month pause in the
development of the most powerful AI systems. They referred to the Asilomar
AI Principles that state that “advanced AI could represent a profound change
in the history of life on Earth, and should be planned for and managed with
commensurate care and resources”. According to them, the development was
not controlled and commensurate enough, and they saw considerable risks in
developing “digital minds that no one – not even their creators – can under-
stand, predict, or reliably control”.
3.4.3.7 5G and Journalism
5G is the new evolution in the field of communication technologies and it

is going to enhance the communication system for unlimited connectivity
(Attaran, 2023). IBM Corporation (2020, p. 11) asserts,
“Industry 4.0 is completely changing the concept of manufacturing

from massive production to massive customization. Industrial connec-
tivity today mainly uses wired connections, which provide the high per-
formance and reliability required for automation, but lack the flexibility
to meet changing production demands. A flexible and programmable
environment—based on highspeed, low-latency wireless 5G connec-
tions, the use of edge computing and AI—will link machines, processes,
robots, and people. This environment sets up the opportunity for more
flexible and dynamic production capabilities to meet rapidly evolving
market needs and massive customization.”
In the field of media and communication, especially journalism, 5G is going

to change the mode of interaction from media outlets to their audience. Its
implementation and disruptiveness are gaining attention in the news media.
5G will boost the augmented and virtual reality applications which further
can influence the journalistic productions and dissemination to the audience.
Moreover, the audiences will undergo new senses to media – touch and feel.
This communication revolution will boost media usages and further revenues
can be significantly enhanced. From starting to the end product of generating
higher revenues in the process journalistic process, narratives are going to be
changed. With the advent of IOT-5G technology, journalists can rewrite the
data. It will further facilitate better video broadcasting on news.
Verizon 5G is expected to perform better which can create new forms
of journalism. It can facilitate the journalists to automatically stream the
media. The future of journalism can be shaped up with more personalized
contents, intelligent algorithms and robot journalists which can be better
possible and functional with the availability of 5G. However, the barriers of
availability, affordability, relevance and readiness will be there at any point
of time.
3.4.3.8 Blockchain and Journalism
Blockchain, a disruptive technology, is decentralized format of cryptocurrency

transactions. Blockchain in news media has been beneficial in numerous manner.
News media organizations can use blockchain to produce auditable, verifiable
and transparent database solutions; to produce cryptocurrency solutions-based
business models; to access and utilize the public data in blockchain-based sys-
tems; and to foster the scopes for newsrooms for the creation of contents and to
keep the journalists and their news media organizations accountable.
It is quite apparent that the lines between advertisement and journalism have
been blurring with increasing doses from corporate sponsorships. Blockchain-
enabled news platforms act as solutions to mitigate and overcome the issues.
The blockchain-based registries can be possible solutions in ranking and fil-
tering trusted advertisers and ad contents. As a result, database solutions can
be beneficial to create and maintain trust among media organizations, and
between the media and the public. This disruptive technology tends to check
the menace of fake news. It mechanizes bringing the agenda. Most impor-
tantly, it also creates and enriches the public area where opinions are collected
for social development (Kim & Yoon, 2019). Precisely, blockchain can be
instrumental in curbing fake news, protecting intellectual rights, investigating
transactions, safeguarding protecting whistleblowers and fostering citizen jour-
nalism. Cryptocurrency or token can be initiated in news media organizations
to incentivize the users for cooperation and content creation. Cryptocurrency
can be used to compensate the reporters or newspersons in news media outlets.
Crowd journalism can be feasible by using blockchain-based infrastruc-
ture, and such form of journalism has varied implications. In this context,
Teixeira, Amorim, Silva, Lopes and Filipe (2020, p. 177) assert,
“Designing a new approach to crowd Journalism using a blockchain

infrastructure combines the advantages of crowdsourcing as a way
to acquire knowledge and content, with the power of a decentralized
blockchain network, which guarantees privacy, traceability, and con-
tent ownership. This work meets these two factors, while making the
software adaptable and customizable, and the network decentralized in
a media consortium.”
Blockchain technologies can be employed to explore the newer format of sto-

rytelling. The technology can be used to monetize the contents or distribution
of news articles. Data journalism, one of the potential areas of journalism,
can be explored with the advent and use of blockchain technologies.
3.4.3.9 Metaverse and Journalism
Metaverse as a part of technological innovation is making its presence in

the domain of communication revolution, which has influenced the field of
journalism. Metaverse refers “to be the continuity (or persistence) of identity

and objects, a shared environment, the use of avatars (or embodied self),
synchronization, being three-dimensional (or virtual), interoperability, and a
user experience that is interactive, immersive, and social” (Kim, 2021, p. 42).
Such technological innovation attempts to connect all the entities comprising
virtual, augmented and physical reality (Lee, 2021).
The world of journalism is going to witness metaverse through digital
avatars where the news consumers will experience the immersive form of
journalism. Metaverse is going redefine the journalistic practice. Digital ava-
tars in the metaverse are going to provide the participation of wider audience
segments. Immersive journalism through this platform attempts to foster the
sense of first-person experience of the events depicted in news reports. With
the growing use of 360 video, artificial intelligence, virtual reality or aug-
mented reality, the narratives in journalism especially in visual journalism
are witnessing numerous changes. Changes are also happening because of
Web 3.0 and the metaverse. This technological innovations have made the
profession of journalism to rethink regarding its process of production, dis-
tribution and consumption of contents to take optimum use of web3 and the
metaverse.
Since the economy of metaverse is an important dimension to discuss,
Kohli-Khandekar (2022) predicts that journalism is shifting to a subscrip-
tion model as AI and metaverse are into newsrooms. However, the format
of immersive journalism is not free from flaws. The issues of privacy cannot
be ruled out. Technological differences have further widened the gap and are
infamously strengthening the space of digital divide. Moreover, newsrooms
in several parts of the world are not equipped with the required technologies.
For instance, in India several news organizations are relying on Asian News
International (ANI), a news agency in India. Known as Asia’s leading multi-
media news agency, ANI provides round-the-clock facilities for both domes-
tic and international channels. This news agency travels all over the world
to report on events in and from South Asia, wherever they may occur. The
ANI Video service offers its TV subscribers over 45 video news stories every
day. The topics covered in the stories range widely, including current events,
popular culture, sports, leisure and business and finance. Additionally, the
ANI video content is accessible on the Reuters TV World News Service in the
“Subcontinent” section. Leading international news outlets like the BBC and
CNN, as well as channels from all over the world, subscribe to this service
(ANI, n.d.).
3.5 Contesting for An Appropriate Technology in Journalism

Suffice to say, the role of technology is pivotal in media and communica-
tion. However, the technology needs to be appropriate. Appropriate tech-
nology is concerned for the total development which also considers social
and cultural factors. Dunn (1978) argues that the approach of development
should be based on culture, and tradition of the community people and must
not have socially disruptive effect on the society as a whole. While deliber-
ating on appropriate technology, socially appropriate technology (Hibbard
& Hosticka, 1982) was coined. Precisely, socially appropriate technology
caters to the needs of well-being of a society apart from mere economic
development.
It was Schumacher who first pronounced the concept of ‘intermediate
technology’ which is also known as appropriate technology (McRobie, 1981,
p. 19). The concept of appropriate technology was the agenda of the not-for-
profit appropriate technology movement (Kaplinsky, 2011). Such movement
ideates the technologies and innovations to be used by the small-scale labor-
intensive, energy-efficient, environmentally sound and locally autonomous
bodies. Such movement has its presence in both developed and developing
countries because of its robustness and sustainable thoughts. Whenever there
are discussions on sustainable technologies, the cradle-to-cradle framework
(Sherratt, 2013) comes to the fore. The framework not only intends to mini-
mize the negative influences but also to create and retain a positive ecological
output. It is a holistic approach for the safety of humans, environment and
successful running of business.
When it comes to journalism, digital technologies are becoming beneficial
and disruptive in nature. Technologies can be tested before mass adoption.
In this context, Mühleisen (2018, p. 3) claims,
“An important component of a disruptive technology is that it must

first be widely adopted before society adapts to it. Electricity delivery
depended on generators. The current technological revolution depends
on computers, the technical backbone of the Internet, search engines
and digital platforms. Because of the lags involved in adapting to new
processes, such as replacing traditional printing with online publishing,
it takes time before output growth accelerates. In the early stages of
such revolutions, more and more resources are devoted to innovation
and reorganization whose benefits are realized only much later.”
Every day is a new day in terms of technological innovations in the field
of journalism. The role of technologies from stone carving to ChatGPGT
is immense in terms of production, distribution and consumption of news
contents. Very recently, techniques used for virtual and meta influencer are
being widely discussed. Computer-generated imagery (CGI), based on com-
puter graphics is in a big way. It has been observed that some of the news-
rooms have employed AI tools and blockchain by skipping the intermediary
technologies and are setting a stage of leapfrogging in terms of technological
adoption. If virtual and meta influencer and CGI are used properly, news
media may get benefits out of these technologies in the future. Usually, the
stage of leapfrogging occurs in developing nations and developing econo-

mies. However, the challenges of non-availability, expensiveness and irrel-
evance will be there at any point of time. In this context, Newman (2021, p.
35) has rightly quoted, “The combination of new devices, better connectiv-
ity, and increasingly powerful technology holds out the promise of a smarter
world where human intelligence is augmented and supported by machines.
But it also marks another wave of rapid disruption with potential downsides
for many, with much of the underlying technology developed and controlled
by a small number of big technology companies.”
Political economy of media technologies is worth discussing in the light of
technological innovations and adoption. Liao and Iliadis (2021, p. 23) point
out, “Emerging technologies exist in a state of flux as a mixture of blueprint
and hardware, plan and practice, the soon to arrive and the almost obso-
lete, surrounded by speculation and speculators, who make often-contested
claims about their promises, perils, and possibilities.”
Precisely, media technologies have made the field of journalism richer and
vibrant, but news media have become more fragile and disrupted over the
years. So, employing appropriate technologies has been imperative and this
larger question is doing rounds in the domain of media and communication.
Moreover, debates in the academic fraternity are gaining momentum from
time to time.
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4 Deliberating Theoretical Justifications
in the Prism of Journalism and Artificial
Intelligence
A Revisit of Theories in Media and
Communication
4.1 Introduction
The study of theories is crucial across all academic fields. Theories provide an
adequate conceptual understanding of phenomena that cannot be quantified,
such as the functioning of societies, organizations and the reasons behind
specific social interactions. Theory offers concepts that describe what we see
and explain connections between concepts. Theory enables and equips us to
make sense of what we observe and decide how to bring about change. It
is a tool that helps us identify problems and make plans for potential solu-
tions. Theory strives to formulate statements or propositions that will have
some explanation. It arranges and condenses knowledge. The foundation of
a theory is made up of principles, presumptions and conceptions that, when
combined, typically explain, characterize or forecast a phenomenon. A good
theory is both concise and thorough; it uses the fewest words feasible to
explain, describe or predict an event, serving as a summary of existing infor-
mation. Theory serves as conceptual frameworks, arranging presumptions,
justifications and relationships into a useful model. It serves as language by
providing theorists with a worldview or a framework for interpreting phe-
nomena. It also serves as the foundation for research, and effective research
is a source of theories that either advance or add to the body of knowledge
(Gauch, 2003). The importance of theory in every discipline including media
and communication remains pivotal and needs to be discussed in the chang-
ing times of current media structure.
The development of communication theories has been influenced by a
variety of historical contexts. The post–World War II tries to understand
propaganda and the connections between media and society (Trudel, 2017).
To be more specific, communication theory gives us the means to address
issues in empirical, conceptual or practical approaches to the discipline of
communication. The use of theory can be seen as a method of mapping and
navigating the world. Different communication theories have varied episte-
mologies, and part of the theorizing process is to express this philosophical
commitment (Miller, 2005). Interpretive empirical, metric empirical or post-
positivist, rhetorical and critical epistemologies are separated by one classifi-
cation or organizational structure.
DOI: 10.4324/9781032716879-4
52 Theoretical Justifications in Journalism and Artificial Intelligence
The study of communication remains fascinating and significant. It is

crucial to knowing how people function in the realm of communication.
Theories of mass communication aid us in determining the relationship
between the media and authority, the impact of the media on politics, the
economy, culture and society, and the relationship and effect of the media as
an institution on the general public. The goal of mass communication theory
is to develop claims or hypotheses that can explain how people use, react
to and interact with the media. The idea aims to explain how mass media
affects audiences, society and individuals. These effects may be imparted to
the target entity.
4.2 Theories in Journalism in the Prism of Artificial Intelligence

4.2.1 Uses and Gratification Theory
The uses and gratification theory (UGT) attempts to study media that focuses
on the applications that individuals have for it and the satisfaction they get
from them. Nearly as old as media research itself is the notion that media
use is influenced by the perceived satisfaction, needs, wishes or reasons of
the potential audience member. Audiences are frequently created based on
shared human needs, interests and preferences. The root of many of these
seems to be social or psychological. Such needs frequently include the desires
for knowledge, solace, camaraderie, amusement or escape. Such broad moti-
vational types are typically used to categorize the audiences for certain media
and types of media content (Katz, Blumler, & Gurevitch, 1973). Media act
as meeting a variety of societal needs, such as social control, cultural conti-
nuity, cohesion and the wide dissemination of all forms of public informa-
tion. The use of media for associated reasons, such as personal direction,
relaxation, adjustment, information and identity construction, is therefore
assumed.
Some of the recent and credible studies on the uses and gratification the-
ory includes – podcasting (Perks, Turner, & Tollison, 2019); social media
usage (Mesmer & Jahng, 2021), immersive journalism (Van Damme, All, De
Marez, & Van Leuven, 2019), virtual reality (Ball, Huang, & Francis, 2021)
and consumer behavior (Mejía-Trejo, 2021). However, there is not a single
study conducted on this theory connecting to the use of artificial intelligence
in journalism. With the advent of ChatGPT, the paradigm pertaining to uses
and gratification approach is undergoing further changes. ChatGPT, an AI
tool, is being massively used in the process of production, distribution and
consumption of media contents. Since this theory is an audience-centric in
approach, studying this in prism of AI tools including ChatGPT and journal-
ism will provide newer insight into the audiences’ needs, tastes and prefer-
ences. It can also deep dive into the news consumers’ sense of gratification in
a developed country and developing country.
Theoretical Justifications in Journalism and Artificial Intelligence 53
4.2.2 Gatekeeping Theory
Kurt Lewin, a German psychologist and pioneer in social psychology, pro-

posed the concept of gatekeeping. Gatekeeping is a procedure in which the
selection of media content occurs for the purpose of the audiences’ consump-
tion. Therefore, gatekeeping is a kind of filtering media content meant for the
audience. Gatekeeping tends to cut down the media content that the readers
or viewers will get exposed to (Shoemaker & Vos, 2009). The gatekeep-
ers choose which information should be passed on to the group or people.
Usually, gatekeepers try to disseminate information that suits their prefer-
ences, professional interests and societal needs. Such kind of exercise may
reflect gatekeepers’ bias.
The gatekeepers decide which information should be disclosed to a group
or person and which information should not. The gatekeepers are the peo-
ple who make the decisions and approve of the entire social structure. They
are the targets of their own social, cultural, ethical and political influences,
making them the gatekeepers. They share the information with the group in
accordance with social or personal factors. Through this process, the gate-
keepers weed out the unwelcome, sensible and contentious information,
assisting in society’s or a group’s governance and directing them in the right
direction. In the family, the mother is key in deciding what the kids need and
shouldn’t be exposed to. Similar to this, editors are important in the news
media. He/she must decide which news stories to publish and which to hold
off on. This gatekeeping process determines not only the information that is
selected but also the nature and content of messages.
With artificial intelligence increasingly getting into the newsrooms, algo-
rithms are thereby emerging as the supreme curators and gatekeepers. News
services are being offered in the format of AI services. In the near future,
intelligent algorithms will take over a growing number of tasks involving the
gathering, organizing, interpreting and applying of the enormous amount
of information on the internet and the mountain of big data that keeps
expanding. Recent ethical issues with access include censorship, fake news
and filter bubbles, where algorithms reinforce people’s prejudices (Pariser,
2011). Algorithms or AI tools have become the new gatekeepers. Some of the
scholarly works on gatekeeping theory include – influences and journalistic
capital (Tandoc Jr, 2018), journalistic balance (Benham, 2020), community
gatekeeping (Gondwe, Ferrucci & Tandoc, 2023), journalism’s institutional
relationships (Vos & Russell, 2019), social media (Grygiel & Lysak, 2021;
Salonen, Olbertz-Siitonen, Uskali, & Laaksonen, 2022), and algorithmic
news (Møller, 2022). However, there is hardly any scholarly studies on gate-
keeping theory in the light of AI. Both conceptual and empirical research are
the need of the hour to bridge the research gaps.
With the increasing execution of ChatGPT in newsrooms for various jour-
nalistic works, news media outlets are witnessing a different experience. This
AI tool enables journalists to summarize large datasets; create questions for
interviews; provide creative headlines; translate news articles to varied lan-

guages; assist journalists with social media posts; and assist journalists to
rewrite the news stories. All these activities curtail the role of gatekeepers.
However, so far, only opinion columns have deliberated on ChatGPT in the
light of gatekeeping. There are no scholarly works on the impact of ChatGPT
on the process of gatekeepers in the news industry. The theory of gatekeeping
can be tested on the anvil of ChatGPT in contemporary times. There is a need
to study this AI tool in the light of gatekeeping, both in a conceptual and an
empirical manner. This will add novelty to the domain of research in media
and communication.
Studies need to be initiated to re-examine the gatekeeping theory on the
use of AI tools including ChatGPT in newsrooms in developing countries
and developed countries. Investigations are required to understand the use of
AI tools for gatekeeping that have implications on news values. Moreover,
larger media conglomerate has wider access to AI tools and how it is influ-
encing the state of gatekeeping can be scientifically studied. Since news media
industry is a dynamic field, technological intervention is the order of the day.
Studies have become imperative on technologies like metaverse, machine
learning, immersive technologies and ChatGPT in the ambit of gatekeeping.
By doing so, there will be an extension of gatekeeping theory and the theo-
retical contributions to the theory in the field of journalism can be realized.
4.2.3 Propaganda Theory
Propaganda theory remains important in the field of media and communica-

tion. According to Lasswell (1927), growing political unrest and widespread
economic hardship had led to a rise in insanity, leaving the majority of people
open to even open propaganda. When faced with serious threats to their per-
sonal safety, the average person turns to propaganda for solace and a way to
deal with the situation. Lasswell criticizes oversimplified behaviorist theories
pertaining to the impact of propaganda. He provides description of the prop-
agandist’s role. The propaganda strategy, which has been described in terms
of culture, can be easily explained using the language of stimulus response.
Herman and Chomsky mention five filters when describing the propa-
ganda model: anti-communism, funding, source, size, ownership and the
mass media’s emphasis on profit (Pedro, 2011). The major media outlets are
governed by a few powerful people. Major media outlets, newspapers and
other mass communication tools are owned by big businesses and conglom-
erates. The depth of these organizations’ financial interests could jeopard-
ize the reporting’s objectivity of news industries. Advertising is the primary
revenue source for mass media. In order to maintain their existence, media
frequently alter mass media ethics. It is true that even the largest media
organizations worldwide are unable to afford to send reporters and camera
crews to locations where breaking news stories are occurring. To ensure a
steady flow of news, the media take the necessary actions in the source’s
favor. Massive production of criticism harms the media. The media is be

alert for any adverse reactions all the time. Media elites controlling the major
media platforms have established a policy to restrict news and articles that
highlight the spirit and flow of communism.
Some of the credible studies on propaganda theory in journalism include
– legitimacy (Xiong, Liu, & He, 2021), journalism culture (Mattsson, 2022),
journalistic practice (Long & Shao, 2023), news media studies (Zollmann,
2019), authoritarianism (Klaehn et al., 2018), citizen journalism (Wall, 2018),
misinformation and disinformation (Guess & Lyons, 2020) and fake news
(Mare, Mabweazara, & Moyo, 2019). With the rapid changes in communi-
cation technologies, the important of AI in the field of journalism deserves
attention in the prism of propaganda. The use AI also goes through five filters
including ownership of media, funding, source, flak and anti-communism.
However, there has been not a single study conducted on propaganda theory
in the light of using AI in journalism. Both conceptual and empirical studies
are required to bridge the research gaps.
On political and social issues, it has been found that ChatGPT, an AI
tool, frequently generates responses with a strong left-leaning and libertarian
political bias. At different times, ChatGPT will react differently. The opin-
ions expressed by ChatGPT are skewed to the left. Furthermore, one possi-
ble source of bias is the training data (Brookings, 2023). ChatGPT upholds
gender stereotypes and norms related to specific professions. So far, the tool
is unable to translate the pronoun that is gender-neutral (Ghosh & Caliskan,
2023). This tool can further intensify propaganda. Since ChatGPT is doing
rounds in the field of journalism, scholarly studies can be initiated on the use
of such tools in the direction of propaganda.
4.2.4 Political Economy Theory

Political economy is a method of media analysis that focuses more on the pro-
duction, consumption and distribution of media content than it does on deci-
phering the meanings of the signs and symbols found in texts. Information
and communication technology, broadcasting, advertising and journalism
are just a few of the industries that fall under the political economy of the
media. An analysis of the power dynamics between politics, mediation and
economics is done using a political economy perspective. What are the spe-
cific methods political economists use to create and use political economy in
the new media environment powered by platform technologies in the three
new domains of digital platforms, big data and digital labor? Not only are
these regions important for examination because of their complicated con-
nections, but also because they have grown to be substantial, major compo-
nents of contemporary capitalism.
Some recent and credible studies have been conducted on the political econ-
omy of media in varied areas including – journalistic power (Canella, 2023),
undercover journalism (Ofori-Parku & Botwe, 2020), ethical journalism
(Mathe, 2020) and alternative journalism (Cheruiyot, 2021). However, the

study of this theory in the field of journalism and artificial intelligence is not
there. Precisely, political economy of media attempts to focus on the organi-
zation and management of media; provides an empirical analysis of media
finances; and seeks to connect the financing of media with the creation of
media content. Since journalism is a domain that keeps on changing includ-
ing technological interventions, discussions on the use of AI tools in the light
of political economy theory is becoming of paramount importance. By visit-
ing the theory in the prism of journalism and artificial intelligence including
ChatGPT there could be an extension of theory.
Concerns about the potential misuse of AI models are raised by the pos-
sibility of political biases being ingrained in them. AI systems that exhibit
political biases and are widely used pose a threat because they could be used
to manipulate democratic institutions and processes, spread misinformation
and exert social control. In addition, they pose a significant barrier to finding
the truth (Rozado, 2023; Bloomberg, 2022), which can be deliberated in the
light of political economy of technologies including ChatGPT. By studying
ChatGPT in the direction of political economy of communication in general,
journalism in particular could be a major theoretical contribution and an
extension to the theory.
4.2.5 Cultivation Theory
In the 1960s, Professor George Gerbner coined the term ‘cultivation the-
ory’. Cultivation theory was created as a tool to investigate how viewers
were impacted by television. The central tenet of the theory is that as people
spend more time “living” in the world of television, they are more likely to
believe that social reality corresponds with that which is portrayed on televi-
sion (Potter, 2014). Since it assumes the existence of objective reality and
impartial research, cultivation theory falls under the positivistic philosophi-
cal category.
Some of the credible scholarly studies on cultivation theory include
physical characteristics of strangers (Stein, Krause, & Ohler, 2021), digi-
tal media (Ruddock, 2020), psychological processes and underlying cultiva-
tion effect (Shrum, 2017), contemporary news media (Morgan, Shanahan,
& Signorielli, 2015) and pseudo newsgathering (Ferrucci & Painter, 2013).
However, the study has not been conducted on the use of artificial intel-
ligence in journalism. Moreover, with the advent of ChatGPT, the field of
journalism is undergoing changes. This AI tool has affected the views and
behaviors of journalists. The journalists might be internalizing and reflect-
ing what they experience from ChatGPT. Nevertheless, there have been no
scholarly studies in which cultivation analysis was deliberated on the use
of ChatGPT. Such studies would be novice, but deserve to be conducted.
Conducting research on this emerging area would bridge the knowledge
gaps.
The principle of cultivation has been used to explore the emerging media
and fast developments in the news media and journalism. Media technology
has not been static in nature. As a result, traditional methods of cultivation
analysis could need to switch from counting the number of television hours
watched to a big data perspective. Despite widespread skepticism regarding
the applicability of cultivation theory in light of the growing significance
of new media, these media nonetheless employ story, and since those nar-
ratives keep on influencing us, cultivation analysis is still relevant. Recent
trends in cultivation approach are important aspects in the field of journalism
with the technological trends like artificial intelligence, machine learning and
metaverse being increasingly incorporated.
Revisiting the cultivation theory on the impact of AI on the audience in
the field of journalism is an emerging research area which will bridge the
research gaps.
4.2.6 Agenda-Setting Theory
Agenda-setting can be defined as “news media have the capability to influ-

ence the audience’s network-like mental structure” (McCombs & Reynolds,
2002, p. 257). McCombs (2004, p. 3) further paraphrased Lippmann’s find-
ings as “the news media, our windows to the vast world beyond direct expe-
rience, determine our cognitive maps of that world”.
In the study of agenda-setting, media platforms strategize a hierarchy of
news importance for the audience. A nation’s political clout is thought to be
reflected in the amount of media coverage it receives. The agenda-setting of the
media is driven by its bias toward topics including politics, economy and cul-
ture (McCombs, 2005). The agenda-setting and freewheeling aspects of com-
munication research that emerged facilitated the rapid growth and expansion
of these concepts. For an agenda to be effective, certain steps must be carried
out in a specific order. The general audience’s perceptions are influenced by
how news reports and issues are presented. There have been immense studies
conducted on agenda-setting theory on varied dimensions. Some of the stud-
ies in the area of journalism include – citizen journalism (Pain, 2018), plagia-
rism (Kurambayev, 2020), Twitter (Yang & Sun, 2021), public perceptions
on media coverage (Jiang, Cheng & Cho 2021), political communication
(Boukes, 2019) and digital media platforms (Guo & Zhang, 2020; Guo, 2019).
However, there has been hardly any study conducted on agenda-setting theory
along the lines of artificial intelligence including ChatGPT and journalism.
AI tools are influencing newsrooms to a great extent. However, using vari-
ous AI tools nowadays in newsroom is fairly a costly affair and accessibility
is a herculean task. Then which newsrooms and which parts of the world
are able to use and who are behind the scene are the questions to be probed.
However, the arrival of ChatGPT which is a free AI tool so far, has started
affecting the newsrooms. There have been no scholarly works on agenda-
setting approach to ChatGPT. The agenda of technological proliferations
deserves to be re-examined in the light of AI. Moreover, re-examining these

aspects will the extension of the agenda-setting theory and theoretical contri-
butions in the academic of journalism can be tangible.
4.2.7 Spiral of Silence Theory
Spiral of silence theory was coined by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. This the-

ory indicates people’s propensity to keep quiet when they believe their opin-
ions conflict with those of the majority on a certain issue. People keep quiet
for a number of reasons – a fear of exclusion when others in the group or
the general public learn that the individual has an alternative viewpoint to
the current quo; and the worry that expressing an opinion might have unde-
sirable effects beyond simple isolation, such as fear of retaliation or more
severe isolation (Noelle‐Neumann, 1974). This theory states that in given a
situation, we all have the ability to recognize what and which viewpoints are
prevalent in a given society.
Gearhart and Zhang (2018) explore using social media will encourage
more people to present their views on political matters. Given the growing
influence of social media on culture, communication debate and daily life, it
is critical to repurpose this potential for societal advancement. Algorithms in
social media could be used to offer consumers’ suggestions and information
that is not governed by social norms. People constantly monitor social media
comments because they worry about being alone (Neubaum & Krämer,
2017). Reduced isolation fears can foster more varied dialogues and, when
combined with the idea that people alter their thoughts as a result of exposure
to perspectives on social media, they can lessen the influence of the majority
and minority opinions in society.
According to Wang, Hmielowski, Hutchens, and Beam (2017), content
suggestions from news searches or sharing may help the people reinforce
their already beliefs by redistributing pertinent material to their online social
networks. The researchers point out the vitality of people’s social systems
in relation to the spiral of silence. People who are exposed to perspectives
that are similar to their own are more inclined to believe that their ideas
are shared by the majority. People tend to ignore or reject information that
contradicts their own ideas and only seek information that supports those
opinions or feelings (Chaffee & Miyo, 1983). Information collected through
AI systems may ascertain people’s preexisting beliefs.
This suggests that information based on algorithms may confirm peo-
ple’s pre-existing beliefs. Social media users may believe that the suggested
content accurately represents the majority’s views on public topics because
content automation mandates a quasi-statistical sense of the public opinion
climate. A noteworthy aspect of this process is what we refer to as an agent
of control of content exposure. According to reinforcement theory, people
deliberately and selectively choose preferred information in the context of
mainstream media based on their pre-existing ideas. However, the primary
means of information control now are the automated algorithms on social

media.
Some of the recent and scholarly works on spiral of silence theory include
– live radio journalism (Chagas, 2019), algorithm-driven social media con-
tent (Cheong, Baksh, & Ju, 2022), mainstream public sphere (Ma, 2020),
political opinion expression (Kunst, Toepfl, & Dogruel, 2020), online com-
ment and news (Duncan et al., 2020) and opinion expression and climate
change (Porten-Cheé & Eilders, 2015). However, the extant literature has
not addressed the area of spiral of silence in the light of using artificial intel-
ligence and algorithms in the newsrooms in empowering the weak and pro-
viding voice to the voiceless. Suffice to say, AI tools in the newsrooms can be
a boon to break the culture of silence and empower the weak and become
the voice of the voiceless. Further, the arrival of ChatGPT has empowered
journalists irrespective of their positions and locations.
Social media content determined by algorithms has the bearings on the
spiral of silence. Spiral of silence principles work in a world where content is
suggested by algorithms. Social media platforms are engaged with perceived
anonymity and postings which are duly executed by algorithms. In compari-
son to traditional mass media, social media uses distinct techniques to shape
the public opinion. The social media algorithms propose pertinent materials
to users based on their prior online behavior history and interactions with
other users who share their interests on varied social networks. As a result,
the suggested content may support and foster popular perspectives.
Algorithmic content endorsements in social media outlets enhance users’
quasi-statistical sensitivities that their beliefs represent those of the majority,
lessen their fear of being alone and increase their willingness to express them-
selves on the platform. That is, when social media use increases, individuals
will perceive their own beliefs as the majority views more often; feel less
isolated; and be more eager to express their thoughts on public topics online.
Automation of social media material, though, has invited certain shortcom-
ings. Since the message flow is controlled by algorithmic methods, news
organizations and journalists must exercise caution and post both positive
and negative responses to their news pieces on social media platforms. The
applications of ChatGPT should not be exception to journalists’ scrutiny.
These platforms select contents to be interesting and relevant based on how
users have previously used media. Hence, the users of social media content
should be aware of this. Therefore, studying the theory of spiral silence in the
light of using AI in journalism will bridge the research gaps and subsequently
make theoretical contributions.
4.2.8 Technological Determinism Theory
The reductionist theory of technological determinism, created by the American

sociologist and economist Thorstein Veblen, asserts that technological devel-
opment is fundamentally anti-democratic because it follows its own inside
sense of competence and dictates the evolution of a societal construction and

cultural norms (Héder, 2021). The social structure and cultural values of a
society are predetermined by its technology, claims the technological deter-
minism theory. Our cultural expectations are also shaped by technological
determinism. As a result, it produces a system of norms and values that gov-
ern how we conduct as a society.
Dusek (2006, p. 84) defines technological determinism as
“Technological determinism is the claim that technology causes or

determines the structure of the rest of society and culture. Autonomous
technology is the claim that technology is not in human control,
that it develops with a logic of its own. The two theses are related.
Autonomous technology generally presupposes technological deter-
minism. If technology determines the rest of culture, then culture and
society cannot affect the direction of technology. Technological deter-
minism does not, on the face of it, presuppose autonomous technology.
It could be that free, creative inventors devise technology, but that this
technology determines the rest of society and culture.”
Huesemann and Huesemann (2011) assert that technology remains neutral.

It is neither good nor harmful; rather, what matters is how we utilize it.
Some of the scholarly works on technological determinism theory include
data journalism (de-Lima-Santos & Mesquita, 2021), digital native media
(García-Orosa, López-García & Vázquez-Herrero, 2020), digital transforma-
tion (Frennert, 2021), social media and movement (Foust & Hoyt, 2018),
green revolution (Swer, 2021) and learning process (Mardiana & Daniels,
2019). However, there have been no scholarly works conducted on techno-
logical determinism theory connecting to the use of artificial intelligence tools
in journalism. Theory of technological determinism is becoming important in
the academic of journalism as the industry of journalism has been ceaselessly
exposed to technological interventions like AI, metaverse and immersive tech-
nologies. In addition, with the advent of ChatGPT, the journalistic process is
getting revised. ChatGPT, as a technological process, has immense implications
on the creative and business aspects of journalism. It needs academic explora-
tions, keeping ChatGPT in the lens of technological determinism theory.
Needless to say, the technological environment of a society shapes its
social structure and cultural norms. To bridge the research gap, both concep-
tual and theoretical studies can be directed to examine how AI is influencing
and determining the journalistic culture. The use of AI tools in newsrooms
in developing countries and developed countries are different and the level of
technological determinism is also different. Similarly, the use of AI, metaverse
and immersive technologies for business journalism is different from crime
journalism. These dimensions can be addressed by undertaking adequate
scholarly works. It would greatly contribute to the theoretical enhancement
of technological determinism in contemporary times.
4.2.9 Domestication Theory
Domestication theory, developed by Roger Silverstone, is a widely used the-

ory in the discipline of media, communication and sociology of technology. It
examines studies and descriptions of the mechanisms governing how people
choose to embrace, use or reject technology. When it comes to integrating
technology into people’s lives, Silverstone (1992) identified four stages that it
must go through. Firstly, technology is integrated into daily life and adapted
to customs. Secondly, the user and its surroundings adjust and change.
Thirdly, by influencing the growth of present technologies and services, these
modifications have a positive feedback effect on industrial innovation pro-
cesses. Fourthly, conversion, which reveals how much and how it has come
to reflect a household’s culture is a measure of technology’s conversion.
Domestication theory emphasizes on the approach which aims to under-
stand how technology is formed, based on the participation of users in
innovation. Individuals and communities work together to adapt an outside
technology so that it can be used in their setting and makes sense. This line
of research relates to how lead users, end users, etc., play a part in long-term
innovation processes (Williams, Stewart & Slack, 2004). Some of the schol-
arly works in the area of domestication theory include – mobile phones and
rural adolescents (Guan, Tang, & Wang, 2020), designing and domesticat-
ing an interstructure (Suboticki & Sørensen, 2021), social media (Zhu &
Miao, 2021), Internet technologies (Grošelj, 2021) and online games (Ask
& Sørensen, 2019) and communication and real-life conditions (Nimrod &
Edan, 2022). However, the extant literature has yet to address the use of
artificial intelligence in journalism.
Suffice to say, domestication theory examines the descriptions of the
mechanisms governing how people choose to embrace, use or reject technol-
ogy. Since journalism is a dynamic field which is bombarded with continu-
ous technologies like AI, metaverse and machine learning. ChatGPT, an AI
tool is being massively used by journalists for varied purposes. ChatGPT is
influencing the production, distribution and consumption of news. The extent
to which the journalists are using ChatGPT remains an interesting topic to
explore. So far there have only opinion pieces which deliberate on this matter.
There has been a dearth of scholarly works to understand the descriptions of
the mechanisms governing how journalists choose to embrace, use or reject
AI, metaverse, machine learning and immersive technologies. To bridge the
research gaps, future research can be embarked on the use of AI in journal-
ism in the light of technological determinism. Studying how journalists use AI
including ChatGPT in newsrooms through which mechanism will be an exten-
sion of domestication theory and theoretical contribution can be realized.
4.2.10 Development Communication Theory
The purpose of communication theories is that communication be employed

for the development of the people. Communication intends to serve and
encourage the people without any latent and vested interests. It does not have
the intention of manipulation and propaganda rather it is directed for social
change and development. Communication is to develop conscientization or
critical consciousness. The theory was applied to bring about social change.
Couple of theories, out of the many communication theories for develop-
ment, have been tested in this situation.
Wilkins and Mody (2001) trace the origin and growth of development
communication as a practical theory from its roots in administrative and eco-
nomic research agendas to its more recent emergence as a critical research tra-
dition that challenges the preeminent development paradigm. They attempt to
reshape the field of development communication. Wilkins and Mody further
question how notions related to development –– modernity, globalization,
postmodernity and reliance – which have influenced development communi-
cation theory. It shows how these concepts support a materialist and biased
vision of development, social justice and social transformation. Both the
scholars promote a communication theory that embraces social change in
conversation with other social science and humanities approaches, while also
providing insight into how rapidly developing digital and convergent com-
munication technologies have transformed human societies in ways that were
previously unimaginable.
One approach to development communication theory is the culture-
centered approach (CCA). The CCA is a meta-theoretical paradigm for
mitigating health disparities through the development of communicative
infrastructures for hearing the voices of marginalized communities that have
historically been silenced in privileged discursive spaces. It emphasizes on
engagement, collaboration, dialogue and reflexivity which further provide
methodological tools providing space to the subaltern voices (Dutta, 2018).
The CCA calls for maintaining the infrastructures for communication by cre-
ating communication sovereignty together; determining methods for original
responses; co-creating the resources for help across spaces; creating diverse
networks of solidarity; paying attention to timing; strategizing your presence;
connecting across all the spaces; and creating together several voice nodes.
The communication processes that make up the CCA are situated in local
communities and their interactions with dominant players in the mainstream.
Communication infrastructures within community spaces must be critically
reflective of the locations where silence is produced if we are to hear differ-
ent voices, pay attention to the margins within community formations and
seek out the voices at the edges. The CCA aims to use alternative infrastruc-
tures that are accessible and significant to marginalized populations in order
to address the lack of communication infrastructures in those communities.
By making investments in community-important communication infrastruc-
tures, it also aims to increase community capacity.
Some of the scholarly works pertaining to development communication
theory, communication technology and development include – socioeco-
nomic development (Roztocki, Soja & Weistroffer, 2019), economic growth
and development (David & Grobler, 2020), social dynamics and develop-
ment processes (Zheng, Hatakka, Sahay, & Andersson, 2018), human devel-
opment (Zelenkov & Lashkevich, 2022), youth empowerment (Ratriyana,
Setiawan, & Yudarwati, 2021), participatory environment communication
(Zikargae, Woldaregay, & Skjerdal, 2021), social media (Wirtz & Zimbres,
2018), citizen Journalism (Lee, Liu, & Nah, 2023), political communica-
tion (Amankwah & Mbatha, 2019) and rural journalism (Wenzel, 2019).
However, the extant literature has not thrown any light on the role of artifi-
cial intelligence, as part of communication technologies for the attainment of
development and social change.
Precisely, the existing literature has failed to address the investigations
pertaining to the development of communication theory and use of artifi-
cial intelligence in journalism. The literature has amply discussed develop-
ment of communication theory in the light of communication technologies,
but not AI including ChatGPT, metaverse, machine learning and immersive
technologies in journalism. With the arrival of ChatGPT, some of the citi-
zen journalists and development journalists have started executing this AI
tool to report on socioeconomic issues which remain neglected in the main-
stream media. However, there have been no academic works conducted in
the lens of development communication theory. Theoretical deliberations on
development communication from the perspectives of using AI, metaverse,
machine learning and immersive technologies in development journalism
have not been addressed. To bridge the research gaps, promising studies are
required to find out how AI can be instrumental for social change, develop-
ment and empowerment. Investigations can be navigated whether artificial
intelligence could be part of communicative infrastructures for hearing the
voices of subaltern communities which further leads to the state of empow-
erment. Studies in these relevant areas could bring extension to the devel-
opment of communication theories in general and theories in the area of
development journalism.
4.2.11 Feminist Media Theory
Feminist philosophy serves as the basis for feminist media theory. The inte-
gration of feminist principles and notions into media production, distribution
and employment processes, as well as representational trends in news and
entertainment across platforms and reception, is conducted through feminist
media theory. Without assuming permanent or static gender disparities, femi-
nist media theory takes gender seriously as a factor that shapes identity and
experiences (Van Zoonen, 1994). As media theories are spreading like wildfire
and becoming more and more accepted, the field of feminist media studies is
becoming more and more explicit about the importance of international, multi-
disciplinary research that takes media convergence and globalization seriously.
Over the years, feminist views of technology have made significant pro-
gress. The growing interaction between feminist academic research and both
professions has greatly benefited from the discipline of science and technol-
ogy studies (STS). Modern methods emphasize the mutual shaping of gender
and technology, where both conceptions of technology are used in origin and
outcome of gender interactions (Wajcman, 2010). These ideologies, includ-
ing gender determinism and gender essentialism, emphasize that the gender–
technology relationships are flexible in nature. These discussions demonstrate
how technical change processes have an impact on gender power dynamics.
Thus, a critical component of attaining gender equality remains the politics
of technology. Usually, the definition of technology is framed in terms of
male activity. The conventional notions of creativity, production and work
have also come under scrutiny. The societal assumption that women are tech-
nologically unskilled or invisible in technical fields.
Radical feminism contends that men and women are fundamentally
distinct from one another and that men have constantly dominated and
controlled women’s power, values and desire through male-controlled insti-
tutions like the military and the medical profession (Harding, 1986). Western
science and technology are both heavily entwined in this masculine ambition
of dominating and controlling nature and women. This strategy has been
particularly significant in terms of human biological reproduction technology
(Spallone & Steinberg, 1987). The outcome was too frequently a negative
depiction of women as victims of patriarchal technology.
Some of the scholarly studies on feministic theory in the context of jour-
nalism include moderate feminism (Kurvinen, 2023), women journalists’
condition (Khoo, 2021), online harassment and feminism (Antunovic, 2019),
women journalists’ voice and shifting digitalized journalistic profession
(Khamis & Ibiary, 2022) and alternative feminist journalism (Kamal, 2021).
However, there is not a single scholarly work on feminism, artificial intel-
ligence and journalism from the perspectives of communication technologies.
Digital technologies are configured in conjunction with women’s iden-
tities, needs and priorities. Despite the multiplicity of feminism, concerns
about the hierarchical boundaries defining relationships between men and
women are common among feminist thinkers. However, the extant literature
is yet to cover adequately on women’s identities, needs and priorities; and
hierarchical boundaries between men and women in the light of technologi-
cal adoption. Feminist discussions about technology keep on changing. These
days, certain women journalists worldwide are proactive in using AI tools
including ChatGPT. This is making them more proficient in their journalis-
tic profession. Hence, feminist views of technology in general and artificial
intelligence and emerging technologies like metaverse, machine learning and
immersive technologies in particular need to be initiated in the teaching and
research. Both conceptual and empirical studies can be directed and it could
be an extension to the feminist media theory. Revisiting feminist theory in the
light of emerging technologies like metaverse, machine learning and immer-
sive technologies will be an extension of communication theory and theoreti-
cally contribute to the academic of journalism.
Communication theory’s epistemology still requires understanding. The
epistemologies of communication theories vary widely. The future of
communication theory lies in the perspectives or subdisciplines including
information theory, interpersonal communication, organizational com-
munication, socio-cultural communication, political communication,
computer-mediated communication, rhetoric and speech and critical per-
spectives on media and communication. However, scholarly studies on arti-
ficial intelligence, metaverse, machine learning and immersive technologies
in the domain of journalism in the prism of media theories is in the state
of infancy. Hardly there are any potential studies conducted so far. In the
future, conducting both conceptual and empirical studies on media theories
pertaining to artificial intelligence and journalism has become the need of
hour.
Precisely, media theories can be revisited to investigate the source, mes-
sage, channel, audience and effect while understanding the incorporation of
AI tools including ChatGPT in journalism. Media theories can be tested in the
light of developing and developed countries. Certain interdisciplinary stud-
ies can be conducted to re-examine the validity and effectiveness of media
theories pertaining to the use of AI in journalistic practice. AI, metaverse,
machine learning, deep learning and immersive technologies are the future
of journalism. Technologies used for virtual and meta influencers are being
slowly discussed. Computer-generated imagery (CGI), based on computer
graphics has started influencing the human being. Future studies can be
directed to reexamine media theories pertaining to the role of artificial intel-
ligence, metaverse, machine learning, deep learning, immersive technologies,
computer-generated imagery and ChatGPT in newsrooms which could be the
extension of the existing media theories. This would be the major theoretical
contribution to the discipline of media and communication.
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5 Situating Artificial Intelligence in the
Space of Development Journalism
A Revisit of Development Communication
5.1 Introduction
Development communication remains complex in nature. With the passage
of time and technology, the subject of development communication in general
and development journalism in particular is ceaselessly undergoing changes.
Moreover, the very nature of the subject and researches in interdisciplinary
dimensions has made the subject of development communication more com-
pound and unpredictable. In the course of planning and execution of devel-
opment schemes, the discipline of development communication allows for a
better consideration of human behavioral factors in the creation of the pro-
jects’ goals. Citizens are at the core of development communication, which
is indispensable for attaining national development. The potential for public
participation has substantially increased with the development of new media
technologies. Therefore, intelligent democratic governments recognize the
importance of encouraging citizen participation in order to fully comprehend
and address citizens’ needs. In this context, understanding and revisiting the
concept of “Development” has become imperative and relevant.
5.1.1 Development: An Understanding
Development can be understood from context to context. It is a process of

socioeconomic changes in a diverse manner. To Sen (1999, p. xii, 1, 18),
“Development consists of the removal of various types of unfreedom

that leave people with little opportunity of exercising their reasoned
agency … Development can be seen … as a process of expanding the
real freedoms that people enjoy … the expansion of the ‘capabilities’ of
persons to lead the kind of lives they value – and have reason to value.”
Connecting to the concept of “Development”, sustainable development can

be touched upon. Sustainable development endorses the idea of meeting the
needs of the present without bargaining the ability of upcoming generations to
fulfil their needs. While discussing the concept of “Development”, it is essen-
tial to bring inclusive development for deliberations. Inclusive development
DOI: 10.4324/9781032716879-5
Artificial Intelligence in the Space of Development Journalism 73
attempts to foster people’s participation in the process of development and

lessen the level of socioeconomic inequalities. It tends to mobile the process
toward sustainable and equitable development.
One of the solutions to overcome the barriers of development is tech-
nology. It has the power of fostering the process of communication, which
can also influence the pace of development. In this context, discussing the
role of technology for communication and development is of paramount
importance.
5.1.2 Technology for Communication and Development
The role of technology for development has been immense. It can provide
national and social security; help to sustain the growth of economy; ena-
ble the smooth transition to an information society; improve the quality of
life; and create a culture for society (United Nations University, n.d.). It is
apparent that technological changes can potentially contribute to the devel-
opment of underdeveloped countries. Therefore, technological progress and
economic growth are interdependent. However, some of the critics argue
that even though science and technology remain important for economic and
social development, the distribution of innovations is unequally distributed
on a global scale. The equal distribution of knowledge and innovation tend
to develop and retain social structures which further boost knowledge crea-
tion (Mormina, 2019). However, equal distribution of knowledge and inno-
vation remains a distant dream.
The impact of technology on society has been varied in sorting out ump-
teen problems. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have
affected human lives in several ways. Public, private and individual enter-
prise have been in tune with technological advancements. Personal, social
and economic growth are directly or indirectly influenced by means of vari-
ous technologies. Technology tends to influence the dimensions and perspec-
tive of business in a given society as it creates and affects human resources
and further invites investments in human and social capital (Roztocki, Soja,
& Weistroffer, 2019). Palvia, Baqir, and Nemati (2018) argue for the utility
of technology for development which is built on Sen’s capabilities approach
(Sen, 1999). Lee, Shao, and Vinze (2018) assert that technology especially
information and communication technology act as the main mobilizer for
social transformation. Moreover, Schelenz and Pawelec (2022) argue for
a comprehensive critique on ICT for development from research and prac-
tice perspectives. Madon (2000) underlines that the power of the internet is
immense in fostering socio-economic development.
Blockchain, one of the evolving technologies, has been beneficial for
exercising food subsidy distribution. It has provided a robust solution to
the issues pertaining to food distribution (Pawar, Sonje, & Shukla, 2021).
Blockchain is also an instrument for creating public value and promoting
governance and sustainability. The application of blockchain has fostered
74 Artificial Intelligence in the Space of Development Journalism
sufficient negotiations between the public and private on environmental

investments (Correa Tavares et al., 2021). Such technology is able to aug-
ment operational volume through decentralization, cutting down the costs,
scalability and traceability and causing the series of public value generation.
With the power of technologies, sustainable economic growth is becom-
ing increasingly feasible. In a similar argument, the presence of technologies
is there in every professional field including journalism. Therefore, discuss-
ing the impact of technologies in media and communication is general and
journalism in particular is of pivotal importance. Achieving overall devel-
opment requires a comprehensive framework in which communication
plays an important role. Communication has the power to facilitate the
purpose and pace of development. It attempts to engage various stakehold-
ers of developmental projects and fosters the process of development. In
this context, understanding of development communication is of utmost
importance.
5.2 Development Communication
Deliberating development communication (DC) remains an important area
in the field of media and communication. Quebral (2011, p. 6) defines devel-
opment communication as “the art and science of human communication
linked to a society’s planned transformation from a state of poverty to one of
dynamic socio-economic growth that makes for greater equity and the larger
unfolding of individual potential”.
The origin of DC is an interesting topic. This concept first emerged at a
University of the Philippines College of Agriculture symposium in 1971. By
then, “development” was not treated seriously and hence was a news beat.
The arrival of new technologies has changed the thought and pace of DC.
Later by the late 1990s, the concept received popularity in Asian countries.
As a result, development received the status of a news beat (Quebral, 2011).
Later, with the changing times and arrival of upgraded technologies, the con-
cept became more popular and accepted.
DC has two major roles – transforming role and socializing role. With
the transforming role, social change can be attained for bringing quality of
life for human beings. With socializing role, defined values of the society
can be retained. Moreover, the philosophy of DC is different from ordinary
form of communication. DC is purposive, positive and pragmatic in nature.
DC is always purposive as such communication has definite purpose/s or
objective/s. DC is all positive as such type of communication is value-loaded.
It is far from propaganda. DC is pragmatic in nature as it disseminates par-
ticular solutions to particular issues. In this sense, DC is not abstract in
nature.
Since DC is value-loaded and goal-oriented, it cannot be disseminated
without a proper strategy. Proper and timely communication of planning
is required. There could be one strategy or more than one strategy and it all
depends on the goals or objectives. Precisely, the strategy of DC considers

some of the queries: Who is the target audience? What kind of channels do
the audience use? How can language be designed for disseminating the mes-
sage? What is the cost involved in the process of communication? What are
the obstacles to the process of communication? DC can be strategized based
on the nature of audience, whether urban, rural or suburban. Like any other
communication, DC pays maximum attention to the nature of audience.
In the process of DC, channel remains an important entity. To disseminate
developmental messages, DC focuses on varied of channels – print, electronic
or digital or amalgamation of these platforms. Based on the type of message
and audience, a channel is chosen for effective execution of DC. The impor-
tance on language cannot be discounted in the process of executing DC. To
make DC effective, language could be English, Hindi or any other vernacular
medium of language. Otherwise, language barriers could pose a potential
barrier in DC. In the process of actualizing DC, resource/fund/cost remains
pivotal. Cost for strategizing the process of DC cannot be sidelined. This
apart, there are other barriers including cultural barriers and technological
barriers that need to be resolved to make DC effective. Development journal-
ism is a portion of DC. Development journalism can be practiced through
print, electronic or digital media or a combination of any of these platforms.
5.3 Defining Development Journalism

Kunczik (1988, p. 83) defines development journalism (DJ) as “a notion of
journalism according to which reporting events of national and international
significance should be constructive in the sense that it contributes positively
to the development of the country concerned”. Ogan (1982, p. 3) states
development journalism as
“a concept at the heart of this new information order. It appears that

both the proponents and the critics of the establishment of this ‘new’
kind of journalism are not clear about the concept’s meaning or method
of application in any particular setting.”
Nwosu (1989) asserts that a development journalist can be a best investiga-

tive journalist. Through the output of DJ, people can be empowered.
Development journalism is centered on covering developmental issues,
sidelining the aspects of advertising and public relations. Such nature of
journalism tends to critically analyze, assess and interpret the development
projects and the process of development. News framing in development jour-
nalism is unique as compared to other forms of journalism. DJ specifically
focuses on development issues with the news articles on plans, policies and
execution of developmental projects.
Development journalism can find flaws if there is a difference between what
was the plan of action and what is the output of the project for development.
It can furnish a comparative study on the projects from one country to

another country. Even it can throw light on the developmental needs of the
people which usually differ from country to country. Development journal-
ism can predict the future of development which largely entails food, hous-
ing, employment and other factors like security and human dignity.
The concept of development journalism, a subset of DC, emerged with
the idea that it can aid national development. Such nature of journalism
can be traced back to the post Second World War when there was the
dawn of DC in the developing countries of Asia, Latin America and Africa.
The use of communication for national development was the core of dis-
cussion (Banda, 2007). However, the concept of development journalism
gained increasing attention in 1970s and 1980s. The formation of the New
World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) raised the issues
of global flow of information which subsequently argued for restructuring
of the flow, distribution and practice of information (Padovani, 2008). This
development immensely influenced the scope of development journalism on
a global scale.
Kalyango et al. (2017) point out that the journey of development jour-
nalism commenced in developing countries with the intent of working for
developmental objectives. The normative idea of DJ is to mobilize economic,
infrastructure and social mobility in society. In the early twentieth century,
development journalism played a vital role in orienting rural people about
the process of development. By virtue of such nature of journalism, it could
motivate the people to participate in the process of development and protect
the interests of the stakeholders.
5.3.1 Good Governance, Development Journalism and Artificial Intelligence

Good governance is a word often pronounced in the area of development.
Good governance can be defined as “participatory, consensus oriented,
accountable, transparent, responsive, effective and efficient, equitable
and inclusive and follows the rule of law” (United Nations ESCAP, n.d.).
Participation of citizens, fair legal framework, transparency, responsiveness
of stakeholders, consensus of citizens, equity and inclusiveness and account-
ability of governmental institutions are essential to attain good governance.
All these are factors that AI-driven development journalism should consider
while considering its various reportages. The algorithmic techniques need be
to nuanced to understand and execute the factors in the process of journal-
istic narratives. In this way, the AI-enabled developmental journalism can be
instrumental in achieving good governance through the journalistic process.
Moreover, the United Nations is encouraging intense SDGs-related coverage
across the globe. Hence, AI-driven development journalism and achieving the
SDGs are closely interdependent.
Development journalism when laced with AI should pay due attention
to globalization, cultural identity and communication rights. Developmental
messages should stress on governance for the sake of development and social
change. Developmental messages should highlight good governance, trans-
parency, accountability and participatory approaches to development. The
process of development needs to focus on strengthening independent and plu-
ralistic media which ultimately can boost good governance and transparency.
Larrondo Ureta, Meso Ayerdi, Peña Fernández, Marauri Castillo, and
Pérez Dasilva (2022) assert that the future applications of SDGs should
be discussed in the discipline of journalism and communication. This will
have larger implications on good governance. Deliberating on development
journalism and the use of AI tools for social change communication will
prove beneficial for achieving and retaining the status of good governance.
Moreover, it will train the upcoming journalists who will be the potential
stakeholders of good governance.
Musa and Domatob (2007, p. 328) argue,
“Media practitioners, policy makers, and the public in general have

a duty to examine the role of the media in light of changing realities.
Leaders must also take into consideration that the public has more news
sources, both local and foreign. However, the need to inform the pub-
lic of government policies and promote national unity, development,
and local culture remains. Development journalists may choose to con-
tinue to serve as partisan propagandists, but they will have smaller and
smaller audiences. To be relevant, development journalists will have to
acquire new professional skills and perspectives suitable to the times.
They must also be concerned with credibility.”
Musa and Domatob claim that development journalists should be equipped

with new professional skills. Professional skills could be employing AI skills
in practicing DJ which will make the journalism credible. Development jour-
nalism based on AI techniques can be facilitative, informative, empower-
ing, reflexive and transformative in nature. Such nature of journalism can
be vital for stakeholders and beneficiaries who are in the process of social
progress.
5.3.2 Artificial Intelligence, Inclusive Journalism and Inclusive Development
Inclusive journalism is one of the features of development journalism.

Inclusive journalism acts as a catalyst for positive changes in the society.
Such form of journalism fosters overall development by mitigating numerous
obstacles in society. Ford, Gonzales and Quade (2020, p. 61) argue that to
make journalism inclusive,
“journalism educators and newsroom managers need to encourage stu-

dents and journalists to look for the subconscious assumptions, biases,
and preconceptions reflected in their language and presentation of
issues and in their choice of subjects, sources, or images. Journalism

educators need to treat diversity, equity, and inclusion as part of their
core curriculum.”
In this context, since journalism is a dynamic field that keeps on changing,

the pedagogy on AI needs to be incorporated in the classroom structure.
When it comes to the practice of AI in newsroom set-up, the manage-
ment should be liberal and cope with the changing ecology of news media
industry.
Inclusive journalism attempts to account for the incredible functions of
journalism in contemporary life. Journalists remain the mainstay in report-
ing whatever the event it may be (Rupar & Zhang, 2022). When it comes to
making journalism inclusive, technological innovations like incorporations
of AI in journalism are of utmost importance. As a result, inclusive journal-
ism and developmental journalism can be realized.
Since the ecology of news comprising the gathering, production and dis-
tribution of news is influenced by AI tools, technological innovations have
started influencing inclusive journalism which further affects the state of
development. Newsrooms powered by AI tools need to engage with all sorts
of communities and render the voice to the voiceless. Technology needs to
be used to achieve and sustain diversity, equity and inclusion in the news-
rooms. Moreover, development journalism cares for diversity, equity and
inclusion while covering any developmental issues. However, inclusive news
storytelling through the process of AI automation remains a challenge. Since
AI-driven journalism is based on automation and algorithm, it could be a
challenge to customize the news stories addressing the issues of gender, dis-
ability, social inclusion, human rights and the like. Hence, attaining equality,
diversity and inclusion in the newsrooms of automation could be a distant
dream.
In this context, Holman and Perreault (2022) have rightly claimed that
achieving gender parity in terms of exposure to innovations in the news-
rooms is not possible. Similar claim may be possible in case of development
journalism empowered by AI tools in newsrooms. Achieving equality, diver-
sity and inclusion in AI-driven newsrooms is a myth in reality. The risk of
reinforcing prejudices and stereotypes is going to mount only.
5.3.3 Artificial Intelligence, Emancipatory Journalism and Development

Journalism
Needless to say, today’s mainstream journalism is commercially controlled

or state-owned. Emancipatory journalism, an alternative to the existing
forms of journalism, can be evolved with the help of artificial intelligence
in the newsrooms. Emancipatory journalism, a form of emancipatory com-
munication, can be driven to envision and create substitutions to the current
mediascape.
Milan (2019, p. 1) advocates that emancipatory communication,
“demystifies technology, whether digital or analog, unpacking its

functioning and bringing it closer to the people’s lived experience. By
exposing the contradictions of the contemporary media landscape, it
encourages critical thinking and public participation in the making
of technology. By supporting the efforts of disempowered groups and
individuals to obtain equality and freedom in their communications
and content production, it opposes the profit-driven value system pro-
moted by mainstream media and technology firms.”
Similarly, emancipatory journalism powered by AI techniques can foster

critical thinking and public participation which are required to attain a sense
of empowerment and social justice. Algorithmic techniques can influence the
ecology of development journalism.
Shah (1996, p. 146) has rightly argued that emancipatory journalism
“is a radical approach to journalism that seeks to ‘promote and contribute
to human development’ by encouraging practitioners to be fully involved
in movements for social change.” Similarly, development journalism pow-
ered by AI tools will be a radical approach that can further usher in social
change. In this context, Downing (2001, pp. v–ix) asserts that radical media
as “express[ing] an alternative vision to hegemonic politics, priorities, and
perspectives” tend to “break somebody’s rules, although rarely all of them
in every aspect”. Radical media or radical approach to journalism leads to
social change and development. Social change has become an inevitable com-
ponent of a progressive society and algorithm-based journalism cannot dis-
count it in the process of algorithmic process. AI can encourage and should
have the efforts to attain the state of human development.
Emancipatory journalism is a part of emancipatory communication and in
this context, Rodriguez (2001, p. 20) has rightly enunciated that emancipa-
tory communication is into “contesting social codes, legitimized identities,
and institutionalized social relations”; the communication paradigm they
support “are empowering the community involved, to the point where these
transformations and changes are possible.”
Development journalism powered by AI can result in media activism in
which grassroots activists can be part of the journalistic process. The contents
or information available in development journalism, are not usually available
in mainstream journalism. Those specific contents are instrumental for social
and political movements. Again, social media activism often controlled and
managed by algorithm has taken media activism to the next level. There is lit-
tle doubt that social media activism has bearings on development journalism
as a potential source of collecting the information. Moreover, social media
platforms also act as platforms for disseminating journalistic contents, espe-
cially development in nature. Social media activism is changing its forms with
the advent of newer technologies including AI and machine learning.
Social media activism, used by grassroots activists to intensify develop-

ment-oriented information is not much available in mainstream media. The
non-availability of development-oriented information is not plentily there
because of gatekeeping of news in the spectrum of mainstream news media.
Development journalism also acts as a mode of alternative campaigns against
the so-called mainstream campaigns. It is often embraced by activists, non-
governmental and organizations. AI can be a new mobiliser for emanci-
patory journalism which is also termed as alternative form of journalism.
Development journalism based on AI tools can create and cultivate alterna-
tive public sphere. The nature of coverage can be instrumental for grassroots
communication and carrying out policy advocacy works and other numerous
institutional reforms which ultimately bring social change and development.
5.3.4 Artificial Intelligence, Development Journalism and Approaches to

Development
Of late, development journalism has started realizing the power of participa-

tory approach to development. Participatory approach stresses on quality
of life beyond just economic consideration. Citizens can collectively think
about through issues and bring diverse perspectives to the table. The flow of
knowledge is horizontal, people-centric and can acknowledge the value of
experiential or local knowledges. The role of communication is to facilitate
and foster series of dialogues. It tends to foreground the voice which further
connects the struggles.
Various scholars have commented on theories and the practice of develop-
ment communication. Kothari’s (2014) radical ecological democracy high-
lights alternatives to unsustainable and inequitable model of development.
Cultural diversity is another dimension duly discussed in radical ecological
democracy. Stressing on local-to-global movements, Kothari endorses the
ideas of participation at formal national, regional and global forums that
will result in the conversation of development to be more people-centric than
state-centric. Precisely, Kothari highlights the goals of direct democracy,
local and bioregional economies, cultural diversity, holistic vision of human
well-being and ecological resilience for social transformation. Social trans-
formation leads to the overall development of a society. In an alternative
mode, Dutta (2015) argues for decolonizing development communication
research and practice.
When development journalism is driven by artificial intelligence or algo-
rithm techniques, the newsrooms need to be careful in considering the
empowerment and development factors of communities at the margins.
When it comes to development communication in general and develop-
ment journalism in particular, attainment of development also includes
social transformations which further require direct democracy, local and
bioregional economies, cultural diversity and holistic vision of human well-
being. Development journalism needs to be systematic and thoughtful while
dealing with factors like direct democracy, local and bioregional economies
and cultural diversity. Moreover, when development journalism is driven by
AI, algorithm needs to pay the required attention to the factors like cultural
diversity, holistic vision of human well-being and ecological resilience which
are essential components for attaining social transformation.
Servaes (2008, p. 206) points out,
“Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), such as com-

puter and telecommunication technology, especially the Internet, are
used to bridge the information and knowledge divide between the haves
and the have-nots. Having access to the digital highways helps improve
access to education opportunities, increase transparency and efficiency
in government services, enhance direct participation from the ‘used-to-
be-silent public’ in the democratic process, increase trade and market-
ing opportunities, enhance community empowerment by giving a voice
to voiceless groups (e.g. women) and vulnerable groups, such as those
who live with HIV/AIDS, create networking and income opportunities
for women, access to medical information for isolated communities and
increase new employment opportunities.”
Therefore, the importance of technologies and innovations is quite apparent

to mobilize the process and pace of development.
Further, United Nations Development Programme (2020, pp. 71–72)
highlights,
“Innovation—which gave humans many of the tools to influence

Earth systems—can be harnessed to ease planetary pressures. Beyond
advances in science from multiple disciplines that can support captur-
ing energy from the sun and closing material cycles, in novation should
be understood here also as a social process of change, resulting from
advances in science and technology that are embedded in social and eco
nomic processes. Moreover, innovation is more than science and tech-
nology; it includes the institutional innovations that ultimately drive
social and economic transformations.”
These days, without technology and innovation, development cannot be

translated into reality. From mobile payments to crowdfunding, digital
innovations are riding high in the domain of development. Payments bank
has become a newer financial innovation (Chakraborty, 2019) which has
shown a roadmap in the domain of financial inclusion. With the advent of
various technologies, digital social communication also remains important
for accumulating social capital and economic development (Chakraborty
& Biswal, 2023a, 2023b). Precisely, like any other innovations, AI-driven
development journalism needs to be careful in addressing the various devel-
opmental issues. Journalism through the power of algorithm should pay due
attention to institutional innovations and as well as providing voice to the

voiceless.
Tufte and Mefalopulos (2009) advocate for civil spaces for fostering dia-
logue which further fuels participatory communication and social change.
There is little doubt that participatory communication is the bedrock of
social change and development. In the context of AI-driven development
journalism, the coverage ought to emphasize on community-driven develop-
ment by focusing on participatory communication. The algorithm techniques
need to understand the dialogue and community participation which are to
be covered in course of developmental journalism.
Jeffrey Sachs, the author of the book The End of Poverty: Economic
Possibilities for Our Time has been acknowledged for his study on sustain-
able development, economic growth and the attempt to mitigate poverty.
Sachs (2006, p. 312) argues “Africa’s governance is poor because Africa is
poor. Crucially, however, two other things are also true. At any given level
of governance, African countries tend to grow less rapidly than similarly
governed countries in other parts of the world.”
Sachs argues that instead of the poor being exploited, technology has
been the primary driver of promoting the poor in the world. The ability to
harness new technologies has allowed society to increase labor productiv-
ity. The more places that underwent changes as a result of the Industrial
Revolution, like a chain reaction, the more they interacted with one another
and laid the groundwork for additional innovations, increased economic
growth and increased technological activity. Technology has been instrumen-
tal for economic growth, but at the cost of exploitation of the underprivi-
leged. However, in certain cases like the use of technologies for education
and social empowerment can be given critical thought for greater interest of
society (Chakraborty & Biswal, 2022).
In this context, Sachs (2006, p. 312) points out,
“As a country’s income rises, governance improves for two major

reasons. First, a more literate and affluent society is better able to
keep the government honest by playing a watchdog role over govern-
ment processes. Newspapers, television, books, telephones, transport
and now the Internet, all of which are vastly more available in rich
countries, enhance this watchdog function and empower civil society.
Second, a more affluent society can afford to invest in high-quality
governance. When governments are backed by ample tax receipts, the
civil service is better educated, extensive computerization improves
information flows, and the public administration is professionally
managed.”
So, mass communication driven by technologies is inevitable for socioeco-

nomic development. Precisely, technology can play a key role in developing
a society.
Sachs is very much critical of artificial intelligence. The influential econo-

mist claims that a “tech tax” is required if the world is to avoid a dystopian
future in which AI causes the concentration of global wealth in the hands of
a small number of individuals. To ensure that the benefits of AI are dispersed
fairly across society and the world, Sachs proposed both tax reform and a
radical rethink of intellectual property laws. To ensure that the benefits of
AI are dispersed fairly across society and the world, Sachs proposed both
tax reform and a radical rethink of intellectual property laws. Sachs further
proposes,
“The marginal cost of production of AI is effectively zero. The ability to

make these technologies available to the poorest countries at no cost is
an evident option. So we should be taking special care to make sure that
this revolution can reach everybody (The Guardian, 2018).”
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the larger talking points
in the domain of developmental goals (Sachs, 2015), and AI has opened up
new avenues in this direction. The plans and programs for the achieved SDGs
have started incorporating AI (Goralski & Tan, 2020). Therefore, the rise of
AI in the era of sustainable development has been increasingly discussed. To
Sachs, we are now living in an age of SDGs, during which time the world’s
nations will need to work together and provide support in order to tackle
some of the most difficult issues, such as persistent extreme poverty, social
exclusion, economic injustice, bad governance and environmental degra-
dation. Suffice to say, the potential impact of AI on productivity, growth,
inequality, market power, innovation and employment is highlighted by
technological advancements.
The Nobel Memorial Prize winner in Economic Sciences in 2008, Paul
Robin Krugman argues that the potential for technology to replace labor is
a common economic worry. Horses and buggies became essentially obsolete
with the development of cars. Jobs that are replaced by AI are the ones that
AI can complete more quickly than humans. Because AI can complete these
tasks faster than people, it frees up the time that people would have needed
to laboriously complete them. Krugman acknowledges that ChatGPT and
AI in general could harm the economy by replacing “knowledge workers”,
but he also believes that new jobs will eventually take their place. Whether
or not ChatGPT poses a threat to knowledge workers as a whole depends
on how impressive its learning capabilities are (Berkeley Economic Review,
2023).
The implications of ChatGPT, an AI tool, have been discussed by
Krugman who asserts that it might be more effective than people at perform-
ing tasks like reporting and writing. Large language models, like ChatGPT,
will increase economic productivity. However, AI tools will likely hurt some
workers whose skills have already been undervalued. The computing revo-
lution and the electrification of industry, two historical innovations, took
decades to have any significant effects on the economy. Nobody really knows
how much of the work currently performed by humans would eventually be
replaced by models like ChatGPT.
Krugman asserts, “Large language models in their current form shouldn’t
affect economic projections for next year and probably shouldn’t have a
large effect on economic projections for the next decade.” He further points
out, “ChatGPT and whatever follows are probably an economic story for the
2030s, not for the next few years” (Insider, 2023). Krugman further argues,
“History suggests that large economic effects from A.I. will take longer to
materialize than many people currently seem to expect” (Yahoo, 2023).
Project Syndicate, founded in 1995, publishes commentary and reports on
global topics including AI. AI is bringing transformations in healthcare facili-
ties across the globe. This is a case which can be potentially cited here. Google
recently revealed that AI can identify breast cancer earlier than radiologists.
And that is merely the most recent illustration of how machine learning and
big data are enabling the development of novel medical diagnoses, thera-
pies and discoveries. Any data that can help direct future medical research is
included in real-world data obtained through AI. To choose patient candi-
dates most likely to benefit from cutting-edge and experimental therapies, for
instance, cancer researchers have long used anonymized health records. For
instance, the National Cancer Institute is getting ready to start the Childhood
Cancer Data Initiative, a large-scale, ten-year project that will compile data
from every child and young adult cancer patient in the nation in order to
identify new targets and therapeutic approaches. Likewise, The Big Data for
Breast Cancer (BD4BC) initiative of the Komen Foundation has launched a
project using algorithmic analysis to elucidate biological mechanisms in some
of the most challenging breast cancers to treat.
By using AI, researchers at Roche have created a prognostic scoring sys-
tem to predict how patients would react to various cancer treatment options
based on a variety of factors since acquiring a database with anonymized data
for 2.2 million cancer patients. A promising strategy to meet the demand for
more precise detection, classification and prediction of patients with breast
cancer is to leverage AI advancements and the growing digitalization of
pathology (Project Syndicate, 2020).
AI for mitigating inequality in the world is a landmark effort. The idea
that only the wealthy benefit from technology is a prevalent misconception.
However, the technologies that underpin devices like iPhones and robotic
vacuums have the potential to advance prosperity and development through-
out the Global South. The misconception that consumers in developing coun-
tries do not benefit from technological advancements is widespread among
those who monitor digital trends.
Technology has the ability to both exacerbate and lessen global inequality.
This is due to the fact that AI is capable of much more than just powering
the appliances; it can also completely transform the way in which business,
finance, logistics, education, healthcare and disaster relief are provided in
the Global South. Developing nations all over the world are already being
transformed by AI. The needs for post-quake reconstruction in Nepal are
being mapped and analyzed by machine learning. AI tutors are assisting
young students in Africa who are lagging behind in their coursework. Big
data analytics is being used by humanitarian aid organizations to stream-
line the distribution of supplies to refugees fleeing war and other adversity.
Furthermore, rural farmers in my native India use AI applications to increase
crop yields and profits. In developing nations, for instance, drones could be
used to transport medical supplies to outlying hospitals if the necessary fund-
ing was provided. This is already taking place in rural Rwanda, where a
special collaboration between the health ministry and Silicon Valley-based
startup Zipline is enabling doctors in difficult-to-reach clinics to order blood
by text message, which will then have it delivered by parachute in a matter of
minutes (Project Syndicate, 2018).
Another case on climate change can be discussed where AI can be poten-
tially used. Low-income country negotiators on climate issues can now evalu-
ate the effects of draft agreements on the laws, capabilities and interests of
their own nation in real-time thanks to AI copilots. Massive data sets can be
analyzed using this technology, and patterns can be found and behavior can
be forecast. It might be starting at the international negotiating table, the
solution to the interconnected crises of climate, biodiversity and equity.
By shedding light on the previously ignored connections between biodi-
versity and climate issues, AI, for instance, could significantly improve inter-
national negotiations. Such findings would support the UN Convention on
Biological Diversity and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change,
the two organizations that have been negotiating agreements, having a more
formalized, interconnected relationship. For instance, AI could greatly
enhance international negotiations by drawing attention to the connections
between biodiversity and climate issues that were previously ignored. Such
results would support a formalized, interconnected relationship between the
UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the UN Convention
on Biological Diversity – the two organizations that have been negotiating
agreements.
The wider consequences of agreements like the Paris Climate Accords
and the numerous unfinished sectoral initiatives addressing issues like water,
energy security and oceans could also be clarified by the applications of AI.
To improve international cooperation, at least 250,000 treaties have been
negotiated so far (Project Syndicate, 2023). However, all this diplomacy has
been disappointing. With AI’s ability to predict outcomes and perform accu-
rate analyses, this issue might be solved. By sorting through the vast amounts
of data contained therein, AI can find any gap, contradiction, or conflict in
these treaties. By doing so, it will be possible to avoid duplication of effort,
resolve conflicts and make sure that no significant issue is left unresolved.
The use of AI tools can be maximized by the NGOs in the direction of
community outreach initiatives. NGOs are the change agents for social
change and development. Aaishwari Chouhan Joshi, Director, Community

Engagement and Partnerships, Canadian Centre for Immigrants, Canada
points out,
AI tools are proving to be valuable assets for community outreach

efforts by non-profit organizations, like us, in North America. NGOs
are increasingly turning to AI for basic tasks like social media analysis,
deployment of chatbots and virtual assistants, and to assist in data-driven
decision making. From the marketing perspective, AI is supporting tar-
geted advertising and outreach activities. Canada is a multi-cultural
country and grassroots organizations are turning to AI-powered trans-
lation tools to help bridge language barriers by ensuring that informa-
tion and resources are accessible to individuals from different linguistic
backgrounds. One other trend that is picking up lately is related to NLP
(natural language processing). Although not widely used at this time,
but some bigger non-profits are using NLP algorithms to analyze and
understand community feedback, sentiments, and concerns expressed
in emails, social media posts, or online forums. This is helping them
identify common issues and improve the organization’s response and
re-frame outreach strategies.
Citing the case where AI tools are used for development communication,
Chouhan Joshi further points out,
At the Canadian Centre for Immigrants, we are leveraging AI to

improve our social media strategy primarily. Multiple AI tools have
enabled us to gather valuable insights about our target audience, their
preferences, and behaviour on social media platforms. This informa-
tion has empowered us to create more engaging and relevant content,
tailor-made to resonate with our audience, resulting in increased reach,
user engagement, and community interaction.
AI can be useful to make news stories effective which could bring societal
changes. However, AI is not everything in journalism and this technology
cannot alone bring social change and development. Without human intel-
ligence, this AI cannot help journalists to create and develop original and
lived experience of people pertaining to any issues. Technology cannot bring
any process-driven stories which are indispensable for socio-economic devel-
opment. In this context Jaideep Hardikar, journalist, author and researcher
based in India argues,
I believe in telling the stories on lived experiences of everyday people;

original and credible stories that convey human emotions in the con-
text of broader socio-economic processes – like agrarian crisis, migra-
tion, climate change, or natural resource conflicts. That will keep me
relevant as a journalist and writer in the era of virtual reality. AI tools
could help me is to sharpen my background research to set the many

contexts in which to locate my stories.
Lalatendu Acharya, a faculty member, Social Science, Indiana University
Kokomo, Indiana, the United States, is associated with public health com-
munications and advocacy. Discussing ChatGPT in the light of development
journalism, Acharya asserts,
Experts have divided AI innovation into three segments; Automation,

Augmentation and Generation and Chat GPT is the latest phenomenon
in content generation. Therein lies its potential to invigorate journal-
ism and also the inherent challenges. AI has been used by journalists
for over a decade and been very useful in terms of news aggregation,
automation and many translation applications. But the new genera-
tive capabilities of AI (as underlined by ChatGPT) takes news away
from its originality and creative quotient. ChatGPT also underlines
that it cannot replace the unique journalistic skills of critical thinking,
investigative journalism and complex information synthesis. Further,
ensuring accuracy, ethical standards, objectivity and fairness is some-
thing that human hands have to do. ChatGPT will also not be able to
maintain factual accuracy and check for disinformation, misinforma-
tion as AI output is dependent on the quality of its sources. Generative
AI like ChatGPT do not say no when they see an information gap or
do not have the answer but rather, they make it up. That is a huge
disadvantage. It replicates bias as its dependent on its sources which
could be biased. Further, ChatGPT does not give due credit which
is important in the journalistic world. So, the challenges that genera-
tive AI systems like ChatGPT pose is their ability to distinguish fact
from fiction, verify, build salience, filter noise, manage disinformation/
misinformation and building trust. That said, ChatGPT is useful to
journalists in terms of simplifying concepts (like making science more
accessible to lay audience/ common man); help generate profiles, ques-
tions for interview, outlines etc. ChatGPT is a useful tool and cannot
be kept out of the newsrooms. End of the day, a tool is as good or bad
as its user.
There is no doubt that developmental journalism is quite indispensable in the

countries like India. Purusottam Singh Thakur, a contributor with People’s
Archive of Rural India (PARI), an alternative media platform in India and
former journalist associated with NDTV News Channel, New Delhi, asserts,
India is grappling with number of developmental issues – agriculture,

occupational hazards, migration, displacement, credit facilities, health,
decline of traditional media and traditional knowledge, and social and
economic disparity. Media has the responsibility of covering the issues
for deliberations. However, some argue that technological innovations

in the field of journalism have improved the process collection, distri-
bution and consumption of news. For example – Farmers’ suicides in
India have been covered through data journalism.
Singh Thakur further points out,
Some of the developmental issues which are not getting judicious space
in mainstream media. Displacement is getting rampant in the outskirts
of all big and small cities in India. Farmers and villagers are selling their
lands for the construction of buildings. They are becoming landless
and slowly they are isolated from agriculture, the mainstay of farmers’
livelihood. Migration issues in Odisha (an eastern state in India) and
Chhattisgarh (a state in Central India) are rarely covered and discussed
in news media. For an instance, the migration issue is becoming grave
from Bhubaneswar (State Capital of Odisha, India) to Bhawanipatna
(headquarter of Kalahandi district in the state of Odisha). There is a need
to discuss social benefits schemes like the Mahatma Gandhi National
Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which attempts to
improve livelihood security in rural areas by giving at least one adult
household member who volunteers to perform unskilled manual labor
at least 100 days of wage employment in a fiscal year. Sometimes there
are coverage, but not in sustained manner, but in an episodic manner.
In this context, for more structured and timeline study, technological inter-
ventions including AI tools can be beneficial for developmental journalism.
AI tools can equip journalists to compile and facilitate the data for compari-
son and comprehensive presentation of the data for impactful data stories to
the audience. Using AI tools, journalists can easily find out farmers’ suicide
cases in a detailed manner. The journalists can know which state has the
highest number of suicide cases. Journalists can know the reasons for farm-
ers’ suicide cases from the datasets. Infographics and data visualization can
be done for presentation of news in terms of facts and figures. At the same
time, AI tools are instrumental in keeping the farmers informed about the
drought. As a result, farmers will be aware of the imminent drought and
this could possibly mitigate the farmers’ suicides. These technological tools
should be optimally used for the farming communities and farmer produc-
ers’ organizations. News media should cover and follow this aspect in the
process of developmental journalism. However, the use of AI tools should be
process-driven by understanding the issues of farmers and structural prob-
lems in the Indian agriculture system.
AI-driven development journalism needs to understand all these dimen-
sions of development and social change communication and subsequently
can act up on it. The narratives of journalism for development ought to be
based on people’s paradigm. AI-driven journalism should pay attention to
people in their context; power redistribution and democratization; bottom-

up approach for structural transformation; and mobilizing dialogue between
the citizens and the government bodies. Such a form of journalistic com-
munication needs to deliberate on social change communication. Alternative
approaches to development which are feasible that the development journal-
ism can take up and mobilize them for a cause. It can further amplify myriad
grassroots initiatives meant for the overall development of a society. If all
is well and systematically orchestrated, AI through development journalism
can redefine the essence and level of participation which is further required
for the attainment of the SDGs.
5.3.5 Development Journalism and Artificial Intelligence in Global North

and Global South
Development journalism acts as a change agent for bringing development in

society. Journalists’ functions for the sake of bringing development are com-
plex in developing countries. Needless to say, journalism is used for investi-
gation, safeguarding democracy and human rights (Musa, 1997). The scope
for development journalism is immense in developing countries where plenty
of sustainable development projects are in operational stages. Such form of
journalism can take stock of the situation at the ground level of projects.
However, functioning of development journalism is different between devel-
oping and developed nations which largely raises the debates and situates
the space of journalism for development in the Global North and Global
South. When compared the developmental news coverage on climate change
between Australia and Bangladesh, a study finds that the interpretation of
developmental news in the Global North and Global South is different. In
addition, the study claims for the cross-national strategies to tackle environ-
mental issues (Das, 2019). There is little doubt that developmental news cov-
erage on climate change gets a lukewarm response from news media outlets.
Development journalism particularly journalism on science reporting in
developing countries are encountered with numerous issues – excessive rely
on foreign sources, particularly from the media sources of the Global North;
low level of domestic science news in ecology of news; and influence of poli-
tics on reporting on science. Even though development journalism covering
the aspect of reporting on science in developing countries is important, it
enjoys a low status. The editors in the newsrooms are not keen on science
reporting. This can weaken the ability of newsrooms in the Global South to
adopt and emulate various technologies in the long run. Ultimately, develop-
ing countries and the entire Global South will lag behind in the process of
globalization (Nguyen & Tran, 2019). Similarly, when the question comes to
the incorporation of artificial intelligence in newsrooms in the Global South,
it looks paradoxical. The newsrooms in the Global South may not be able
to take up AI tools to make the development journalism successful and more
insightful.
Nassanga, Eide, Hahn, Rhaman, and Sarwono (2017) points out the cov-
erage of development journalism especially environment journalism in the
Global South is relatively low compared to the Global North. The authors
suggested a bottom-up approach so that citizens can take part actively in the
process of development journalism. In this context, political analyst as well
as journalist Saurav Dutt comments,
“These international outlets propagate the image of a less developed,

struggling Global South to amplify the myth that success and develop-
ment are alien concepts to them, often beholden to lobby groups and
political diasporas that have their own mission at hand” (Irfan, 2020).
Salaverría and de-Lima-Santos (2021) point out that the Global North is
much ahead of the Global South in terms of technological adoptions. The
field of journalism keeps on adopting new technologies and the ecology of
news media has been acquainted with the changing trends. However, news
media industries which tend to focus on development journalism are grossly
lagging behind in terms of technological adoptions. Similarly, the cases seem
to be similar in the use of AI tools for development journalism in the Global
North and Global South. The field of development journalism needs tech-
nological applications like AI, but in vain. The profession of journalism for
development is being negotiated in southern nations.
It is often found the diffusion and execution of technology, research and
development is limited in the Global South. When the Global South is strug-
gling to catch up with the information society, the Global North is riding high
and accommodating the technological disruptions. Moreover, the Global
North keeps on dominating the ecology of news media in the Global South.
When it comes to the space of development journalism, it is in a bad shape
in the Global South. The advent of ICTs including AI techniques, blockchain,
computer-generated imagery (CGI) and metaverse may not help the develop-
ment journalists in the nations in the Global South. AI is the new engineering
of developmental news and developmental journalism. However, it will take
time to be fully operational in the Global South. The media imperialism is
increasingly dominant in the Global North over the Global South in access-
ing media technologies including AI is quite apparent.
Willems (2014, p. 18) has rightly claimed,
“Northern-based media continue to represent the Global South in neg-

ative terms, as a place where poverty, corruption, disease, and fam-
ine reign. However, apart from critiquing the role of the media in the
creation of these images, the field of media and communication studies
needs to reflect more critically on the way in which it has been con-
structing and imagining the Global South in its academic books, chap-
ters, journal articles, and conferences. As I have argued in this article,
media and communication in the Global South often continue to be

seen as negative imprints of ‘the West’.”
5.4 Development Journalism and Artificial Intelligence: The Way

Forward
The normative idea of practicing development journalism commenced in the
Global South with an intention to boost socio-economic development. There is
no doubt that such form of journalism has the distinction from ordinary form
of communication because of its very nature of information and communica-
tion. Moreover, with the advent and incorporation of artificial intelligence
and algorithmic techniques, development journalism will be pushed to the
next level with more value addition meant for social change communication.
The SDGs remain important for everyone across nations. In this context,
news media has the ability to raise awareness about the SDGs worldwide
(World Economic Forum, 2020). Moreover, development journalism has a
lot to do for the SDGs through AI tools. AI through development journalism
can fetch accountability stories to the audience. However, importantly devel-
opmental journalists through their reports need to encourage public aware-
ness and public discourse pertaining to various projects and funds spent on
them. The AI-enabled coverage should provide solutions to the problems and
focus more on the context and process rather than on sensational outcomes.
Development journalism should focus on explanation and interpretation rather
than on negative sides of any events. To make these happen, the capacity build-
ing of journalists for understanding about social change communication is the
need of the hour. For optimizing the capacity of journalists and to make them
AI literates, training of journalists should be conducted at regular intervals.
Technology often comes to the rescue of communication industry. AI is
going to reshape the field of development journalism and can be a new tool of
emancipatory journalism. The algorithmic techniques can reshape the scopes
and functions of development journalism. Subsequently, this form of jour-
nalism can act as emancipatory journalism which is an alternative to the
usual structure of mainstream media with limited functions for social change
communication.
Tellingly, there are gaps between the use of technologies including AI in
newsrooms in the Global South and Global North. If algorithmic techniques
are not well-taken, then the use of AI for development journalism in the
Global South will be in quandary. On the contrary, if AI tools in the news-
rooms in the Global South will do well for developmental journalism, it may
result in de-Westernization and decolonization of development communi-
cation, both in theory and practice. Indeed, it will be a radical shift which
will redefine the discipline of development communication in general and
development journalism in particular. AI tools will be pathbreaking and will
redirect the future course of development journalism, which have bearings on
social change, participation, development and empowerment.
To realize the optimum power of AI for development journalism in a posi-

tive, purposive and pragmatic manner, a proper guideline or the framework
for development journalism is the need of the hour. Newsrooms, develop-
ment practitioners, NGOs, government machinery, media educators and
other stakeholders of society need to work hand in hand so that AI can be a
boon for development journalism. Along with AI techniques, other techni-
cal treatments like immersive technologies, blockchain, computer-generated
imagery (CGI) and metaverse need to be critically examined, assessed and
tested for their positive, purposive and pragmatic approach. In doing so,
the real power of technologies can be derived to the fullest and the goal of
development journalism can be realized. The abstract power of technologies
can be translated into reality, resulting in the SDGs to be fulfilled across the
globe. Actualizing the SDGs through newer and cutting-edge communication
technologies would be a new landscape in the domain of development com-
munication and development journalism.
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6 Applications of Artificial Intelligence in
Journalism
Situating the Changing Nature of
Technologies in the Ecology of News Media
6.1 Introduction
The study of media ecology remains an integral part of the discipline of media
and communication. Precisely, media ecology is a comprehensive study of
media, communication and technology and how these influence humans and
society (West & Turner, 2014). Technologies continue to affect and mould the
process of journalism – production, distribution and consumption of news.
Digitalisation has revolutionized the news ecosystem and newsroom manage-
ment. The inventions of the printing press to computers have revolutionized the
process of media (Dovbysh, 2021), and the media ecology keeps on changing.
Digitalization has been a transformative agent in newsroom management
on a global scale. Technological innovations have erased the geographical
boundaries between the international media and local media. The interna-
tional media and local media are subscribing to each other’s news contents.
Local news can be consumed in any corner of the world. Again, hyper-local
stories are getting buzzed in the international arena. At the same time, inter-
national news has emanated abundant perspectives on the local audiences.
There has been blurring lines between international audience and local audi-
ence to specified news contents. Nowadays, hybrid news organizations laced
with traditional and digital formats have been widely practiced. All these
developments have changed the very nature of the ecology of news media
and newsroom management. Editorial strategies keep on evolving with the
changing pace of news and audiences’ needs and demands. The traditional
functions ascribed to journalists in the age of the internet and social media
are witnessing changes and establishing new roles and responsibilities of
journalists which is subjected to decay again sooner or later.
As technologies are increasingly used in the profession of journalism, the
study pertaining to recurring shifts in journalism is drawing the attention
of interdisciplinary disciplines. Moreover, with the artificial intelligence (AI)
tools being used in newsrooms, the ecology of news media is taking paradigm
shifts which further needs to be discussed.
6.2 Changing Nature of Ecology of News Media

With the advent of new communication technologies, the ecology of news
media comprising the production, distribution and consumption of news is
DOI: 10.4324/9781032716879-6
Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism 97
ceaselessly undergoing changes. The changes in the ecology tend to influence

the criteria of newsworthiness, power structure and agenda-setting of jour-
nalism (Jensen & Mortensen, 2016). The changing nature of production, dis-
tribution and consumption of news remains dynamic and keeps on changing
with the changes in technologies and time. Gathering, production and distri-
bution of news have been influenced by the use of AI tools in the newsrooms.
Newsroom management has been dynamic in dealing with the changing
nature of news from time to time. Moreover, the concerned management is
ceaselessly witnessing changes in the various stages of journalistic narratives.
6.2.1 Gathering of News
News gathering remains an important stage in the ecology of news media.

Newsroom management also remains to its toe to procure news of varied
kinds. News gathering includes sourcing information, generating or creat-
ing story ideas, understanding and identifying news trends and extracting or
mining relevant information or content. While procuring the contents, they
should enjoy the properties of news values like immediacy, proximity, conse-
quences, prominence, oddity and conflict.
Artificial intelligence tools are beneficial for gathering of news which is a
part of data-driven production. AI is instrumental in the gathering of mate-
rials which ultimately help the editorial department. With the advent of AI
in the newsrooms, accessible information has been widely feasible. Since
news consumers want plenty of content every day, ultimately journalists are
required to manage with flood of information in the ecology of news media.
Moreover, journalists need to be careful to procure the data or informa-
tion which are relevant and timely for the audiences. In this context, Beckett
(2019, p. 22) has rightly claimed, “We have an internal tool that combines
data analysis and language generation systems to write all or parts of stories
and to alert journalists to potentially interesting patterns in data”. Machine
learning algorithms enable journalists to identify the current trends in terms
of news.
6.2.2 Production of News
The production of news cannot be ignored or underestimated in newsroom

management. Production of news, an integral part of the ecology of news
media, entails the creation of contents, editing, packaging and repackaging of
contents as per news consumers’ needs and demands. production of contents
could be text, video or a mixture of the two. Usually, the production of news
is slow without using the technical tools.
AI can intensify the production process of news. To make the news con-
tent free from grammatical and spelling errors; sub-editors, copy editors
and journalists are employing Grammarly which is based on AI techniques.
98 Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism
AI tools are being used for the purpose of translation. AI has been helpful
in verifying news contents that enhance the credibility of contents. Tools
like The Factual, Check, Logically, Full Fact, Fabula AI, Grover, Sensity AI,
ClaimBuster, Adverif.ai, Alto Analytics, Blackbird AI, Defudger and Bot
Sentinel verify the news contents. Various important functions like speech-
to-text, translation in the mode of automation, identifying the image video-
making and narrative text generation are becoming possible as AI techniques
are coming into newsrooms.
AI is enabling journalists to make automatic tagging of contents by detect-
ing and extracting relevant keywords. Dialect recognition is becoming fea-
sible. AI is fostering automated content creation which is required for the
functioning of social media. Starting from RSS feeds to emailing, AI is being
increasingly used for manipulating the text, and video or a mixture of the
two. AI is able to create posts on social media outlets like Facebook and
Twitter and the contents on these platforms are increasingly getting apparent.
It is the algorithm that matters a lot in the ecology of news media. Facial rec-
ognition technology driven by AI technologies is there to recognize the celeb-
rities present in a function. It is useful for lifestyle journalism. ReporterMate,
a tool used by The Guardian, is an instance of augmented journalism that
manifests the amalgamation of AI power and human (Evershed, 2019).
Machine learning can be used for tracking the political fund or other allied
area to maintain transparency. Whatever the type or nature of journalism,
the power of AI and machine learning is there.
6.2.3 Distribution of News
Distribution of news is the end stage in the ecology of news media. Newsroom
management remains updated in distributing the end product i.e., news
contents to its target audience. Distribution of news is interconnected with
the consumption of news contents. Personalisation and marketing of news
content is a striking area while strategizing the dimension of distribution.
Curating and optimizing the contents are becoming possible in terms of
distributing news. Tracing and retaining audiences by understanding their
behaviour; and monetisation or subscription of news contents are areas that
cannot be ignored at any point of time.
The above-mentioned areas can be strategically chalked out by AI tools
and machine learning. AI techniques have defined the distribution of news
contents whatever the platforms – print, electronic and digital – of media
are. Zaffarano (2019) points out that news media organisations like The
New York Times have employed AI-driven systems and even small news
media establishments are into certain mechanisms like dynamic paygates,
which are based on AI techniques. Precisely, AI attempts to find out what
a consumer does with news content. Ultimately, it helps in strategizing the
modus operandi pertaining to the distribution of news. The levels of audience
engagement like shares, comments, pageviews and time on page are being
better understood by AI techniques. The content strategy is getting redefined;

80% of organizations have resorted to automation technology which is fast
becoming a mainstream concept .
By using AI techniques, the ecology of news media is adopting to automat-
ing content creations. The user-generated content (UGC) is getting initiated
and strengthened the relationships between the news media and news con-
sumers. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of news content is renewed with
AI tools. Making news content catchy and readable enriches the value of the
news content. AI is fuelling the tracking system that stresses on numerous
topics and keywords. The management of online news contents including
content creation, organization and distribution by employing AI intensifies
the marketing of news which save resource and money. Providing personali-
zation of news is becoming possible. Analysing the predictive news content
provides solutions to issues in the marketing of news media.
Chatbots driven by AI measures understand the behavioral patterns of
news consumers. Bringing AI techniques facilitates the ecology of news
media, which further caters to the needs and demands of the audiences.
Chatbots collect information on audiences’ feedback, opinions or sugges-
tions on specific news content. Chatbots are also instrumental in checking
news by managing social media outlets. AI algorithms are able to bring new
insights that can tailor the news content to meet the needs and demands of
the audiences.
Overall, with the incorporation of AI tools in newsrooms, the ecology of
news media is getting influenced. The journalistic narratives pertaining to
the gathering, production and distribution of news is redefined. There have
been turns and twists in the elements of news and news values. The entire
communication process from source to the destination is ceaselessly under-
going sea changes. Newsroom management is being prodded by continu-
ous technological innovations. It is observed that some of the newsrooms
have started using AI tools by skipping certain intermediary technologies and
phases of technological adoption. The adoption of AI technologies in those
newsrooms has set an example of leap-frogging in the ecology of news media.
The changes in the ecology of news media and newsroom management indi-
cate the phases of the communication revolution. Precisely, the dimensions
like use of AI tools in bringing editorial transparency needs to be critically
understood. However, human judgement and interventions remain pivotal in
planning, executing and monitoring the ecology of news media. Discussing
the changing nature of ecology in news media raises discussions on algorith-
mic journalism and computational journalism.
6.3 Artificial Intelligence-Driven Journalism and Ecology of News Media

With the use of artificial intelligence techniques, various concepts like algo-
rithmic journalism or automated journalism or robot journalism and com-
putational journalism are increasingly buzzed. With the employment of AI
techniques, new possibilities have been opening up in the spectrum of jour-

nalism. Algorithmic journalism or automated journalism or robot journal-
ism and computational are amply discussed these days. Graefe (2016) states
automated journalism as “the process of using software or algorithms to
automatically generate news stories without human intervention”. With the
power of algorithm, journalism industry is being executed in a different man-
ner. Modern algorithms enable journalists to create news stories from scratch.
The process of news production pertaining to specific news stories can be
potentially replicated by a machine. Such type of machine interventions has
remarkably changed the ecology of news media and newsroom management.
The emergence and execution of artificial intelligence and natural language
generation (NLG) have transformed the journalistic profession. Caswell and
Dörr (2018, p. 477) point out NLG as “the automatic creation of text from
digital structured data”. NLG is the use of AI techniques to create written
or spoken news stories from the data. NLG includes human-to-machine and
machine-to-human interaction. NLG potentially works through six stages
– content analysis, data understanding, document structuring, sentence
aggregation, grammatical structuring and language presentation (Kotenidis
& Veglis, 2021). NLG assists journalists and news content creators not to
create repetitive content. As a result, it saves newspersons’ time and enable
them to take up more creative and challenging endeavours. NLG can provide
news consumers customized and personalized news content in the format of
human-like language. News consumers are always interested in customized
news contents. NLG has a proven track record of affecting journalism in
terms of automating news and suggests few news stories out of plenty of data
on current affairs. It saves the audiences from being bombarded with numer-
ous news stories. The power of NLG’s report automation remains impor-
tant in providing the audience a long-term sustainability of news from news
media outlets. The implications of NLG have the bearings on the ecology of
news media and newsroom management.
Modern news industry caters to services like automated content produc-
tion, data mining, news dissemination and content optimization which are
better mobilized by AI techniques. Data mining remains an important stage
in journalistic production. Quakebot is a tool of data mining. Chatbots and
other such automated tools are being used for data mining (Kotenidis &
Veglis, 2021). With the power of algorithm, the mining and analysis of Big
Data is becoming possible. The stage of news dissemination is influenced by
AI techniques. News audiences are on the internet bank on news aggrega-
tors, search engines and social media sites. These sources of news are heavily
relied on algorithms and automated systems which are further suitable for
audiences’ requirements. Algorithms techniques are fostering the interactive
features of news which further enhances the scope of news among the users.
The recent developments in algorithmic technology have mobilized the
content strategy of the media houses to focus on target audiences. Machine
learning and AI tools are facilitating the news audience to have customized
news experiences. Algorithmic impact on automated content production,

data mining, news dissemination and content optimization have radically
transformed the ecology of news media. However, algorithm journalism
is not free from flaws. There are certain ethical and moral concerns which
dilute the credibility of journalism as a profession. Usually, journalists work
in an atmosphere which is laced with the logics of media production and ethi-
cal decisions. Moreover, journalistic practice is a somewhat creative affair in
nature, which is based on social interaction. However, algorithm journalism,
based on machine learning and AI tools, does not accommodate creative and
intuitive judgments while engaging with audience through news content.
Algorithmic journalism is otherwise known as automated journalism
or robot journalism which entails automatic production of news content
through computer algorithms. It can make the journalistic process cheaper
and faster . Various business models in news industry are witnessing transfor-
mations. Thanks to the automation in the process and profession of journal-
ism. Automated journalism is able to cut in the production costs, enhance
the efficiency of newsrooms and generate newer and pragmatic advantages.
Such form of machine-driven journalism is opening up newer possibilities.
Automation in the ecology of news media can generate new levels of employ-
ment which is possible because of reinvention of journalism. Automated writ-
ing tools are increasingly used and are being integrated into publishing work
order. Commercialized automatic writing platforms like Wordsmith, an NLG
platform, which transforms and creates news stories out of raw data sets.
However, automated journalism suffers from certain shortcomings. Since
the audience and news industry are dynamic in nature, automated journal-
ism may not be relevant in some cases. With the advent of citizen journalism,
journalists in the newsrooms are moving away from transactional relation-
ship with the news consumers. In this context, editorial decisions and reten-
tion of audience are getting fine-tuned on regular intervals. Such kind of
customization is not possible in the process of automating the news content.
Automation is only widely used in the news content pertaining to the beats
like sports, finance and weather. Automation fails if there is an overdepend-
ence on well-structured data and journalists in the newsrooms are not able to
narrate news stories out of that dataset. There could be fundamental biasness
in automating news stories. Moreover, ethical issues that are occurring in
the journalistic production, dissemination and consumption cannot be dis-
counted. Overall, the automated journalism tends to influence the ecology
of news media.
Computational journalism comes in the time of applying of AI techniques
in the industry of news media. The application of computing to journalism
can be defined as computational journalism. Hamilton and Turner (2009, p.
2) points out computational journalism as,
“the combination of algorithms, data and knowledge from the social sci-
ences to supplement the accountability function of journalism. In some
ways computational journalism builds on two familiar approaches,

computer-assisted reporting (CAR) and the use of social science tools
in journalism. Like these models, computational journalism aims to
enable reporters to explore increasingly large amounts of structured
and unstructured information as they search for stories.”
Big data can be managed and manifested in data stories by virtue of compu-
tational journalism. News media houses like The Guardian, Reuters and The
New York Times are integrating the quantitative and computational methods
with the journalistic process (Linden, 2017). The journalistic narratives have
been augmented as journalists have started using statistical methods along
with qualitative method of reporting. Computational journalism empowered
by online communities and social networking tools, can augment the user
engagement and interactions with news media. Journalism of such kind pro-
vides ample avenues for wider collaboration among various stakeholders of
the ecology of news media.
By employing computational journalism, The Associated Press is able to
update and define the role of historical aggregation role of the news agency. The
news agency is resorting to open-source approach to upgrade the level of com-
putational journalism (Stray, 2011). By totalling the real value and ethics to the
journalistic knowledge production, computational journalism has heralded in a
newer vision where journalists can be involved with myriad kind of data report-
ing and dissemination. When the data are collected, analysed and interpreted
through machine learning machine and AI tools, computational journalism
will be more accurate and meaningful. However, computational journalism is
not so easy and convenient to execute in the newsrooms. It demands ICT skills,
efficiency on the part of journalists. The use of computational journalism faces
the issues of fund crunch to procure machine and software. Such a situation
is compelling the journalists to bank on partnership with third-party software
developers. Bots and drones can collect the data. However, for the purpose of
data journalism, it needs to be well designed and executed properly. Cultural
resistance is there for executing machine-driven journalism. Accepting the new
social and cultural order and reorienting the journalist are the need of the
hour for the use of advanced computational journalism in the newsrooms. The
reality of computational journalism banks on integrity, quality and reliability
of the data to be used for data stories. The absence of any quality of data and
statistical anomalies only results in substandard data stories which further can
jeopardize the very purpose of journalism.
6.4 Artificial Intelligence and Dimensions of Journalism

Discussing AI-driven journalism will be incomplete without covering various
like algorithmizing the beat reporting; use of AI in checking fake news; AI in
photo journalism; AI in news agency journalism; AI and life of an individual
journalist; and AI and translation in journalism.
6.4.1 Algorithmizing Beat Reporting
Discussing AI-driven journalism will be incomplete without covering the

aspect of beat reporting. Algorithmizing or automating the beat reporting
remains with a difference. Beat reporting is understood as thematic speciali-
zation in the field of journalistic profession. Beat reporting is a hallmark
which indicates the credibility of modern journalism. McCluskey (2008, p.
84) defines “the beat system in journalism establishes work routines in which
reporters focus on particular institutions or topic areas”.
There are some established beats – government and political reporting, par-
liamentary reporting, legislative reporting, legal and court reporting, defence
reporting, internal security reporting, international affairs reporting, conflict
and war reporting, investigative reporting, economy and finance reporting,
business reporting, health reporting, education reporting, sports reporting,
science and technology reporting, nuclear and space reporting, environment
reporting, civil administration, city and mofussil reporting, development
reporting, disaster reporting, arts and culture reporting and travel and food
reporting – which are usually found in newsrooms across the globe.
Investigative journalism is not reporting as usual. Social scientists asserted
that such nature of reporting is based on cultural construction of an organi-
zation (Tuchman, 1978). Hunter and Hanson (2011, p. 8) assert,
“Investigative journalism involves exposing to the public matters that

are concealed – either deliberately by someone in a position of power,
or accidentally, behind a chaotic mass of facts and circumstances that
obscure understanding. It requires using both secret and open sources
and documents.”
However, investigative reporters often tend to toil in hunting the oppor-

tunities for create and disseminate novel enterprise stories to the audience.
Nevertheless, leveraging AI tools to fast-pace the process of discovering
investigative ideas is remarkable.
With the help of computational journalism, original investigative jour-
nalism can be strategized (Stray, 2019). It can attract and retain the con-
sumer consumers. Machine learning and AI techniques have transformative
impacts on investigative journalism as the techniques have unpacked, rein-
vented and redeveloped news stories. AI tools can reduce the cost of pro-
ducing investigative news stories with the virtue of quick computation. It
can curtail and simplify the tedious human process of computation. Some
of the investigative news stories are based on NLP techniques covering the
concepts of topic modelling, clustering and sentiment analysis. However,
employing AI in investigative journalism is not easy and affordable. AI tools
are yet to be widely used in investigative journalism. The use of AI tools in
investigative journalism is in the state of infancy. Lack of technological dif-
fusion or insufficient investment in newsrooms could be a potential obsta-
cle before investigative journalists who want to use AI techniques. Some of
the domain-specific issues are fundamental, which cannot be resolved at a

quicker pace. However, reimagining investigative stories in the ecology of
news media by using AI techniques amid several constraints is seemingly pos-
sible for several newsrooms in the near future.
Needless to say, investigative journalism is one of the potential beats which
could accommodate the power of AI techniques so far. Since AI is evolving,
the use of AI tools will unpack and redefine various beats in the time to come.
6.4.2 Artificial Intelligence and Photo Journalism
Most of us are familiar with the old adage, “Seeing is believing.”

Photojournalism is the process of using photographs to tell stories. Whereas
traditional journalists use pen and paper (or perhaps a keyboard) to share
information, photojournalists use a camera as a medium. Photojournalists
use images to tell the whole story from start to finish. When done right,
readers may not even need words to fully understand the message presented.
Journalists use pen and paper to tell stories, while photojournalists use cam-
eras to capture visual representations of stories.
Imagine a newspaper, magazine, billboard, news article, or online arti-
cle without images. Images express one’s story. Similarly, photojournalism
occupies prominence in the field of journalism. The latest disruptive tech-
nology to disrupt and upend the world of photography is artificial intelli-
gence. AI is revolutionizing the world of photography in ways never before
imagined. From editing software to image recognition, AI is rapidly chang-
ing the way we approach and create images. The result is that you can
take stunning photos with minimal effort and turn even the most mundane
photos into works of art. Eventually, AI tools are changing the way photog-
raphers work and create. However, with AI imagery and generators, pho-
tographers have the potential to create images that are technically perfect,
but lack the creativity and artistry associated with traditional photography.
As a result, photographers rely more on technology than on their own skills
and creativity, which can lead to a decline in the quality and artistry of their
photographs.
The influence of AI in photojournalism in particular, and journalism in
general cannot be underestimated. The internet, technology and digital media
have made more images visible, but also flooded the market with how they
are used and how they are selected. The importance of the decisive moment
has never disappeared, but with the spread of digital photography and the
spread of smartphones, its value has diminished, and news media have not
been able to create new business models. That way, you can create innovative
content that you can monetize.
AI and drone technology are the tools that could bring new disruption to
photojournalism. These two are now growing and gaining popularity with
both businesses and consumers. Drones are a new gadget and photojour-
nalists love their gadgets so they are becoming more and more popular in
photography (Bracaglia, 2017). As with any technology, costs will drop as

development progresses, allowing consumers to afford to be in the game as
well. Just like the advent of smartphone photography, which gave way to
citizen journalism and UGC, drones are also part of these factions. Aerial
photography is not the only reason drones are attractive. In terms of their
ability to reach places previously inaccessible to humans, especially photo-
journalists, drones can enter previously inaccessible battle zones, breaking
news, tight or difficult areas. A drone vehicle is being developed that could
help photojournalists to cover the challenging missions.
AI is connected to drones because AI is programmed with algorithms that
ultimately pilot drones, along with other devices, to create images and tell
visual stories that news media provide to consumers. It becomes a learning
machine. We will push AI further, but apart from photojournalism, there
is a vast amount of big data at the disposal of news media companies to
understand consumer habits, preferences, behaviours and patterns related to
journalism and to understand storytelling. AI is already being used to deci-
pher data. It uses machine learning to perform routine tasks using automated
content related to AP fact-check reports and algorithms that Facebook has
implemented and continues to improve. Both AI and drone journalism could
be poised to automate photojournalism by allowing the camera to know
when to press the shutter at that definitive moment. As mentioned earlier,
we’ve already seen this happening on a smaller scale in citizen journalism and
UGC, but this advancement will happen on a much larger scale and will be a
game changer across the journalism industry.
Demographically, more and more people are facing journalistic content.
These consumers may become more sophisticated in their selection of con-
tent or care less about content. This might be called the deculturalization of
news media content. Business and technology have also acknowledged this
because the cost of creating content is low, but most companies have not
developed business models to properly monetize their content, which is why
technology can automate human tasks. It is easy to replace with.
In this scenario, photojournalists are more likely to tell more stories
because they can work on multiple projects at once. The AI revolution
in
journalism isn’t just about text generation, it’s about creating new visuals
with automatic image generation. AI tools facilitate stylistic diversity and
find the right fit for the field of photojournalism. AI-powered image genera-
tion is more than just cheap graphics. Rather, it is increasingly seen as an
opportunity to have a broader portfolio of choices. It’s also a chance to play
with new styles and formats of visual storytelling. BBC News Labs proto-
types new AI-driven tools that use AI-powered content automation to gener-
ate new story formats that appeal to diverse audiences who prefer graphic
storytelling over traditional news reporting (The Fix, 2022).
At present, AI engineers have used several photographs which were taken
by journalists worldwide. Moreover, they are being used without journalists’
due permission. This state is further manufacturing the space for synthetic
photojournalism. For instance, OpenAI’s DALL-E can amply provide photos

for photojournalism (Columbia Journalism Review, 2023). The paradox is
that audience are bombarded with loads of information and they cannot
crosscheck the photographs all the time. The audience need a reliable source
of information. Therefore, the onus is on both the audience and newsroom
management.
Social media sites may eventually implement warnings that the image
users are looking at maybe fake, much like Facebook is doing now with mes-
sages, but that would create offensive photos. It’s going to be a much bigger
challenge than posting it and spreading it. It’s easy to see how AI tools will
revolutionize the way editors work. Instead of searching through hopelessly
endless stock photos, journalists can just type a few words and get a tailored
image. But what is the impact and how does it affect budgets, copyright and
anti-bias? Given that AI usually creates new images from user prompts, you
might wonder how this relates to the concept of intellectual property and
copyright. Another issue is that real human faces are unknowingly used to
train algorithms to output highly realistic images of nonexistent humans.
Images may be based on original data sets that expressly prohibit such use,
or may be based on individuals who have not specifically consented to the
reuse of their images.
If the dataset is faulty, AI process will also be faulty. All of this contributes
to prejudices and makes them difficult to identify, recognize and ultimately
resolve. More and more people around the world are using AI tools to cre-
ate images of disinformation, distortion of reality and impact on vulnerable
people. Even though AI is powerful and reasonably accurate, it should be
carefully evaluated in this context before using it for public purposes.
6.4.3 Artificial Intelligence and Life of an Individual Journalist

With the advent of ChatGPT, a form of AI, the lives of journalists have
changed to some extent. ChatGPT is assisting journalists to perform their
regular tasks on a daily basis. AI tool is helping journalists to create sum-
maries of large texts and documents; generating questions and answers; gen-
erating headlines; translating an article into another language; generating
an email subject and writing an email; creating social posts; and providing
article context for the audience of news. This AI tool helps journalists to
generate interview questions. Based on the topic and subject of the inter-
view, journalists can suggest relevant questions to use during the interview.
The tool can assist journalists to save time by aggregating news articles. A
language model can read long news articles quickly and provide a concise
summary that emphasizes the main points.
The tool can fetch the journalists an abbreviated version of the abstract,
a rewrite, or an abstract with the specific information that they need. The AI
tool can aid journalists to review their work. Journalists can enter the infor-
mation they wish to confirm and will be assisted in confirming or refuting
the information based on reliable sources. ChatGPT helps them generate

impressive and attention-grabbing article titles. By entering the gist of jour-
nalists’ article, ChatGPT can suggest a compelling headline that will engage
the readers.
ChatGPT can assist journalists to communicate with sources in speak-
ing different languages. Language models can translate text from one lan-
guage to another, allowing the journalists to communicate effectively with
sources. AI tools can help them to analyze large amounts of data quickly
and efficiently. By inputting datasets, language models can provide insights
and trends that can be used to support news articles. This tool can assist
journalists to generate article content. By entering key points, the language
model can suggest sentences and paragraphs that can be used to build
articles.
ChatGPT’s strength lies in its ability to complement and enhance the work
of human journalists. Machines cannot replace human intuition and creativ-
ity, but Chat GPT can provide valuable support. By using ChatGPT as a tool,
journalists can save time, improve the accuracy and quality of their work
and ultimately increase the value and influence of journalism in society. Such
kind of AI enables them to offer the contexts of articles for the audience.
Outsourcing one of the most tedious office tasks to a machine sound remains
a dream.
Journalists still need to edit the final version, but ChatGPT can gener-
ate voice messages with quick prompts, speeding up the process of emailing
sources and colleagues. Just fill in the blanks and send. It acts as a real time
saver. Like e-mail, posting in social media is convenient, but very time-con-
suming. Journalists can use ChatGPT to tweet or post on a topic to free up
your time and think about more meaningful writing. As with all the tasks
above, this can be hit and miss. This AI tool is useful when a journalist needs
to add a simple description to his/her work in plain language. Many people
fear that ChatGPT can be used to create articles, but this is not (yet) the case
all the time.
With this AI tool, journalists’ routinized works of searching, producing
and disseminating news to the audience have been influenced. However, for
the time being, it is slow-paced. In addition, AI is influencing the dissemina-
tion of news on various social media platforms. In this context, Pallavi Guha,
author and academic researcher associated with Towson University, United
States points out,
“Artificial intelligence in journalism is not a new phenomenon; for

the past some years, AI in various forms has been used in journal-
ism for transcribing interviews, in data journalism for processing and
reviewing large data sets, and more. However, since October of 2022,
open-sourced AI ChatGPT has taken industries by storm, including
journalism and journalism education. ChatGPT has been trained to
provide a detailed response to prompts from users. Since then, there
have been some experiments in journalism, such as this article partly

written by ChatGPT was published on CNBC: https://www.cnbc.com
/2023/01/26/chatgpt-wrote-part-of-this-article-it-didnt-go-great.html.”
Guha further opines,
“Newsrooms and journalists are still assessing the impact of ChatGPT

on the industry, but it is definitely seeing shifts in the approach of news-
rooms, who may be trying to learn and embrace the technology, such
as new positions being created in newsrooms and journalism AI edu-
cation: https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/chatgpt-threat-or
-opportunity-journalism-five-ai-experts-weigh. Right now is the wait-
ing period to assess if the technology could be used for a positive impact
in the industry”.
6.4.4 Artificial Intelligence and Translation in Journalism
Human-machine interaction has evolved dramatically, thanks in large part

to artificial intelligence. AI has become a seamless part of our daily lives,
from smart homes to self-driving cars. And using AI to translate text and
speech from one language to another can help break down one of the most
important barriers between people on the planet. The reason for the AI’s
application to translation can be easily understood. The language is a big
data set containing words and meanings governed by the rules governing
how those words are used. The AI translation employs machine learning
to the language. This is much higher than standard machine translation, in
which all words are translated directly and often mispronounced. AI tools,
on the other hand, can understand phrases, compound sentences, structures
and slangs. As a result, content through translation becomes effective to a
target audience. AI translation uses a technology called Neural Machine
Translation (NMT), which Google began developing in 2016. NMT soft-
ware reflects the human approach to language learning for the first time (Wu
et al., 2016).
The advantages of AI-based translation are varied. AI-based translation
tools can translate instantly when travellers need it the most. AI translators
can act as invaluable assistants to real-world translators. One can provide
immediate feedback to authors as they transcreate ad copy, or analyze large
volumes of content to provide feedback on batch translations. It can also
point out issues related to tone of voice that older digital translators often
overlook. The best AI language tools can transcreate large amounts of text
with high accuracy, without the financial overhead associated with human
translators. In some cases, human translators can perform digital batch qual-
ity control tasks, significantly reducing localization costs.
When it comes to the implications of AI-based translation in journalism, it
is making the lives of journalists easy. The AI tool can translate a news copy
from English to other languages with much greater speed and accuracy. This
can help the journalists to meet the deadlines in the newsrooms. A news copy
could be entertainment, crime, business, sports or politics in nature or an
opinion piece. Machine translation could revolutionize journalism. AI, work-
ing on the principles of deep learning, now translates such text into English
in seconds. One could say that with a little postediting, it is much more read-
able than what is returned by translators who may have mastered the foreign
language but not necessarily the journalism format.
Robots can only work reliably in a few languages, but they learn by read-
ing. And the results will shape journalism – albeit in different directions.
On the one hand, the tools open up new possibilities for publishers. So far,
only English-speaking editorial offices have been able to provide journalism
worldwide, but in the future, it will be possible for anyone to provide jour-
nalism, either economically meaningful or for a mission. Editors can also
use automated translation to easily reach people with other native languages
in their own country, for example those who have difficulty in connecting
with immigrant communities. And if the original documents are easier for
reporters to access in this way, international searches would be much easier.
Everything works in written as well as spoken language.
One of France’s leading newspapers, Le Monde, has published its first digi-
tal edition in English with articles partially translated by artificial intelligence.
The articles are primarily translations of French articles produced by inter-
national organizations using artificial intelligence tools (Arab News, 2022).
Translation has traditionally been viewed as a job in which the human touch
has always ultimately trumped machines in the end. That may no longer be
the case, as Microsoft’s AI Translator has completed one of his toughest chal-
lenges. Translate Chinese to English with bilingual accuracy. AI can translate
Chinese to English just like humans can (Futurism, 2018). A big turning point
in AI is automatic translation. Finland public broadcaster Yle was able to
launch a service for Ukrainian refugees. The service automatically machine-
translated the news and checked it with native speakers (Yle, 2022). However,
it is precisely at this point that things become important. Because language is
always just a package of content that occurs in a cultural context. The exact
same fact can sound completely different depending on who explains it.
Translation in journalism through AI tools cannot meet with the require-
ments in the newsrooms. A translation tool doesn’t replace a foreign corre-
spondent, but it does make his/her job easier. This is bad news for all fixers
and local journalists around the world who are making sure journalists have
the right information, contacts and access. They may quickly lose their jobs
when they are no longer needed as translators. Even today, few newsrooms
can secure a network of reporters far from home. Easier access to all the
world’s languages might accelerate this development, but it wasn’t the cause.
Cultural misunderstandings can occur when translated by AI tools. AI
translators may be more accurate than ever, but they don’t have deep knowl-
edge of the local culture. Accurate translations can still be misleading or
offensive to locals, and humour is something that computers are not well
equipped to analyze. Good content starts out clear, but some texts, such as
technical manuals, need to be complex. AI translation tools can struggle with
unclear or ambiguous source text. When it comes to terminology, it may not
be ideal for accurate translation. Computers are very good at repetitive tasks
with definite results, but they are not very good at making text attractive and
readable. Text produced by AI translation is often boring and neutral. That
can be good, but branding needs personality and requires to be delivered by
people. Unfortunately, AI is also increasingly being used to translate fake
news.
6.5 Other Implications of Artificial Intelligence on Ecology of News

Media
There are other facets like tackling fake news, revisiting gatekeeping and the
rise of a new level of digital divide in newsroom management and the ecol-
ogy of news media in terms of incorporating artificial intelligence tools. Since
tackling fake news, revisiting gatekeeping and rise of a new level of digital
divide are dynamic and unpredictable in nature, bringing judicious discus-
sions on the subject is of utmost importance.
6.5.1 Dispelling Fake News, AI Tools and Media Ecology
Fake news has been a perennial threat to truth. However, the extent of fake
news on digital platforms has been proved fatal in the digital discourse and
the citizens across the globe are falling prey to falsehoods. In this context,
AI tools have been proven to be beneficial in curbing the menace of fake
news. Tools like The Factual, Check, Logically, Full Fact, Fabula AI, Grover,
Sensity AI, ClaimBuster, Adverif.ai, Alto Analytics, Blackbird AI, Defudger
and Bot Sentinel are able to check the ill effects of misinformation and disin-
formation (Trustedweb, n.d.).
The factual, enabled by AI system, checks the credibility of news stories. It
also tends to check and validate the authors’ or journalists’ track records and
credibility of news sources. Check, a fact-checking tool, has the facility of
customizable check platform. It has also the capacity to prioritize the nature
of information based on the users’ needs and demands by flagging misinfor-
mation. Logically, a free mobile app, has the power to verify the fact and
image. This tool employs AI techniques which further assist the human fact
checkers for a faster service. Full Fact, a fact-checking tool, is AI-automated
in nature and is capable of detecting fake news. Fabula AI, based on AI algo-
rithms, attempts to curb the menace of fake news by detecting the patterns
of disinformation on the internet. Grover, an algorithm-based tool, checks
fake news by filtering language of publication. Validating the language is also
combating misinformation and disinformation. Sensity AI, equipped with
certain system, attempts to detect deepfakes which is grossly used for repu-
tation attacks, dishonest reporting and other numerous nefarious activities.
ClaimBuster, a fact-checker tool, is capable of verifying text or written

content. This tool is also equipped with advanced mechanism to monitor
political debates. Adverif.ai is a tool which detects fake advertisements to
the users. After verifying and detecting inappropriate content, it also notifies
the users of fake content. Alto Analytics is capable of detecting disinforma-
tion and deepfakes. Blackbird AI is a tool which detects fake content used
in social media platforms, government and private organizations. Defudger,
powered by AI, attempts to verify the visual contents – videos and images.
Using blockchain technology, this fact-checking tool tends to approve the
original visual content. Bot Sentinel, equipped with AI and machine learning,
is enabled to detect fake content on social media outlets with greater accu-
racy rates. Needless to say, curbing the ill effects of fake news has bearings
on the ecology or management of news media.
The ecology of news media across the globe is increasingly becoming
complex (Rai & Cottle, 2007). However, the AI-enabled tools are able to
redefine the ecosystem of news media. The ecosystem of news media in con-
temporary times has taken paradigm shifts in terms of news, information
and engagement. In a newsroom, from a junior newsperson to a senior per-
son like the editor-in-chief has equal role and responsibility to maintain a
healthy ecosystem. Ownership of each and every stakeholder in a news-
room is warranted. Healthy news ecology allows for a diverse and sustain-
able engagement with the audiences and communities. When an ecosystem
is healthy; production, distribution and consumption of news will become
healthy. As a result, it can propel the news industry to thrive and the very
purpose of production, distribution and consumption of news can be ful-
filled. When it comes to newsroom management and ecology of news media;
spreading of fake news has been detrimental for both media houses and
news consumers. In this context, AI-driven newsrooms are in a better posi-
tion in checking and curbing fake news. Checking and mitigating the men-
ace of fake news has become imperative to be part of a healthy ecosystem in
news media industry.
6.5.2 Reimagining Gatekeeping in Artificial Intelligence-Driven Newsrooms
The act of gatekeeping has an implication on the ecology of news media.

Gatekeeping of news is a unique type of mediation in a digitalized newsroom
in general (Dovbysh, 2021) and artificial intelligence-driven newsrooms in
particular. News media ecology tends to be immensely influenced by AI
tools. Moreover, the selection pattern of news in the process of algorithm
has renewed the process of gatekeeping of news media. Nevertheless, gate-
keeping and news selection as a form of newsroom remain a matter of sub-
jectivity. Innovations, transitions and transformations in digital journalism
have redefined the modus operandi of gatekeeping. Even though some of the
journalists are not fully aware of AI tools, their implications on value chain,
gatekeeping and political economy are getting imminent.
It is argued that technologies in general and AI tools in particular have

captured and controlled different stages in the gatekeeping process of news
media. Moreover, Twitter, Reddit, and other social media outlets have
become the gatekeepers for certain information. The gatekeeping process of
news – production, distribution and consumption are being in tune with log-
ics, standards or business strategies of external platforms. Even though the
application of AI tools is believed to be a new form of augmented journalism,
it is going to curtail the space of human interventions in terms of gatekeeping
of news.
With the AI tools into play in the newsrooms, journalistic autonomy is
getting diluted as algorithmic process has taken on human being and their
editorial decisions. The power of AI tools is slowing controlling the means
of production as the technology has permeated the process of production,
distribution and consumption of news. The stage of the gatekeeping pro-
cess – selection of information, production of news, distribution of news and
audience and business analytics – is getting influenced by the incorporation
of AI tools.
The power of AI is increasingly employed in the gatekeeping process, high-
lighting the socio-technical process which precisely determines and directs
what and how information is to be procured, edited, processed, evaluated
and shared as piece of news. However, Harrison (2009, p. 195) argues,
“news content is approved or rejected according to its perceived ability to
inform, or its perceived ability to conform”. With the technologies getting
into newsrooms, the gatekeeping of news is in the mode of transition. The
power of algorithms, the nonhuman actors are getting dominant over the
human actors. Such gatekeepers tend to promote users’ friendly activities,
sharing and resharing, automation, or collaborative ranking.
In the light of technologies taking over human actors, discussing digi-
tal gatekeeping and networked gatekeeping is gaining pivotal importance.
Wallace (2018, p. 279) defines digital gatekeeping as “every individual and
every algorithm could be a gatekeeper, whereas only a few of them are for any
given subject”. There could be four types of gatekeepers – journalists, indi-
vidual amateurs, strategic professionals and algorithms. The possible selection
process may include the access to information, selection process of infor-
mation and publication possibilities of those information. On the contrary,
Barzilai‐Nahon (2008, p. 1494) asserts that networked gatekeeping based on
top-down model of gatekeeping is opposite to digital networking and stresses
on the role of those “whom gatekeeping is being exercised upon”.
The networked gatekeeping highlights networked publics which are non-
elite-driven. Usually, the traditional and institutionalized newsrooms are
driven by the elites. In the context of using AI tools in newsrooms, the para-
dox remains unabated whether there is the presence of digital gatekeeping or
networked gatekeeping or there is a coexist of the two. Precisely, gatekeep-
ers’ political power, information production ability and alternatives in the
light of gatekeeping are being debated.
It is found that technologies have empowered the audiences which have

become an integral part of gatekeeping process in the ecology of news media.
Blanchetts (2021) coined the concept of participative gatekeeping which con-
siders the use of data on audience. However, Simon (2022, p. 1) confirms,
“With the complexity and resource-intensiveness of AI creating lock-

in effects, news organisations will likely become even more tethered
to platform companies in the long-run, thus potentially limiting their
autonomy and, by extension, leading to a restructuring of the public
arena, as news organisations as the main gatekeepers to the same are
re-shaped according to the logics of platform businesses.”
Since journalism is a dynamic profession, technologies continue to play an

important role pertaining to the role of gatekeeping in newsroom manage-
ment. With the inclusion of ChatGPT, an AI application in news industries,
gatekeeping is subjected to alter the form of digital journalism. This AI tool
has implications on the selection of news. There is no doubt that the appli-
cations of ChatGPT are going to augment the pace of digital journalism. It
is assumed that this AI tool can curtail the space of human interventions
in terms of gatekeeping of news. Furthermore, with ChatGPT into play in
the newsrooms, journalistic autonomy is getting diluted as algorithmic pro-
cess has taken on human being and their editorial decisions. AI in general,
ChatGPT in particular could be a new gatekeeper, influencing the process of
production, distribution and consumption of news.
6.5.3 New Level of Digital Divide, Artificial Intelligence and Newsroom

Management
There is little doubt that digitalization of newsrooms has influenced the ecol-
ogy of news media in a better manner. Newsrooms across the globe are expe-
riencing revolutions in terms of production, distribution and consumption of
news. However, news organizations are witnessing financial and technologi-
cal pressures because of changes in the nature and functions of newsrooms
(Ogbebor & Carter, 2021). The quality of news in a democratic setup, public
scrutiny and declining public support for the revenue-driven news media are
the larger talking points. Such similar nature of unrest can be echoed when
AI tools are being used in the newsrooms.
The use of technologies especially the internet and digitalization in the
newsrooms in the Global North and Global South have created a second
level of digital divide (Jamil, 2023). Similarly, the incorporation of artificial
intelligence and machine learning in the Global North and Global South
can possibly create another level of digital divide. This dichotomy is going
to limit the power of AI tools in newsrooms in the Global South. New com-
munication technologies have grossly influenced the local media across the
nations. Such kind of studies have been conducted in Western countries.
However, there is a dearth of such studies in the context of non-Western

countries. Precisely, the newsroom management and ecology of new media
in a developed nation are apparently different from that of a developing
nation. Digital divide was there. It still persists. A few news media organiza-
tions are able to resort to leapfrogging which tends to influence the ecology
of news media.
Employees in the Global South may face the risk of facing much higher
barriers to using artificial intelligence tools including ChatGPT. ChatGPT
has already announced the launch of a premium version that offers prior-
ity server access to the users. Non-premium users will not be able to access
ChatGPT at maximum server capacity. Pricing will be a relatively high
barrier in the global South due to lower median incomes (UNIDO, 2023).
Similarly, with the introduction of ChatGPT, a fear is predicted in using the
tool in the area of journalism in the Global South. ChatGPT undoubtedly
presents an interesting argument to explore the applications of AI technol-
ogy in news industry in different countries. Digital divide may take different
turns into ChatGPT-HAVES and ChatGPT-HAVE NOTS. Newsrooms in
the Global South may further face the brunt of this newer form of digital
divide.
There is no denying that content is the king. Collection, production and
distribution of news content remains the mainstay in the journalistic pro-
cess and narratives. The advent of machine learning and artificial intel-
ligence tools can reshape every stage of news content from gathering to
distribution. It is hard to believe that the employment of AI techniques in
the newsrooms will lead to augmentation activities rather than replacement
in media ecology. Along with AI tools, other technologies like blockchain,
computer-generated imagery (CGI), metaverse and immersive technolo-
gies are going to occupy their spaces in the ecology of news media. For
an instance, whether metaverse can create immersive appeal in the mind
of new consumers or not. Similarly, CGI is a kind of visual effects (VFX)
which can be used in newsrooms. Time will speak how journalism can use
or misuse the technique of CGI in the production, distribution and con-
sumption of news.
Needless to say, AI tools have started influencing each and every stage of
journalistic process. However, as of now this is slow-paced. Skills required
for the traditional format of journalism will be there. Beckett (2019, p. 43)
has rightly argued,
“Production, distribution, and consumption of news will all be impacted

by AI-powered technologies, probably in that order. Entirely new con-
tent experiences based on AI technologies are still the most distant
opportunities. In production of news the daily routine of assembling

audio and video programmes will likely be an early area of impact. In
distribution and consumption of news the personalisation of content
offering and, especially, the personalisation of the individual content
item or experience, will likely be an early impact. Both of these are hap-
pening now in limited form.”
The uncertainty still hangs. However, its impact will be visible sooner or
later. A short, medium and long strategy is required to make ecology of news
media and newsroom management amicable in light of AI interventions.
Bringing AI technologies in newsrooms in some parts of the world will
only reinforce inequalities and infamously strengthen the dichotomy between
Artificial Intelligence-HAVES and Artificial Intelligence-HAVE NOTS.
Moreover, since the technologies like the metaverse are increasingly into the
domain of news media, the situation could be detrimental in terms of main-
taining parity in information. Parity in terms of accessing, executing and
researching the communication tool has been a huge challenge. The perils
of technological inequality need to be amicably understood and addressed.
Changes are welcome in the spectrum of news media, but not at the cost of
inequality and societal unrest. Even distribution of technology is the need of
the hour when a healthy ecology of news media is duly sought.
Cultural barriers remain potential obstacles before newsroom manage-
ment. Beckett (2019, p. 48) has rightly pointed out,
“There is a cultural gap between computer scientists and journalists.

Topics such as algorithmic personalization are straightforward and sen-
sible directions for computer scientists, but raise concerns with journal-
ists around editorial responsibilities, filter bubbles, etc. We need to keep
everyone on board, and get commitment before developing solutions.”
Hence, in the light of employing AI tools and overcoming the cultural bar-
riers, the news management should factor in the conditioning of newsroom
while planning, strategizing and implementing the AI tools. In addition, AI
literacy needs to be fostered in newsroom management so that the use of
technologies can be judicious. News organisations should make a point of
this so that risks of failure can be mitigated to a great extent.
Since ChatGPT is buzzing in newsrooms across the globe, this AI tool is
getting experimented in the process of journalistic production. It could be a
boon or bane in newsrooms that time will prove. Advantages and pitfalls of
this tool for the news media are yet to be critically understood and executed.
The political economy of ChatGPT in the process of journalistic production,
distribution and consumption need due deliberation. Moreover, ChatGPT
literacy ought to be fostered among the journalists. Suffice to say, media
literacy in general has been a core topic for discussion and research in the
sphere of academic and industry. Understanding and researching ChatGPT

literacy will be an extension to the study of media literacy.
Suffice to say, AI is undeniably going to influence the ecology of news
media. Man and machine are two different entities and both have their own
importance. Excessive reliance on AI techniques in the journalistic process
could prove to be a disaster. The dualistic nature of such technologies has
become a dilemma. However, the path of least resistance is to be resorted.
Nevertheless, opting for digital disablement is not probably the right solu-
tion. The use of AI needs to be mindful in newsroom management. Let’s
wait and watch. How much the newsrooms will be able to strike a balance
between the promises and perils of AI that will invite a plethora of debates
and future studies will be worth reckoning. Since the use of AI and journal-
ism is a matter interdisciplinary interest, good amount of academic probes
will be demanded in the future.
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7 Data Journalism and Artificial
Intelligence
Interrogating the Data with Machine
7.1 Introduction
Mark Briggs (2013, p. 233) states, “Data, data everywhere. Now that we’re
deep into the information age, it’s time for everyone to accept that the amount
of information in our lives is only going to keep growing”. Nowadays, human
beings are residing in a society where the numerical occupies an important
space and words, geographical locations and interactions are turning into
data. Modern society is in a stage of data superabundance and connecting to
the importance of numerical data has been the core of discussion everywhere.
Data have showed relevant connections to varied sectors and professions
including journalism.
With the advent of post-factual politics, data journalism has become more
relevant than before. The collection, analysis and publication of data have
become increasingly important (Coddington, 2015). Innovations in techno-
logical fronts like automation and bots have resulted in the rise and growth
of data journalism. The report on the Panama Papers could be cited as the
best form of data journalism. With the rise in practice of such kind of com-
putational journalism, scholarly interest in the area has exponentially gone
up. This has paved the way for the augmentation in journalistic practice and
academic investigations as well.
Data journalism is now a buzz word in the space of news media. You
might have seen an infographic or an investigative news story which com-
prises of the data. This unique way of storytelling by employing structured
data through interactive modes, visualizations and computational methods
is on the rise. Even though telling journalistic news stories has moved from
print media to radio, radio to television and television to digital media, the
essence of journalism has remained the same. All the journalistic investiga-
tions or news presentations hover around the 5Ws and 1H (Raman, 2009).
The 5Ws – Why, Who, What, Where and When – and 1H: How are being
used to write the news in an inverted pyramid. This format of news writing
remains an appealing format to grab the eyeballs of the news consumers.
Moreover, the audience can get the basics of the event from the inverted
pyramid of news writing. However, overall data journalism is at the intersec-
tion of communications and technology. Later, the format of the inverted
DOI: 10.4324/9781032716879-7
120 Data Journalism and Artificial Intelligence
pyramid of news writing can be adopted by molding the facts and figures for
data storytelling to the audience.
Data journalism is gaining popularity in media organizations across the
world. The news media outlets like The New York Times and The Guardian
are attempting to utilize such types of journalism optimally (Tabary,
Provost, & Trottier, 2016). Such nature of journalistic practice has raised
epistemological questions before traditional journalism pertaining to the
data sources, techniques of data collection and information processing .
Therefore, there is little doubt that this type of journalism based on the
numerical and interpretation is a unique way to understand the profession
and practice as well.
7.2 Understanding Data Journalism

With the arrival and adoption of newer technologies, journalistic values like
objectivity, transparency and participation have been the core of discus-
sion. To some scholars and media practitioners, it has brought some sort of
negotiations in journalistic norms and practice. The journalistic storytelling
formats and presentations have been radically changed. Traditional form of
journalism has undergone numerous changes. As a result, it has raised ample
amount of deliberations on the aspects starting from the collection of data to
analysis of data and from analysis of data to interpretation of data.
People worldwide are being influenced by computers and the data. In this
context, journalists should be nuanced to understand the computers and the
data which have immense bearings on humankind. In general, people often
consider “data journalism” as charts and infographics. However, it is much
beyond this notion and understanding. It is the process of understanding the
data to tell the stories from the database based on the collection, analysis
and interpretation of data. It is a flourishing area of journalism in which
understanding and presenting the data through the forms of storytelling is
important.
In this context, Simon Rogers states,
“Data journalism incorporates such a wide range now of styles – from

visualization to long-form articles. The key thing they have in common
is that they are based on numbers and statistics – and that they should
aim to get a ‘story’ from that data. Data journalism doesn’t have to
mean data visualization.”
(Mair, Keeble, & Lucero, 2017, pp. 16–17).
In a report of the Columbia School of Journalism, Berret and Phillips (2016,

p. 9) define data journalism as,
“using data for the journalistic purpose of finding and telling stories
in the public interest. This may take many forms: to analyze data and
Data Journalism and Artificial Intelligence 121
convey that analysis in written form, to verify data found in reports, to

visualize data, or to build news apps that help readers to explore data
themselves. This field also encompasses the use of computation—algo-
rithms, machine learning, and emerging technologies—to more effec-
tively mine both structured and unstructured information to find and
tell stories.”
Be it a traditional form of journalism or data journalism, the principles of

journalism remain the same. In traditional form of journalism, a journal-
ist attempts to produce truthful and accurate presentation of facts out of
his/her personal account of a story. However, data journalism is one step
ahead in which a journalist intends a news story out of a data set. Moreover,
this approach to journalism unravels the larger perspectives of a story . It is
apparent that a data set may have multiple perspectives or story angels which
can be told to the audience.
7.2.1 Myths and Realities
There are several myths that are hovering around in the corridor of data
journalism and have inundated the space of technologies in newsrooms
worldwide. A myth is that the data journalism is not considered as personal.
However in reality, data stories are there about people’s lives which can be
contextualized in larger perspectives. Another myth is that data journal-
ists are keen on numbers only, sidelining the news stories in the true sense.
However in a real sense, data journalists are keen to explore the facts with
wider and newer perspectives out of the data in which they can engage with
news consumers (Casselman, 2019). The myth is that data journalism is fea-
sible for programmers and designers. However in practical sense, data jour-
nalism stems from an editorial practice and understanding. It is not all about
the technical and design skills. To be a good data journalist, one should have
the eyes for a news story and have the skills to collaborate with others in the
newsroom. In data journalism, the focus is on human lives more than the use
of technologies to tell news stories.
Another myth is that data journalism only creates and disseminates charts
and infographics. However in reality, data journalism uncovers facts using a
data set by employing charts and infographics. Last not the least, the myth
about data journalism is that it is expensive and demands more time to tell
the news stories. However, in reality it is not so. If news stories are about
longer-term investigative in nature, eventually it becomes expensive and
demands more time than usual news stories.
7.2.2 Sourcing of Reliable Data
In data journalism, questions and curiosity remain about how to source

reliable data when there are plenty of sources. It is an important aspect of
journalism which is driven by technologies and machines (Al Jazeera Media
Institute, 2019). Firstly, using reliable or trustworthy sources is a pivotal facet

of journalism. The nature of the source used in news stories usually defines
the rate of credibility of journalism. Suffice to say, it is hard enough to get
reliable data sources on which news stories are built to tell the same to the
audience. Secondly, it is essential to do the cross-referring of the data sets.
The data sets could be cross-referred with credible news stories, reports and
the like. Eventually, it saves one’s energy and time before it gets pushed for
the process of cleaning, analysis and interpretation. Thirdly, a data journalist
should be adequately vigilant so that anything valuable in the dataset won’t
be missed out. Moreover, the data to be used in the news stories should be
relevant and updated. It must not be outdated which will lessen the credibil-
ity and newsworthiness of news stories. Fresh data bring newer insights to
a news story which could prove an exclusive for the news consumers. Fresh
data plays a decisive role in determining credible journalism. Fourthly, it is
vital to understand and comprehend the methodology of data collection. The
methodology of data collection reflects the validity of data collection. By
doing this, objectivity can be largely maintained. Maintaining objectivity in
journalism is something that can be missed out when journalists are vulner-
able to partisanship. Precisely, a data journalist should treat objectivity as a
performance of journalism. Fifthly, a data journalist should understand the
effects of data stories and the acceptance of the audience over the traditional
form of storytelling. Since the audience is the main stakeholder of the data
stories, their convenience of consuming news of this nature has to be under-
stood in a delicate manner. The consumers of news remain an important fac-
tor in the process of journalistic production. Overall, the reaction or feedback
of the audience to news contents remains an unavoidable component in the
ecology of news media.
7.2.3 Elements of Data Journalism
Data journalism has been undergoing numerous changes and is still count-
ing. Since it is a dynamic form of journalism, curiosity is often accounted
what are the elements or features of data journalism. Despite its chang-
ing modes and applications, it has certain basic elements. In data journal-
ism, the first element is quantitative information. It plays a dynamic and
strong role in telling news stories. Secondly, there is some sort of visual or
graphic representation of the data which make a news story more interest-
ing than ever (Zamith, 2019). Loosen, Reimer, and De Silva-Schmidt (2017)
have added two other elements to the existing elements of data journalism.
The scholars added “participatory openness” and “open data and open-
source approach”, which have taken such type of journalism to the next
level. Knight (2015) attempts to stress on the complexity and nature of
data elements rather than the nature of visualizations. Going beyond the
above elements, Ojo and Heravi’s (2018) find the space of data sources,
nature of narratives, degree of interactiveness and analytical probes and
techniques in computation journalism. It is also found that computation

journalism employs the use of structured data management method for
news storytelling.
7.3 The Origin and Development of Data Journalism

The field of journalism has been experiencing constant evolution with the
changing adoption of technologies. Online journalism was evolved in the
1990s (Pavlik, 2001). In the similar fashion, over the years data journalism
has undergone certain stages. Data journalism 1.0 came into existence in the
early 1800s. In some places, this version of data journalism is still being used.
In the beginning phase, the structured data were used to tell the news stories.
A data journalist was in need of the skills to understand and comprehend the
database and statistics. It was found that the journalists were not equipped
with the skills to use data science for storytelling to the audience. The exam-
ple of news story “Pathomphol Chan-ocha” (Isra News Agency, 2016) is
worth mentioning here.
Data journalism 2.0 was started around the year 1950 with the emer-
gence and proliferation of computer use for news stories. It increased the
efficiency of data journalists in some aspects. Journalists were required to be
nuanced in social research methodology and computer skills. The instances
of news stories “The Shock” (Ippoodom, 2017) and “Riot in Detroit”
(Meyer, 1967) fall into this state of data journalism. The arrival of data
journalism 3.0 was around the year 2000. In this period, data science was
started for gathering, organizing, analyzing and delivering news stories to the
audience. The instances of news story “Afghan War Logs” (The Guardian,
2010) and “Lottery: Who Gets Rich?” from Thai Publica and Boonmee Lab
(Thai Publica and Boonmee Lab, n.d.) can be classified into the stage of data
journalism 3.0. There was a time when doing data journalism was difficult.
Understanding the complex data was hard and the required skills were not
enough to tell data stories in an effective manner. To overcome the problems,
few news organizations in the United States and England employed program-
mers and telling data stories was feasible (Parasie & Dagiral, 2013). It some-
what made computational journalism easy to some extent.
The notion of data journalism is not completely new. The data in digital
formats were used for newsrooms since the late 1960s in various newspapers
in the US. It gained momentum with the rapid expansion of information and
communication technologies (ICTs) (Parasie & Dagiral, 2013). Data visuali-
zation was started when the French engineer Charles Joseph Minard used an
information graphics in the field of civil engineering and statistics (Rendgen,
2018). In the 1960s, the data journalism through computer-assisted report-
ing came into existence in the US (Mair et al., 2017).
The term “data journalism” was first used by Simon Rogers who used this
word in the Guardian Insider Blog (Knight, 2015). The history of data jour-
nalism has the connection when a news piece in Manchester Guardian started
compiling data on Manchester schools (Rogers, 2013). Rogers (2011) asserts

that data journalism accommodates judicious amalgamation of spreadsheet,
infographics and news stories. Along with defining various processes of data
journalism, Bradshaw (2011) clearly demarcated data-driven journalism and
question-driven approaches to journalism. He also focused on the context
and requirement of programming skills. Moreover, Bradshaw developed the
inverted pyramid to data journalism. It was a landmark change, keeping the
traditional format of journalistic writing in the domain of data journalism
in mind.
By the year 2015, the concept of data news stories emerged and was
well-executed in mainstream news outlets and forayed into the academic
fraternity in North America and Europe. Organizations like the Global
Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) have developed toolkits and
MOOCs which were employed for journalistic approach. The Panama
Papers showcased the true testimony and charisma of data journalism
when investigative journalists fully exposed the case (Stalph & Borges-
Rey, 2018). Data journalism came into existence in Greece in the format of
infographics, which were used to inform the news audience about certain
parameters (Bradshaw, 2018).
Over the years, data journalism has been accepted as a type of journalism
which is able to render journalistic output with adequate amount of system-
atic, precise and trustworthy. Factual plurality has been substantially gained
and people’s trust toward news has been enhanced. As a result, news outlets
gradually have started investing in data journalism which has also drawn
the attention in academic circles worldwide. With the passing of time and
advancements in technologies used, the emergence of open data movement
has been feasible. Alain Desrosières (2008, p. 12) states, “quantification
offers a specific language that provides remarkable properties of transfer-
ability, possibilities of standard manipulations through calculation, and rou-
tinized interpretation systems”. Currently with no surprise, the practice of
data journalism is happening all over the world . With the use of AI, data
journalism has been stepped up beyond the routinized performance of data
journalism 3.0 as currently such form of journalism has started witnessing
varied forms of news storytelling to the audience.
7.4 Nature of Data Journalism

The nature of data journalism remains an important facet and equally
demands deliberations in the light of function, modus operandi and presenta-
tion of news stories to the audience. The types or division of data journalism
can be prepared in the following manner:
7.4.1 Classification Based on the Nature of Function
Based on the nature of functions, data journalism can be divided into inves-
tigative data journalism and general data journalism. Investigative data
journalism refers to the use of data for investigative stories. Generally, the
hidden data are explored, analyzed and told to the audience in the form of
news stories by using advanced techniques. Usually, such type of data stories
demands more time and required skills on the part of investigative journal-
ists. For instance, investigative story the “Panama Papers” (The International
Consortium of Investigative Journalists, 2020) can be cited here. In general,
data journalism is all about collecting data for developing general news sto-
ries which do not require advanced techniques.
7.4.2 Classification Based on Target of Extracting Meaning Out of Data
This type of data journalism stresses on the interpretation of data which

play a vital role in telling news stories. Again, such type of data journalism
is of two types – data journalism highlighting the characteristics and data
journalism which tends to analyze the data relationships. Data journalism
highlights the characteristics necessary to use statistics or algorithms which
are not complex in nature. For an example, “America’s Broken Healthcare
System” (The Guardian, 2017). Data journalism highlighting to analyze the
data relationships, intends to process and analyze the data links by using
statistics or algorithms which are generally complex in nature. The instance
of “The Rhymes Behind Hamilton” (The World Street Journal, 2016) can be
cited here.
7.4.3 Classification Based on Presentation Format
So far as the presentation of data journalism is concerned, it can be in the tra-

ditional format of presentation and interactive format of presentation. In the
traditional format of presentation, a data journalist potentially uses pictures
and infographics for news storytelling without the facility of an interactive
mode. On the other hand, in an interactive format of presentation, a data
journalist needs to have programming skills to make the news storytelling
interactive. As a result, the news presentation becomes more appealing to the
audience. The example of “How to Reduce Mass Shooting Deaths?” (The
New York Times, 2017) is worth mentioning and justifying.
7.5 Data Journalism Gaining Importance

Data journalism enjoys several advantages despite its complex method. In
numerous newsrooms, such form of computational journalism is doing won-
ders and is overwhelmingly grabbing the eyeballs of the audience. With the
help of data journalism, the complex data are reduced to the state of under-
standing on the part of the audience. Data journalists tend to act as inter-
mediaries between data and media consumers. Therefore, it bridges the gap
between the complex data and the audience. It makes the audience easy to
comprehend the data into a meaningful understanding. Data stories are get-
ting reinvented from time to time.
Computational journalism has enabled the journalists to develop and

execute their social roles by disseminating the data-based news stories to the
audience. Generally, data-based stories are not deadline-driven. Sometimes,
the nature of data stories is such that it is not time bound. It further fosters
and enhances the position of journalism as a watchdog to a greater extent.
Studies have found that data journalism is also beneficial for small news-
rooms. It helps in bringing better communication, facilitating to collaborate
and experiment and coping for more permeable between its departments in
newsrooms.
Nowadays, you need not require big teams for the implementation of data
journalism. The size of the team does not matter for the adoption of technol-
ogy. Studies reveal similar findings in Germany, Austria and the UK (Figl,
2017). It has developed the newer insight that data journalism is also suitable
for small-sized newsrooms. The small-sized newsrooms can resort to compu-
tational journalism which is increasingly accepted by the news consumers.
It is apparent that disinformation or fake news is causing harm to the
society. In this context, data journalism is gaining importance in various
phases of disseminating information. Data journalism has become the pana-
cea to combat, mitigate and minimize the extent of disinformation or fake
news. With the tools of computational data stories, transparency and ethical
standards are taking the front seat . A study conducted in Brazil finds that
journalism based on data and facts is equipped with transparency (Gehrke,
2020). Since data stories can be from nonelite sources; the “strong corporate
influence” on telling stories has gradually diminished (Erjavec, 2005, p. 346).
Consequently, news production and public opinion are meagerly influenced
by the data sources. This has also made journalism free from biasness and
partiality. Disseminating information without biasness remains a credible
benchmark of ethical journalism. The benefits emanating from data journal-
ism are slowly felt across the newsrooms and are still counting.
7.6 Data Journalism and Digital Storytelling

Readers are effectively engaged with stories in data journalism. The con-
tents are getting interesting for the readers. In this context, Simon Rogers
(2012) asserts, “all data is personal at some level…the best interactive [sic]
and visualizations allow users to see how the numbers reflect their lives.”
Storytelling is taking a different turn when the journalists are employing the
ability to understand and interpret the data, to draw newer insights and to
pose relevant questions. It is observed that data storytelling is largely pro-
duced and disseminated in big giant media corporations. Small and medium
level media outlets are facing difficulty to invest in technologies. However,
the opinion on the usage of data journalism is getting divided and raising
several perspectives.
With the help of the data, storytelling can be different in many ways.
Sometimes, news stories can be told out of a data set. The data encourage
and facilitate the journalists to manage bigger stories. Sometimes stories can
be exclusive when a journalist throws light on hidden facts and figures. It
may happen that the data story can be more detailed and see the facts and
perspectives from a distance (Sunne, 2016a). Since data journalism makes
the reporting more efficient and transparent, storytelling will shape up and
turn to that level which engages the news consumers in a better manner. The
acquisition, analysis and presentation of the data have changed the narra-
tive of storytelling. Moreover, storytelling is getting transformed every single
day in the news media industry to face the cutthroat competition in order to
arrest the eyeballs of the audience.
The approach of storytelling is not fixed or uniform in the arena of data
journalism. It is subjected to change or to contextualize the situation so that a
journalist can do a good news story. There are times when a journalist is inun-
dated with the data or reached the state of data deluge. A journalist is dead-
locked with the massive data, thinking how to do justice with it. As a result,
a journalist tends to get confused. It may also divert a journalist from making
data stories which are not been driven by news values. Ethical issues might pop
up which further raises the issue of journalistic standards. Any sort of ethical
issues getting to news stories further dilute the journalistic spirit and essence of
credible journalism. Therefore, to pick and use the right data remains impor-
tant in storytelling. Sometimes our lives create the data which are required for
good storytelling and for free and fair society. Saving time is pivotal in this pro-
cess. However, it should not distort in minimizing or extending the storytelling.
7.7 Data Journalism Across the Globe

The data news stories often reflect the subject of politics, business and society
(Loosen et al., 2017). However, such kind of journalism can be practiced in
all the beats that a newsroom needs to tell the stories for its audience. The
data stories are often from the public repositories. In some countries, data
journalism is being well-practiced, somewhere it has just started and some-
where it is going to emerge. Moreover, it is taking off in several newsrooms
across the globe.
7.7.1 United States
The computational journalistic field in the US is rich and diverse (Fink &
Anderson, 2015). Moreover, data journalism is not a new concept in the
US. It was used in predicting the US presidential election in 1950s. It was
potentially employed when the Hurricane Andrew hit the Florida coast in
the year 1992. Diving into the form of data journalism, a reporter used the
SAS and census data (Sunne, 2016b). From the beat of business to crime and
culture to international topics, such type of journalism is making inroads and
has occupied an important space in the newsrooms. Since the US is one of
the prominent hubs of technological advancements, data journalism is riding

high in the domain of news and reporting. Such form of journalism keeps on
inventing its forms and color from time to time and from beats to beats.
7.7.2 Australia
The data journalists from Australia have adopted and changed the struc-
ture and practice of such form of journalism to a great extent. Newsrooms
have undergone numerous changes in terms of work forces. The data nor-
malization has become a new normal (O'Donnell, Zion, & Sherwood,
2016). Kirsten Robb, a producer at 730 with the Australian Broadcasting
Corporation (ABC), opines those certain journalists in the space of data jour-
nalism are going to be thriving. Robb asserts,
“It’s going to take people like Craig [Butt] and Inga [Ting], people who
are just really passionate about data to be doing these things. They will
probably have to do them in their spare time, which I know Craig does
a lot of, to prove they are worthy. But it’s going to be hard to convince
the editors that a whole lot of time and money can be thrown or should
be thrown at these things because, you know, like often they are really
worthwhile but if you can’t definitely say we are going to get 100,000
clicks for this piece and they are going to stay on this article for this
long it is really hard to justify it I think, which is sad.”
(Wright & Doyle, 2019)
Fundamentals like the data and basic mathematical skills have become main-
streamed. It has become technically required for the newsrooms. Interactiveness
and narrative visualization have occupied major space in newsrooms. Individual
passion is much required to propel the pace of journalism. Few journalists
predict that basic data skills among journalists are on the rise in certain news-
rooms. This has broken the barrier and more and more journalists are into the
space of data journalism. Further, this has enabled the journalists to focus on
the pace of journalism especially, the mode of presentation (Wright & Doyle,
2019). It has also changed the level of reaching out the audience.
7.7.3 South Africa
The past, present and future of data journalism is worth mentioning. Such
form of journalism has eliminated the “rhythimised” and “routinised” pro-
cess of news production. It has fostered and empowered the nonelite news
media outlets. Further, it has fueled the sense of collaborations in newsrooms.
A study points out that to make data journalism sustainable media education
needs to be recalibrated, resulting in the changes in theory and practice of
journalism (Munoriyarwa, 2020). Technology is ceaselessly getting updated
and is inducing changes in journalistic discourse, practice and epistemologies

(Cheruiyot & Ferrer-Conill, 2018). Sometimes finding no other ways, journal-
ists are negotiating the new practices of journalism. However, the execution of
data storytelling in the space of business reporting and writing remains nascent.
7.7.4 Canada
The base of data journalism has been solid in Canada over the years. The
Canadian government has consulted on embracing an open data policy. The
open data sites including Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa and Edmonton have
come together to chalk out open data standards. Patrick Cain points out,
“If something is uncontroversial (like dog licenses by postal code) there

are often no issues about releasing it. On the other side, we have the
sex offender database, which I’ve been trying to get access to since the
spring in 2008. Sometimes there is ineffective resistance, like the land-
lord and tenant appeal board that tried to get me to sign a non-dis-
closure agreement. Mostly I get things in the mail as the law demands
… Everybody (including me) likes the rage-against-the-machine stories,
but in the majority of cases the system works more or less as intended.”
(Rogers, 2010)
7.7.5 Bangladesh
With the advent of data journalism, traditional journalism has been changed in
Bangladesh. It has altered the process of linear storytelling and made the new
stories more interactive and engaging with the audience. Suffice to say, the data
processing tools are being paid more attention than before across the news-
rooms. The essence of data journalism lies in datafication (Arsenault, 2017).
The capacity and power to record and store information is one of the funda-
mental distinctions between societies based on technology and societies with-
out technology. The use of data journalism is reeling under a premature state.
Again, computational skills of the journalists are yet to be adequately tapped.
These are rarely employed in the newsrooms. Few investigative news reports are
based on the applications of data journalism. Studies have found that the beats
of business and economic have used the data for news storytelling. Accessibility
and application of open and public data are posing a potential problem in mak-
ing data journalism more meaningful and acceptable in the public.
The low level of digital literacy and the sense of distrust among govern-
ment officials are other disturbing factors for number-based journalism. The
journalists distrust the government officials and vice versa. The journalists
in traditional newsrooms have not taken data journalism seriously and the
reasons behind this could be attributed to several factors. One of the strik-
ing reasons could be the lack of digital literacy among journalists. Even
though sometimes data are available, but journalists are not able to analyze
and comprehend them for the understanding of the public. The situation is
arising because of lack of adequate skills on the part of journalists. There is

a lack of time and training which is creating problems for data journalism to
develop in an effective manner.
7.7.6 Nigeria
Data journalism emerged in the 1960s in Nigeria. However, journalists are

even now finding it hard to implement data storytelling. The intersection of
journalism and numbers is in the state of infancy in several respects. Motilola
Akinfemisoye-Adejare (2019) in one study finds that the space of data jour-
nalism is well-placed in mainstream media in Nigeria. When the period of
“data deluge” emerged in the election time in the year 2019, data journalism
came to the rescue. In fact, it has done pretty well in political reporting in
the form of news storytelling. It has proved its credibility which potentially
countered the presence of fake news. Moreover, data journalism has claimed
that it is much more beyond just numerical, statistics and infographics.
Keeping the low of pace of data storytelling in Nigeria, some of the news
enterprises like Dataphyte are at the forefront to make a difference. However,
one media enterprise, Dataphyte, is gearing up to make a difference. It
attempts to bring statistical stories for the audience and place numerous
engaging conversations with the audience on varied subjects. The enterprise
is also keen to make the data available for the journalists (Adebajo, 2020). It
is not only helping the newsmakers but also the policy framers pertaining to
planning and development. As a result, it is seen that few collaborative works
have emerged and data journalism is being shaped.
7.7.7 India
India is the largest democratic country in the world and the media is the
fourth pillar of democracy. In India, data journalism is catching up. Large
media organizations are investing in data journalism (Muzaffar, 2015).
Newsrooms in India are not fully equipped to tap the power of such kind of
journalism. Mainstream media houses are experimenting with data stories
for better storytelling for the audience. Moreover, there is a dearth of skilled
journalists who can potentially use the tools of data journalism. Compared
to the mainstream media, the alternative media platforms like IndiaSpend,
The Quint, The Wire and ThePrint are much ahead in experimenting and
executing data journalism. Since alternative platforms intend to do news
stories with a difference, they are resorting to this form of data stories. Of
course, the mainstream media like The Hindu and The Indian Express have
been publishing certain amount of data stories from time to time. The impact
of stories is slowly becoming apparent among the news consumers. Even
though data journalism is impactful in terms of news stories in an effec-
tive manner to the audience, the priority for such kind of journalism in the
space of mainstream Indian journalism is underestimated. Data literacy in
the newsroom in India remains a potential problem. However, data journal-

ism is often used among independent journalists, think tanks and academics.
7.8 Skills Required to Become a Data Journalist

To be a capable data journalist, certain skills are required. Since data journal-
ism is complex, journalists are required to be skilled in collecting, analyzing
and interpreting the results which are further essential for telling data stories
to the audience. Working with the data in a collaborative manner enables the
journalists to understand and apply the data effectively in the newsrooms.
Complexity of data-driven stories and the inadequacy of journalistic practice
training remain potential hurdles before data journalists. It is seen that there
are rampant frustrations that come and block the roads of practicing data
news stories. However, the power of data news stories has encouraged jour-
nalists to take this innovative form of storytelling. This has encouraged the
journalists to overcome the issue.
The basic skills that a data journalist should possess are to access, clean
and analyze the data to reach journalistic interpretations and conclusions.
However, it happens only when a journalist knows the basics of data news
storytelling. Without the knowledge of the numerical facts and techniques,
it is easy to make mistakes. This should not discourage the journalists. A
data journalist should be aware of certain tools and datasets. For the extrac-
tion of the data, a journalist should know Tabula which is instrumental
in extracting the data from PDFs. It can be accessed from https://tabula.
technology/. Similarly, the data extraction can be done through Document
Cloud which can be accessed from https://www.documentcloud.org/. Later
comes the stage of data cleaning and analysis. Data cleaning and analysis
are important stages in data journalism. Knowledge of Google Spreadsheets
and Open Refine is a great asset for the data journalist. Google Spreadsheets
can be accessed from docs.google.com/spreadsheets and Open Refine can be
accessed from http://openrefine.org/.
Data visualization, a process of data journalism grabs the eyeballs of
the readers. It can be managed by Datawrapper, Infogram and Flourish.
Datawrapper can be accessed from https://www.datawrapper.de/. Infogram
can be accessed from https://infogram.com/. Flourish can be accessed from
https://flourish.studio/. Other online programs have been beneficial for data
journalism. These are – Tableau Public, FlowingData, The R Graph Gallery
and Geojournalism – which have been enhancing the quality of data journal-
ism in terms of data visualizations. Tableau Public enables data visualization
free of cost. It is beneficial for featuring blogs, videos and other relevant
resources. Apart from enhancing the quality of visualization, FlowingData
has the facility of tutorials and courses for its members. The R Graph
Gallery accommodates visualizations in which R packages are highlighted.
Geojournalism enables data journalists in the field of environment to opti-
mally use geographic data through tutorials.
Data journalism frameworks have its own significance in the space of

data journalism. Workbench, a platform which can be accessed from http://
workbenchdata.com/. The platform does not require coding. It is beneficial
for the journalists who are not well-versed in coding. R - Tidyverse suite
can be accessed from https://www.tidyverse.org/and Python – Pandas can be
accessed from https://pandas.pydata.org/. However, R - Tidyverse suite and
Python – Pandas for the programs which can potentially analyze the open
data sources which further can be used for telling data stories to the audience.
There are other useful programs which have been proved staples of data
journalists. The programs like Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, RStudio, The
Jupyter Notebook, QGIS and OpenRefine have created a significant space in
mobilizing data journalism in newsrooms across the globe. A data journalist
must be equipped with certain skill sets. He/she should have the ability to set
the goals as per the goals of the newsroom to which he/she belongs to. He/
she should be committed to overcoming any sort of barriers in the newsroom
in order to employ data for telling stories.
A data journalist should aptly set his/her goal. The venture of data
journalism can turn into success if there is adequate support from the top
management in the media organizations. There should be constant commu-
nication within the newsroom on the data, source of data, mode of analysis
and the style of conclusion and interpretation. Building and enhancing skills
are required for all the abovementioned phases. The multidisciplinary team
is the newer demand and requirement that data journalism requires. The
team should start with learning small skills like Excel and the fundamentals
of statistics. Later, they can move to higher level of calculations required for
understanding and interpreting the complex data sets for data storytelling.
Moreover, multidisciplinary teams and hybrid profiles are of utmost required
for creating powerful data stories. Research reveals that especially, hybrid
profiles have assisted and expanded the journalists’ knowledge and power
(de-Lima-Santos, 2022). It has led to strengthening the professional culture
and creates a climate for cross-sector activities. The data skills and collabora-
tion with other journalists enable a journalist to overcome an individual jour-
nalist’s capacity and experience on certain topics. To make this happen, there
should be enthusiasm from the bottom in the newsroom. In this context, the
statement of Lucy Kueng can be cited. Kueng (2017, p. 36) states, “Leaders
can’t shift a culture alone”. Leaders can influence and command the show,
but the followers should attempt to adopt and emulate the instructions. Same
applies to the adoption of data news stories in newsrooms
Data compilation, data cleaning, data understanding, data validation, data
visualization and article writing or telling data stories are the essential parts
of data stories meant for the audience. Data journalism commences with
the collection and compilation of the data. The data can be collected from
open sources or observation. Advanced searching techniques enable journal-
ists to search for the required data out of a pool of data. Sometimes the data
are converted from one format to another format to meet the requirements.
DocumentCloud facilitates journalists to search, analyze, annotate and pub-

lish the primary source documents employed in reporting. Data cleaning, the
next stage in data journalism is the process in which the data are corrected if
there are mistakes. Mistakes or inaccuracies are to be polished. In this pro-
cess, a data journalist removes the error portion of the data and coverts the
data into a required format. In the stage of data understanding, a journalist
should be data literate. The stage of data visualization demands a journalist
to graphically represent the data to gain visibility and grab the eyeballs of the
audience. The last stage is data storytelling in various platforms of communi-
cation. In all the stages, a journalist should possess the ICT skills. It is found
that the required skills are dynamic in nature.
Adapting and emulating the rightful changes in the space of information
environment is required. Computerized newsrooms and the space for compu-
tational journalism with a sense of creativity are also essential to develop and
make journalism more engaging, critical and analytical. Motivating the team
members matters a lot. However, finally telling a data story in an effective
manner remains the bottom-line for a data journalist. It enhances the cred-
ibility of a news media organization.
In this context, Sarah Slobin from Reuters underlines,
“We can paint pictures of our entire lives with our digital trails. From
what we consume and browse, to where and when we travel, to our
musical preferences, our first loves, our children’s milestones, even
our last wishes – it all can be tracked, digitized, stored in the cloud
and disseminated. This universe of data can be surfaced to tell sto-
ries, answer questions and impart an understanding of life in ways that
currently surpass even the most rigorous and careful reconstruction of
anecdotes.”
(O’Reilly Media, 2020)
7.9 Aspects of Data Journalism

Broadly there are four aspects of data journalism – computer-assisted report-
ing, infographics, data visualization and interactive visualization – which
have been influencing and shaping up the journalistic practice. It is quite per-
tinent to discuss how these levels have fueled the essence of data journalism.
7.9.1 Computer-Assisted Reporting
Computer-assisted reporting (CAR) refers to utilizing computers to compile,

analyze and write the data stories for the audience. The computer-assisted
text analysis or reporting is all about text analysis, which is understood “a
research technique for making replicable and valid inferences from text to
their context” (Popping, 2000, p. 7). To some, the CAR is also known as
precision or analytic journalism, which indicates exploiting the methods or
systems of social science and other disciplines by the reporters. The working
culture has undergone multiple transformations.
CAR was first employed in the year 1952 by CBS to foresee the presiden-
tial election results in the US. “Offshore Leaks” is an instance when CAR
was used by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ)
to unravel certain secret facts about offshore companies and political people
in connection with evading taxes. Another instance “The Migrants Files in
which CAR was used by a team of data journalists reported a data story on
the migrants” deaths at European Union’s borders. The data story was exclu-
sive in nature in which the perils of different migration routes were analyzed
and reported (Lictherman, 2014). Liliana Bounegru who was formerly asso-
ciated with the European Journalism Centre states,
“At the moment the nascent community of people who call them-
selves data journalists is largely distinct from the more mature CAR
community. Hopefully in the future, we will see stronger ties between
these two communities, in much the same way that we see new NGOs
and citizen media organizations like ProPublica and the Bureau of
Investigative Journalism work hand in hand with traditional news
media on investigations. While the data journalism community might
have more innovative ways to deliver data and present stories, the
deeply analytical and critical approach of the CAR community is
something that data journalism could certainly learn from (O’Reilly
Media, 2020).”
7.9.2 Infographics
Infographics, another aspect of data journalism, is all about telling news sto-
ries by using information and graphics. Hans Rosling’s data story on world
poverty with Gapminder has grabbed the eyeballs of millions of audiences
(O’Reilly Media, 2020). In recent years, this tool is mobilizing data journal-
ism. Isotypes, a form of infographics, enables to disseminate information
at a quicker pace and with ease. For example, visual journalism remains an
important part in the space of data journalism in the BBC (Leimdorfer, n.d.).
Nowadays, visual journalism is grabbing the maximum eyeballs of audience,
especially in the digital platforms.
7.9.3 Data Visualization
Data visualization is an area which attracts the interdisciplinary fields. With

the help of data visualization, graphical representation of the data can be
accomplished. Rooted in descriptive statistics, this tool of data journalism
attempts to map and visualize data stories for the audience. Data visualiza-
tion enjoys the domain of both Art and Science (Gershon & Page, 2001).
Essentially, it is a matter of creativity and logical in presentation.
7.9.4 Interactive Visualization
Interactive visualization is understood as part of graphic visualization in com-

puter science in which humans tend to interact with computers to make the
graphics interactive. Media outlets for news can interact with their audiences
through augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) platforms. Viewers
can interact with a real-world environment more easily thanks to augmented
reality. A combination of the real and virtual worlds, in-the-moment inter-
action and precise 3D registration of real and virtual objects are the three
fundamental characteristics that tend to define AR. VR refers to simulated
experience which could be similar to or absolutely dissimilar from the real
world. With the advent of such platforms, the acceptance of data journalism
is on the rise and shaping up the future of journalism . These tools have rede-
fined the nature and impact of journalism.
7.10 Pedagogical Deliberations and Data Journalism

Lars Rinsdorf and Raoul Boers (2016) opine that technological and digital
revolutions bring disruptions in the journalistic practice. Data journalism,
one form of disruption in journalism practice, is also being manifested in the
education of journalism. To make such education and pedagogy effective, the
dynamics and complexity of multidisciplinary cooperation are highly sought.
Collaborative and transparent networks are the need of the hour.
A study conducted in Canada reveals that with the emergence and pro-
liferation of data journalism, this practice-based training is getting trans-
lated into pedagogical innovations in journalism schools. The learning and
training opportunities have enabled aspiring journalists to surmount the
resistance to undergo and accept new form of journalism pedagogy (Leask,
2017). The collective and collaborative manner of learning has facilitated
data journalism to undergo transformations. Studies find that there are epis-
temological shifts in the light of pedagogy and practice pertaining to data
news stories. However, there is a severe scarcity of research pertaining to
data acquisition techniques in the context of journalism education (Leask,
2017). Moreover, empirical studies in this direction are the need of the
hour.
Certain journalists use data journalism as part of their routine work in
the newsrooms. Teaching data journalism is also found comparatively slow.
Similarly, Allen Munoriyarwa (2020) finds that many areas of journalism are
yet to be part of journalism practice and training. Paul Bradshaw (2018, p.
10) states,
“Conceptual frameworks, such as computational thinking and com-

munities of practice, can be useful in this regard, while course and
assessment design which is flexible enough to accommodate different
editorial challenges can ensure that students are given the freedom to
develop different technical skills that fit relevant editorial demands,

rather than the other way around.”
Now with the inclusion of metaverse in the world of technological inno-

vations, data journalism might be influenced and so also the pedagogical
approaches to data journalism. Metaverse is equipped to meet media in the
minds of media consumers. With the passage of time, journalism is slowly
moving and shifting toward subscription model. All these aspects are worth-
discussing and to be duly part of pedagogical deliberations.
7.11 Data Journalism: Deliberations on Growing Perspectives

With the emergence and execution of data journalism, journalism as an art
and profession has undergone abundant transformations. It has enriched the
spirit of journalism and journalism has been explored and reexplored in the
light of skills, transparency, requirement of audience, platform of commu-
nication and news values. However at the same time, it has raised umpteen
amounts of deliberations which are warranted at this point in time.
The data revolutions are happening due to the emergence and execution of
technologies. The United Nations (UN) has pitched the data for Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) which are inclusive in nature. However, the risk
of digital divide and inequality are simultaneously growing rapidly. The
data revolution is slow-paced in least-developed countries (United Nations,
n.d.). Fostering innovations to eliminate the gaps in terms of data, mobiliz-
ing resources of all sorts to mitigate the disparities between developed and
developing countries and promoting leadership that will eventually make the
data revolution possible for the actualization of sustainable development.
Sustainable development is a remarkable recommendation for nations world-
wide. The UN Global Pulse from the UN is an initiative on data science
which aims to safely unlock the value of data for the cause of development
of human society. The initiatives like Data Revolution Group, Data Privacy
Advisory Group and Data for Climate Action challenge are noteworthy in a
view to make the data sources sustainable for nations worldwide.
There is a marked difference in the practice of data journalism. The world
of journalism is getting constantly influenced by technological upgradations.
With the latest inclusion of metaverse, the world of media is reading to wit-
ness newer audience experience and data journalism will be no exception to
it. However, the dichotomies in terms of using the tools of data journalism
are all pervasive and are getting wider between the developed and developing
nations. When the whole world is thinking of wiping out the digital divide,
the absence of certain technological tools in newsrooms in certain countries
has created the syndrome of information disparity.
Since the access to the data and information are human rights, the use
of journalism tools for mining, analyzing and interpreting the data remains
imperative. However, the use of data for development and humanitarian
efforts is still a crucial issue that hasn’t been brought up for persistent discus-
sions. Data journalism is influenced by big data, the data revolution and the
data for sustainable development. As a result, this has thrown myriad ques-
tions on journalistic cultures and markets for further systematic investiga-
tions. In reality, cultural changes are harder for execution than technologies.
Asim Tewary who was earlier associated with Verizon and was dealing the
data science opines,
“Data only creates value when you’re able to get it from all the dif-
ference sources … to have a common platform, common data science
team to drive revenue across the businesses. It is not your data or my
data; it is the firm’s data, and the value you create for the business is
from that data. It is a transformation. It’s changing the people culture
aspect, so there’s a lot of education. You know, you have to be an evan-
gelist. You wear multiple hats to show people the value.”
(O'Brien, 2018)
Creating a change or shift in the use of big data remains a cultural challenge.
It needs time and demands patience for bringing transformations in the entire
scene. So, much effort in the direction of social and cultural training has to be
imparted to witness the change and development. For bringing development,
positive changes are inevitable. The issues of using data journalism in non-
Western countries have become quite apparent. Precise culture orientation in
telling data stories has to be maintained (Mutsvairo, 2019). The newsrooms
need to promote data literacy and the required amount of innovations. To
foster the spirit of data literacy, interventions from government, private and
civil society are warranted. Data literacy remains a key factor for any sort of
technological improvements.
Research is an essential part of data journalism. To mine relevant and
accurate data, research skills are of utmost importance. Mutsvairo (2019a,
p. 8) underlines, “without the development of a body of research about how
data journalism is being practiced and/or hindered in non-Western contexts,
there is a risk that it will contribute to a widening of the cultural divide”. It
is observed that researchers are being employed to assist the data journalists
in progressive media outlets. On the contrary, usually such kind of resources
is not available in newsrooms in developing nations. Financial constraints
are the major factors behind the scene. Therefore, this needs to be bridged in
order to tap the power of data journalism to the fullest.
Certain skills are warranted to make data journalism a success. Journalists
working in the newsrooms should possess the skills to curate, filter, analyze
and synthesize the data for storytelling for the audience. Data stories have
wider reach and implications which can strengthen the news stories more
accepted among the audience. However, it is observed that several journalists
are not equipped with minimum skills required for such kind of computa-
tional journalism. In some newsrooms in developing nations, journalists are
being slowly exposed to the area of data journalism. They are being slug-
gishly trained. Moreover, a pedagogical approach is quite pertinent to such
issues. There should be a holistic approach to pedagogy and practice of com-
putational journalism. Journalism and media contents attempt to pay respect
to local ethos, cultural patterns and cultural developments of the audience in
terms storytelling. These are also part and partial of media laws and ethics.
However, data journalism cannot rule out the abovementioned particulars as
the data stories are made out of technological tools. Data journalism should
critically consider the local ethos, cultural patterns and cultural developments.
It is quite understood that financial constraints are also there before digital
activism and data journalism in non-Western nations. Media organizations
in non-Western nations are unable to purchase or subscribe to the required
amount of tools for newsrooms for the well-execution of data journalism
which can change the narrative of news storytelling to the audience. This
inconvenience needs to be discussed and some kind of solutions need to be
chalked out so that data journalism can emerge and perform to the fullest.
Funding from the government or private entities or partnership from private
and public can be beneficial to start this kind of computational journalism.
Data journalism has the power and potential to bring transparency and it
can hammer and wipe out the level of corruption in developing countries. It
could add inputs for good governance and transparency. It is found that data
journalists are equipped with transnational networks in developed coun-
tries. However, these are the least possible and the scopes are scarce among
journalists in developing countries. These dimensions need to be thoroughly
understood and debated for amicable solutions.
Porlezza and Splendore (2019) find that data journalism is getting popular
in Italy. Palomo, Teruel, and Blanco-Castilla (2019) reveal that data jour-
nalism is quite accommodative in Latin America. The audience participa-
tion is getting buzzed and wider in the places like Colombia. They are able
to expose the stories which are causing human rights violations. However,
there is a tough time for the reporters and editors in the Arab region. There
are ample restrictions to access the relevant data. The scope of such kind of
journalism is limited and hence is hard to thrive. Palomo et al. (2019) con-
firm that the culture of data journalism and investigative reporting is missing
in Latin America. Thailand is not a nation which endorses the idea of data
journalism. The reasons could be the practice of old schools of journalism or
lack of innovations in the newsrooms (Thienthaworn, 2018).
There is a scarcity of studies on various dimensions pertaining to data
journalism. The study on the nature and approach to storytelling through
numerical stories is also missing. There is no literature which discusses the
pedagogy and practice of data news stories in liberal, democratic and corpo-
rate media system. However, it is often found that the newsrooms in liberal
and democratic media system are not keen or equipped with the skill sets
to execute computational journalism. On the other hand, corporate media
houses are spearheading in disseminating such type of data stories to the
audience. Corporate media platforms tend to use data tools for business
and commercial activities. However, newsrooms in developing countries are
keen to employ the data tools for overall development. The use of data
for news stories could be development communication in nature. Similarly,
there has been no discourse on gender dimension pertaining to the use of
computational journalism. Comparative studies, keeping various countries,
can be carried out. Since gender dimension is an important factor, this felt
need should be fulfilled by bridging the research gap. The study on the use
of data tools in regional and national media can be studied through explora-
tory research. There is no scientific study that highlights which data tools
are used more on which kind of news stories across the globe. Moreover,
the use of data tools for the purpose of sustainable development is grossly
missing.
The United Nations attempts to use big data for sustainable development
in the world. It underlines,
“Fostering and promoting innovation to fill data gaps; mobilising

resources to overcome inequalities between developed and developing
countries and between data-poor and data-rich people; Leadership and
coordination to enable the data revolution to play its full role in the
realisation of sustainable development.”
(United Nations, n.d.)
The data revolution with the help from data journalism can realize and fetch
peace, dignity and equality to human society. By taking such efforts, sustain-
able development goals (SDGs) can be achieved and maintained. In this con-
text, Tim Berners-Lee, founder of the World Wide Web, quotes,
“Data-driven journalism is the future. Journalists need to be data-

savvy. It used to be that you would get stories by chatting to people in
bars, and it still might be that you’ll do it that way sometimes. But now
it’s also going to be about poring over data and equipping yourself with
the tools to analyze it and pick out what’s interesting. And keeping it in
perspective, helping people out by really seeing where it all fits together,
and what’s going on in the country.”
(O’Reilly Media, 2020)
7.12 An Intersection of Data with Artificial Intelligence

It is worth mentioning that the field of journalism has been undergoing con-
tinuous changes. Big data and analytics are influencing journalism to a great
extent. Suffice to say, data journalism has created a niche in the field of jour-
nalism. Computer-assisted reporting, infographics, data visualization and
interactive visualization which are part and partial of data journalism and it
is being influenced by artificial intelligence techniques.
The use of AI in newsrooms has the ambivalence of both advantages and

disadvantages. Data journalism is becoming the fastest-growing field of jour-
nalism across the globe. AI is mobilizing data journalism at a faster rate by
analyzing and synthesizing the data into news stories. It also attempts to gen-
erate the required amount of imageries and videos. Since many media organi-
zations face the crunch of resource and financial instability, it can employ
computational tools for data stories which are fact-based news stories. AI
tools have their own advantages. However, to use AI tools in the newsrooms
need basic resources and minimum financial assistance. These need to be
dealt with at the beginning before tapping the power of AI to tell AI-enabled
data stories.
The data enable the reporters to find out and file news stories easily. From
a given data set, a number of analyses and interpretations can be made to
tell data stories to the audience. Moreover, with the tools emerging from
AI, data journalists can explore numerous perspectives from the data and
file data stories for the audience. Discovering things at a faster pace from
the numerical is becoming possible. Data journalism facilitates in throwing
the light on murky issues. And it is getting better with the inputs from AI.
The data provide the details and distance on a given issue or event. The data
speak louder than the rhetoric or conversation without numerical. The data
stories backed by numbers, analysis, synthesis and presentation are found
to be better appealing to the audience. With the support from AI tools, data
journalism can be overwhelming for the audience. There is no doubt that
news consumption of data stories is unique in taste and feedback from the
perspectives of audience.
We live in a world that is made up of data and content. We can create
a large number of AI chatbots with just a few keyboard clicks. Thanks to
the availability ChatGPT language model which provides potential platforms
to transform our interaction with machines. ChatGPT has the potential to
produce interactive infographics which remain as part of data journalism.
In data journalism, infographics play a significant role. There are various
ways that ChatGPT can be used to make interactive infographics. ChatGPT
can create text and dialogue for interactive infographic elements. Journalists
can ask ChatGPT questions about particular landmarks or historical events
in an infographic about the history of a particular city, for instance, and
get a human-like response. By providing them human-like responses to their
inquiries, it can give the journalists a personalized and engaging experience.
A variety of AI tools, including a fact check explorer, data visualizer and
real-time content insights, are included in Google’s Journalist Studio. This
AI tool enables journalists to work more effectively and safely (Influencer
Marketing Hub, 2023). AI tool, CrowdTangle allows journalists to track
reader engagement with the data, including which social media users have
shared a given URL hyperlink or keyword on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit
and Instagram. The tool can provide a real-time view of social media trends
(Sengul-Jones, 2021).
The assortment of analytical tools is heavily used in computational jour-

nalism which is very much part of computational journalism. However, the
data and computation used for discovering, writing and disseminating the
data stories, keep on changing from time to time. It is found that journalists
pick the unstructured data, convert them into structured data and present the
data into a news story for the audience. It often happens in political events
and political storytelling computational journalism is being leveraged. AI has
become a catalyst in mobilizing political storytelling covering the election,
voting patterns and predictive assessments.
The International Consortium of International Journalists probed
into Paradise Papers by employing data news stories (The International
Consortium of Investigative Journalists, 2020). Sometimes data journalism
enables to find out and assess the impact of politics on public policy (Eliazàt,
2020a). The CAR is intensifying data storytelling as several data sources are
open. In one way, the open data sources tend to democratize storytelling
which ultimately engages the audience to tell their stories. Reuters started
using AI in algorithm-based news production and distribution. Reuters News
Tracer has enabled and empowered journalists to find out and authenticate
real news in real time on Twitter. With aids from the Reuters News Tracer,
the journalists went ahead and broke stories at a faster pace compared to
any other sources. The algorithm most importantly scanned the social media
networks including Twitter to draw stories which are newsworthy events and
deliberations in varied areas and domains. Later, it picked up the keywords
and points which were essential for algorithmic journalism. Data science and
AI companies are fast marching and are foraying into the space of journal-
ism. Organizations like Automated Insights, Narrative Science are able to
provide algorithms to news outlets.
AJ Labs, the data and interactive journalism unit of Al Jazeera originated
in the year 2011 (Newman, 2011, 2018). The New York Times has intro-
duced semantic discovery, comment monitoring in the year 2015 under its
project “Editor” (Underwood, 2019). Tagging and annotation are becoming
possible at the news article level. The project highlights how to expand the
writing and publishing processes to create what is already written and to
create the layers of structured news information. As a result, it can be show-
cased in varied formats of one new article. Journalist Studio from Google, is
a cutting-edge technological platform that facilitates journalists to explore,
analyze and write data stories. The BBC has been using Juicer, driven by arti-
ficial intelligence and helping to tag news stories. Similarly, the Associated
Press has been optimally using AI tools for telling the data stories (Saxena,
2020). The BBC Visual and Data Journalism team has been employing R’s
ggplot2 package for digital storytelling. For optimal data exploration, R’s
data visualization package ggplot2 remains an essential tool. It also provides
ample scopes for creativity with plenty of choices of graphics. The media out-
let is able to create production-ready charts; document and record processes;
and code and share the stories among the audience. This game changer has
taken the state of data journalism to the next level. R cookbook and aggplot
reference manual have been found to be instrumental in collecting, analyz-
ing and disseminating data stories. Bbplot is a tool used by the BBC (Eliazàt,
2020b) to manage the recurring problems. It simplifies the work flows in
news industry.
The cookbook is a guidebook in which the collected knowledge of ggplot2
can be assembled. A reference manual may not help the team how to man-
age its first chart in R. However, it is instrumental in assembling the tips and
tricks. The cookbook is used in several progressive newsrooms across the
globe. It enables the newsrooms to induce a reproducible workflow, result-
ing in the creation of numerous charts in varied forms. To some scholars,
robot journalism can be considered a platform in the space of data journal-
ism (Galily, 2018).
In this context, Lindén (2017, p. 24) claims, “Digital revolution has
expanded the supply and availability of data that can be used for computa-
tional journalistic processes, along with the expectation of events to a larger
extent than before”. Diffbot’s AI knowledge repository is empowering jour-
nalists to check and bust the fake news. Diffbot has come forward to col-
laborate with the European Journalism Centre to bust and combat fake news
(Brown, 2019). Needless to say, the issue of fake news and misinformation
is creating havoc worldwide and needs to be amicably fixed. Misinformation
in the space of journalism can be controlled by technological interventions.
Adam Thomas, Director of the European Journalism Centre points out,
“We firmly believe that the use of data in journalism is a cornerstone

of building resilience in any newsroom, but access to clean, search-
able data is often prohibitively expensive for many journalists and
news organizations. Partnering with Diffbot gives our members free
access to more data than we’ve ever seen, and this is data being curated
through AI without human bias, which makes it even more valuable
for journalists.”
(Brown, 2019)
One interesting thing that data journalists are doing is that they are able to
engage the audiences with crowd-sourced projects which are generally col-
laborative in nature. With the use of numerical data stories along with the
employment of technologies and programming, professionalism is getting
enriched in newsrooms. Specialized correspondents are being developed and
executed for special reports. Special stories are being told to the audience with
assistance from rigorous scientific methods. Special stories occupy a signifi-
cant place in any media outlets as compared to stories created from regular
happenings, notifications and announcements from government or compa-
nies and press conferences. New media organizations are keen on making
and telling exclusive specialized news stories to the audience. Exclusive news
stories both matter to news media outlets and the audience.
Data journalism used in newsrooms suffers from various shortcomings. AI

is being used in certain newsrooms to mine the data for metric-driven jour-
nalism, algorithmic journalism, data journalism and automated journalism.
However, it has raised numerous doubts and concerns among journalists
in the newsrooms across the globe. To some scholars, we are undergoing a
transitional phase and the use of AI is getting tested and the final outcomes
are yet to come in a concrete manner. We can take the decision later. We are
not in the opinion that which portion of AI is to be used the most or least
or what has to be used at what point of time. The decision will be collective,
collaborative and time bound. Of course, the media world has been experi-
menting various AI tools.
Few newsrooms in media outlets like The Guardian, BBC, Financial
Times and The Times are employing and spearheading cutting-edge data
journalism. They are able to value the importance of computational journal-
ism (Borges-Rey, 2016). There is little doubt left that computational journal-
ism is bringing exclusive data stories. However, newsrooms in developing
countries are not able to tap the power of data journalism because of var-
ied constraints. The technological divide is quite apparent in national and
regional media outlets in developing countries. Of course, curiosity is there,
chaos is also there, charisma is there and confusion is also there. All these
are prevailing in the newsrooms and have pushed the discussion on AI to the
next level which ought to be tested in the light of pragmatism and viability.
When we talk of pragmatism and viability; finance, resource, location and
cultural aspects automatically come to the fore.
To use AI in data journalism not only requires funds, but also demands
plenty of time to understand the system and execute the technologies to do
wonders for data storytelling. Sometimes, the nose for news in the newsrooms
is taking a backseat in the newsroom. There is fear that the human interven-
tions to choose and place the news for the audience will gradually diminish.
However, at any time man is more powerful than a machine. Machine can-
not blindly replace men. This kind of disruptive features seems to be appar-
ent where journalists are becoming sensitive to the data in telling data-based
news stories to their audience.
Sometimes, data journalists are skeptical about the output of statistics
being utilized for telling data stories to the audience even though the output
is based on scientific evidences, logical rigor and process. Sometimes the data
derived from social networks like Facebook cannot be fully relied upon and
hence, any such data stories could be erroneous and mislead the audience.
Data stories through AI algorithms may recreate the existing trust deficit and
biasness. If the existing sources suffer from biasness and later if these sources
are taken and executed through AI algorithms, this will just replicate the
biasness and distrust in the process of storytelling. Biasness will be multiplied
in the system. As a result, news values and journalistic ethics will go haywire.
It will just accumulate the misinformation and disseminate the same to the
audience. It will create a void in the journalistic practice and profession. This
has to be duly taken care of, keeping the journalistic practice and the belief of
citizens on journalism as well. News media organizations and the journalists’
fraternity have a greater role to play in the eco-system of production, distri-
bution and consumption of news. News media eco-system needs to be pro-
active and sensitive to the algorithm concerns to amicably avoid the issues.
With the tools of AI, it cannot correct the inaccurate data used for data
stories. For this, human inventions are required. Therefore, human journal-
istic skills are required. For the well functioning of a newsroom along with
machine and scientific tools, human interventions are required. 5 Ws & 1 H
of news report writing are yet to be fully accurate and logical by using AI
tools. Suffice to say, this format of news writing and journalistic format has
proven advantages in grabbing the eyeballs of audience. At the same time,
newsrooms across the globe are getting ready to take the maximum advan-
tage of AI for data stories which enjoy the sense of facts and scientific tempo.
With the immense rise of data stories, the role of data brokers is unneces-
sarily increasing significantly. They tend to quantify the world even though
in certain cases there are no requirements. The surveillance and studying of
people and data, biometrics, automation of data, data creeping or profiling
consumer attitude and behavior are posing potential threats to news report-
ing. By doing so, it may bring ethical issues to the fore. Consequently, it may
result in trust deficit between the news media and news consumers in the time
to come. It needs to be harmoniously dealt with to correct the flaws in the
process of implementing technological tools. Technological innovations need
to be thoughtfully trialed and executed.
Growing and sustaining data capabilities side by side despite financial and
staff constraints remains a challenge to media organizations. Needless to say,
AI tools are prohibitively expensive. Again thinking, executing and sustain-
ing AI-driven data journalism has become a critical area for top executives
who administratively or financially run their media organizations. Moreover,
it is an ongoing process and the decision or solution needs to be tailor-made.
Therefore, policies executed and adopted in one media organization cannot
be emulated or replicated without understanding the background and future
possibilities for a news outlet. Usually, an appropriate technology can do
wonders in various fields including news media organizations.
Technology leapfrogging remains an effective way that enables developing
countries to attain the advanced forms of ICT development (Tan & Jiang,
2018). The process facilitates the developing nations to catch up the economic
growth at a quicker pace by skipping the intermediary stages for develop-
ment. It brings social-cultural and economic development of a society along
with the adoption of technological advancements. However, the barriers like
knowledge gap, technological barriers and financial constraints are always
there to stop the process of technology leapfrogging. In the context of using
AI tools in data journalism, unfortunately similar things are happening. Some
of the newsrooms had not been equipped with tools of data journalism. They
had been using the traditional method of news storytelling. There were no
computational ways of data storytelling. However, with the spurt in AI tools,

those newsrooms have started using AI tools for data journalism. The news-
rooms have been transformed by skipping the intermediary stages of innova-
tions and applications. Of course, the newsrooms are facing certain issues
pertaining to knowledge gap, technological barriers and financial constraints.
Many a time, there are differences between the reporters and editors on
data stories being told to the audience. Usually, the differences emerge in the
newsrooms as the credibility of source and varying interpretations arise from
a data set. Again, with the arrival of AI tools, skepticism has stepped into
the newsrooms and the gaps between reporters and editors are getting more
apparent. Sometimes, the reporters favor AI tools and they pitch the stories
based on technologies. However, the editor who takes the decision may not
like the idea and subsequently disapprove the story idea. In certain cases, the
editor suggests or directs the team of reporters to use AI tools for computa-
tional stories. However, the reporters find it not feasible all the time to file
and tell the data stories to the audience. It is often observed that news stories
are sensitive which decides whether to use AI tools or not. This nature of
deliberation is also adding woes to the healthy skepticism in the newsrooms.
To sum up, the use of AI tools for data journalism has become inevitable.
Since the world is changing at a faster pace, the need for communication revo-
lutions is much warranted. Communication in general, journalism in particu-
lar is a niche professional area where inventions, adoption and applications of
newer technologies are of utmost required. Suffice to say, data journalism is an
effective way for news storytelling in which an array of technologies is being
applied. Again, with the advent of AI tools and other newly included techno-
logical platforms like metaverse and ChatGPT, data journalism has been wit-
nessing a sea change. For data journalists, ChatGPT is a priceless tool that can
help with advanced statistical modeling, writing code and producing insightful
visualizations. A newsperson can save time, simplify difficult procedures and
improve his/her effectiveness as a data journalist by implementing ChatGPT in
cutting-edge newsrooms. However, all these AI tools are in the testing mode
which demands time, trials and patience. However, this has resulted in chang-
ing paradigm shifts in theoretical and practical approach to data journalism in
particular and journalism in general. Research and practical inputs need to be
holistically intensified so that newsrooms will find the AI tools conducive for
data journalism cutting across geographical locations worldwide.
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8 Data Journalism with Artificial
Intelligence
An Ambivalence of Good and Bad
8.1 Introduction
The mode of communication has undergone transformations from smoke
signals to digital communication. In fostering change and transformations in
the field of communication in general and journalism in particular, the role
of technological innovations has been immense (Rogers, 2019). However, it
has raised umpteen debates and concerns about how to use the appropriate
technology. How to use technology for societal development has always been
a major concern. Similarly, data journalism is a unique way of telling data
stories to the audience by using certain technological tools. However, with
the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), data journalism has been fast-paced
with multiple possibilities and options. The ecology of newsrooms in produc-
ing news contents across the globe has undergone sea changes. However, it
has invited numerous shortcomings which warrant thorough deliberations.
8.2 Functions of AI Tools in Data Journalism

There are several AI-based tools being used for data search, classification,
validation, knowledge extraction, etc. AI tools such as Diffbot are developed
and it has employed machine learning algorithms as well as computer vision
tools to classify the data. The data could be searched using web crawling,
or the data could be fed to the Diffbot. The bot then classifies it by finding
the relevance of the keywords, graphical objects and pictures. The Natural
Language Processing (NLP) tools are employed for finding the relevance as
well as extracting the facts out of the textual data generated. The facts are
backed up by the percentage confidence level using the linkages generated.
The tool also cleans unnecessary and duplicate details as well as data with
partially supportive facts by normalizing the extracted data. This helps in
avoiding the spread of rumors and fake news. Every minute detail about the
data is made available to the publishing house which then could be compiled
to present in term of factual news to the consumer. Importantly, language is
not a barrier for the Diffbot and can operate in a wide variety of languages.
Similar to Diffbot, the Juicer tool employs several machine learning meth-
ods and extracts news articles from a variegated source and then assigns
DOI: 10.4324/9781032716879-8
152 Data Journalism with Artificial Intelligence
semantic keywords or entities such as organizations, locations, people and

things (other than the first three). The software then helps the journalist
draw inferences, co-occurrences by connecting these entities and generating
a story and extract believable information. Importantly the multimodal data
in the articles such as text, videos, images, etc., can be efficiently processed.
Moreover, the NLP tools employed can extract the audio/video speeches into
text form. The AI project by The New York Times referred to as Editor has
proven to be one of the quite innovative and very helpful semantic discovery
tools for journalists. It basically tags each and every classified entity such as
organizations, locations, people, things, etc., with the available database as
well as online sources. This helps the journalists to check the facts and apply
corrective measures in real-time. This tagging and relevance confirmation by
the journalists as well as AI software helps the system learn the more relevant
and salient parts of the article. The AI-based Perspective API tool by Google
employs sentiment analysis to classify the toxic and illuminating comments
to certain articles. Such information is made available to the reader, com-
mentators and moderators to find more relevant information, give real-time
feedback, etc.
The Chatbot tool is not new anymore. It is helping the consumers to receive
the news from The Guardian via Facebook Messenger. The relevant articles
from the US, UK and Australian versions of the newspapers are searched
accordingly. An NLP-based natural language generating tool such as Quill
generates stories and news based on the raw numbered data fed to it. The
data can be in the form of tables, plots, etc., and the tool employs several
filtering capabilities to generate the relevant stories. The tool further allows
conditional formatting based on the requirements of journalists.
There are newer avenues in the field of data analytics. Thanks to the
emergence of large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT. Accessing,
understanding and analyzing complex datasets is made simple for people
without coding expertise by these effective models. Data analytics capa-
bilities are becoming more inclusive and available to a broader audience
by merely asking them to visualize, condense, interpret and then extract
insights from a dataset. For data analysts to process, explore, communicate
and work together on their data-driven insights, ChatGPT can be a useful
tool.
In a given time, ChatGPT can analyze and process massive amounts of
data in an effective manner. The program can interpret and comprehend
written queries and offer pertinent insights from the data using ChatGPT’s
language processing capabilities. ChatGPT uses a vast amount of data that
has been previously trained on a wide variety of texts in order to produce
responses. By learning patterns and associations in language, the chatbot can
predict the words that will most likely follow a given sequence of words. The
output via AI tools can deliver a comprehensive and effective method for data
analysis and representation that is highly precise and customized to a data
journalist. By helping with activities like news aggregation, data analysis,
Data Journalism with Artificial Intelligence 153
fact-checking and social media management, ChatGPT has the potential to

transform journalism.
Creating images from text is DALL-E. DALL-E is an open AI tool. Today,
this tool can copy the styles of artists who rely on their work for their liveli-
hood without giving them credit or any kind of payment. DALLE-2 is an AI
system that can produce realistic images and artwork from a description in
natural language. Concepts, traits and styles can all be combined. DALLE 2
generates several options for data journalists to choose from in a matter of
seconds. In addition to converting text into images, this tool can take an image
and produce frequent variations of it that are inspired by the original one.
8.3 What Is Good or Bad with AI

It is quite justifying to trace and assess the state of data journalism which
has become an instrument in measuring and predicting the current space
and future of AI in data journalism. Since journalism has a huge gamut of
intersectionality, understanding pertinent factors in the context occupies a
greater significance.
Tellingly, artificial intelligence remains polysemous and problematic.
News media outlets have expanded its horizon by using AI tools for multiple
purposes which have further enabled thousands of machine-written stories
to be disseminated and served to the audience on a daily basis. However, the
application of AI tools in newsrooms has its own advantages and disadvan-
tages. Logical deliberations are warranted. Pertinent perspectives need to be
discussed, considering the use of AI tools in data journalism. Some other per-
spectives endorse the very nature and utilitarian aspect of AI tools whereas
some others criticize the massive use of AI tools in data journalism.
8.3.1 Journalistic Culture, Media-created Market and Political Climate
Data journalism is taking its own course and shaping up the journalistic
culture, market and political environment. Sometimes it is influencing the
nature of journalism beyond liberal and democratic-corporatist media sys-
tems. Needless to say, journalistic culture occupies an important place in the
ecology of media. Data journalism is getting its momentum by strengthening
the objectivity to the core of journalism. In some ways, it is fostering the
sense of participation of citizens in general and professionals especially in the
field of journalistic profession. However, the journalistic practice in western
countries is different from non-Western countries. In this context, journalis-
tic values play an important role. However, with no surprise, the journalistic
values are not universal (Appelgren, Lindén, & van Dalen, 2019). Similarly,
the practice of AI in newsrooms is not universal. Therefore, bringing and
maintaining objectivity in news stories remain the core in the journalistic
profession. It also gains the trust of the audience and the credibility of news
stories gets tangible.
In this context, Fenby (1986, p. 25) argues,
“To achieve such wide acceptability, the agencies avoid overt parti-
ality. The demonstrably correct information is their stock-in-trade.
Traditionally, they report at a reduced level of responsibility, attrib-
uting their information to a spokesman, the press, or other sources.
They avoid making judgments and steer clear of doubt and ambiguity.
Though their founders did not use the word, objectivity is the philo-
sophical basis for their enterprises – or failing that, widely acceptable
neutrality.”
The need and demand for AI differs from Western countries to non-West-
ern countries. This has to be openly understood and accepted for future
course of action. Therefore, technological innovations need not be blindly
accepted and adopted. Appropriateness and relevance of technological
innovations need to be thoroughly debated before pushing them for final
execution. Similarly, the use of technologies in the field of journalism is no
exception.
The media market structures have larger connections to journalism in gen-
eral and data journalism in particular. The media market structures have
been influential on newsrooms and overall media outlets. The newsrooms
and media organizations are financially viable in accommodating the ade-
quate tools and techniques required for data journalism in countries like
the United States. There is no dearth of resources for the advancement of
technologies for technology-driven storytelling to the audiences. This makes
the storytelling interactive and a greater amount of audience participation
can be achieved (Appelgren et al., 2019). Since the ecology of media mar-
ket keeps on evolving, plenty of factors are taken into consideration for the
implementation of something new in nature in media organizations. Shridhar
Subramaniam claims,
“The advent of OTT players, both domestic and international, is pro-

viding consumers with multiple choices around content consumption.
We are seeing a shift in consumer’s attitude from content ownership to
having easy access to a vast library at any time and place.”
(Deloitte, 2015)
In the context of execution of AI in newsrooms, media market structures do

matter to a great extent. The financial viability of media outlets come first
when it comes to the use of AI tools for data journalism.
In this context, Jonathan Stoneman (2015) underlines,
“Relatively few data are updated in real time, and even fewer data-
sets cover the mainstream of story content – money, votes, and the
data which government uses in its decision making. For everything else,
journalists in the UK still tend to ask for the data they need, using the
Freedom of Information Act.”
Political atmosphere and journalism in general and data journalism in par-

ticular are interrelated. The political atmosphere does affect the use of data
journalism. The changing shifts in globalization and political institutions
keep shaping the working atmosphere of journalists (Rao, 2019). Moreover,
in a view to bring and enhance the level of transparency and access to offi-
cial information, legislation in Latin American countries has been brought
(Palomo, Teruel, & Blanco-Castilla, 2019). However, things are not that
conducive in the Middle East and Northern Africa (Lewis & Al Nashmi,
2019). In the context of using AI, it has thrown numerous implications and
perspectives. In some countries, the utilization of official data and the policies
to use open data sources are not free-low in nature. In this context, the use
of AI for data journalism has become restricted, causing several concerns for
the newsrooms.
8.3.2 Cultural Ethos, Artificial Intelligence and Hyperlocal Data Journalism
Journalistic norms and ethics tend to pay respect to the local and cultural
norms of a given society. Journalistic stories should abide by social respon-
sibility. It should value the religious sentiment of various communities in
terms of reporting. Data journalism should not be an exception to it. Since
computation journalism is based on statistical tools, its outcomes should
be verified and later disseminated to the public. Similarly, AI-driven data
stories should be verified before making it to the public. The newsrooms
should be sensitive so that any data stories won’t hurt any sociocultural and
religious sentiment. Human intervention needs to be involved in the process
of such kind of computational data stories. Hyperlocal data journalism is
taking off as regional media outlets are getting strengthened (Appelgren et
al., 2019). It can be predicted that AI-driven data journalism will emerge
and eventually will take off as per requirement and relevance. AI will render
more power to local or regional journalism along with journalism in the
English language.
There are studies which cover the aspects of local journalism. Some of
the academic investigations include understanding distance and geographical
places in local and hyperlocal news (Freeman, 2020), media accountability
(Tenor, 2018), reciprocity of journalists (Harte, Williams, & Turner, 2017),
local journalism for local communities (Napoli, Stonbely, McCollough, &
Renninger, 2017) and local news in digital news culture (Hess & Waller,
2016). However, studies on the aspects of data journalism pertaining to local
journalism are quite scarce. Again, the dimension of local journalism to data
journalism with the application of AI tools is yet to be navigated. Future
studies can be executed, keeping these dimensions in mind.
8.3.3 Credibility of Data and Data Journalism
The credibility of data used in data journalism plays a pivotal role which
ultimately influences the ethics and purpose of journalism. If the existing data
are in a bad shape, it only provides fodder to the flawed data journalism. The
case of Africa can be rightly cited here (Jerven, 2013). Poor quality of data
or substandard data can jeopardize the ethical sense and purpose of journal-
ism. It poses several pertinent questions. A report from the London School of
Economics and Political Science (2021) quotes,
“What do audiences mean when they are referring to trust in media?

Are they looking for unbiased, factually accurate information? Or do
they rather trust information that mirrors their own values, views and
life worlds?”
Going beyond, Charlie Beckett underlines, “Trust is a relationship, not a

fact” (London School of Economics and Political Science, 2021). Similarly,
when data journalism is not properly executed, the case could be the same in
case of employing artificial intelligence. Even though a newsroom may pro-
cure the necessary arrangements required for AI to execute data journalism,
it may not fulfil the very purpose of data journalism in particular or journal-
ism in general. It happens because of flawed data sets used in newsrooms
across the globe. Use of AI tools for data journalism will only multiply the
flawed data and disseminate and automate the faulty data stories in the pro-
cess of algorithm.
ChatGPT can motivate journalists when they are struggling with creativ-
ity, help them write more quickly when they are on a deadline and provide
an extra step to ensure their work is well-written and styled. However, this
AI tool should be used with human interventions from the journalists. It still
needs to have all of its facts and sources verified (International Journalists’
Network, 2023). Even though DALLE 2 functions well, it still has some draw-
backs. Creating images with coherent text is still not convincing yet. Due to
the skewed nature of data collected from the internet, DALLE 2 has innate
biases in addition to the limitations related to image generation. Usually, it
generates western features for many prompts and has gender-biased repre-
sentations of occupations (Medium, 2022).
8.3.4 Research, Skills, Time and Pedagogy
Carrying out research for the execution of data journalism is required.

Mutsvairo (2019a, p. 8) underlines, “without the development of a body of
research about how data journalism is being practiced and/or hindered in
non-Western contexts, there is a risk that it will contribute to a widening of
the cultural divide.” Interest and scientific studies are taking off in the field
of data journalism across the globe. High amount of in-depth research is of
utmost required to understand the origin, growth and further implications of
data journalism in the newsroom and on the audience (Kalatzi, Bratsas, &
Veglis, 2018). Certain amount of skills are warranted to execute computa-
tional journalism in an effective manner. The data need cleaning for further
adjustment to use them for news stories. It needs plenty of time to make it
suitable for the requirement of the journalists. Time factor cannot be ignored
for curating, analyzing and interpreting the data. To implement the tools of
data journalism, training and pedagogy need to be adequate. However, the
teaching of data education is slow. Therefore, the pedagogical interventions
are not adequate to meet the requirements meant for processing of news pro-
duction. The ecology of news production is hanging in balance.
Technological innovations bring disruptions in journalistic practice, espe-
cially in the space of data journalism. In this context, to utilize the applica-
tions of artificial intelligence in journalism, a holistic pedagogical approach
and multidisciplinary cooperation are warranted. The required amount of
research, skills, time and educational training are limited in developing coun-
tries as compared to developed countries. Similarly, these dimensions are
valid in case of employing AI tools for data journalism. Timely research,
required skills and a pragmatic pedagogical approach to AI are the need of
the hour to make data journalism success. AI tools facilitate the newsrooms
to curate, filter, analyze and synthesize the data for effective data stories
for the audience. AI has been found to be a niche journalistic practice and
gradually has emerged as a valuable asset in newsrooms in legacy news media
organizations across the globe.
8.3.5 Self-design, Collective and Collaborative Learning
Data journalism has pertinent factors to contribute to the pedagogy of learn-

ing which influences the journalistic practice. It is found that several data jour-
nalists across the world are self-taught (Young, Hermida, & Fulda, 2017).
Autodidacticism or self-education is a modern way of learning (Chapnick &
Meloy, 2005). The industrial revolution has induced the situation for self-
directed learners. Eventually, data journalists are able to curate, analyze and
interpret the data for telling stories to the audience. It is poised to position
AI-driven journalism as society’s watchdog. AI tools can be instrumental in
dealing with the data deluge as tools tend to sort it out as per requirement
for data stories. Self-design and dissemination of data stories by means of AI
tools have proved to be beneficial for the newsrooms and the audience as well.
Similarly, AI tools can be self-taught which can mobilize the newsrooms for
computational journalism which will ultimately produce better relevant and
useful data stories to the audience. Autodidacticism can be contextualized in
the light of using AI tools for computational journalism to tell data stories for
the audience. ChatGPT-4, an AI tool, has opened the options for collabora-
tive learning in educational settings. The way that journalists collaborate on
projects, tasks and group discussions could be completely changed by this
ground-breaking tool.
8.3.6 Cross-national Communalities, Artificial Intelligence and Data

Journalism
Cross-national communalities and variances in data journalism worldwide

have become apparent. International experts have started deliberating on
disparities in executing data journalism across the globe (Appelgren et al.,
2019). In this context, using AI for computational productively, keeping the
differences in mind has occupied growing debates and concerns. Since the
requirements are different from context to context and from nation to nation,
using AI tools and machine learning for data journalism is not going to fetch
the required amount of results. It has increased the cloud of skepticism, espe-
cially in developing nations. There is no doubt that the requirements and
applications are not uniform. Moreover, cross-national communalities and
variances in data journalism have been major concerns. The AI tools need
to be customized, keeping the needs and demands of newsrooms across the
globe.
8.3.7 Data Revolution for Change and Sustainable Development
International development agencies like the United Nations attempts to bring

changes and development for human society. The UN also believes that the
data are required for data stories, journalism and communication in general.
The data are required for social change communication and development.
Since the UN is keen on
“fostering and promoting innovation to fill data gaps; mobilizing

resources to overcome inequalities between developed and developing
countries and between data-poor and data-rich people; leadership and
coordination to enable the data revolution to play its full role in the
realisation of sustainable development.”
(United Nations, n.d.)
The big data combined with AI can bring significant changes and develop-
ment in human society on a global scale.
The global database including the World Bank Open Data, Global SDG
Indicators and Open SDG Data Hub are required for computational jour-
nalism along with AI for inclusive development. Inclusive development is
purposive in nature. Moreover, inclusive development is also feasible. Since
the data on developmental dimensions from the world is huge in nature, AI
tools will help to verify, compile, analyze and interpret them for data stories
for global audience. Such type of computational journalism will reach out to
the government, policy makers, voluntary organizations and civil society of
various countries to develop the marginalized sections of the society. The big
data for development and humanitarian action can be feasible. It will mobi-
lize the SDGs and will meet the global goals like achieving and maintaining
international peace and security; safeguarding human rights; providing

humanitarian aid; and upholding international law. Data revolution for sus-
tainable development can be attained with the inputs from AI. The big data
combined with AI can be instrumental in realizing peace, dignity and equality
in the world. Overall, with the help of AI, the information can be tracked and
tapped for social change and sustainable development.
AI has the power to change industries, economies and societies, and it is
increasingly seen as a major force for sustainable growth. The newly invented
AI tool, ChatGPT is a cutting-edge language model which facilitates inclusive
decision-making, encouraging inclusivity and enabling creative responses
to urgent global challenges, ChatGPT has the potential to understand and
mobilize social and environmental progress. By collecting insightful data
and facilitating efficient communication between stakeholders, ChatGPT can
meaningfully contribute to accelerating progress toward SDGs listed in the
United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. By fast-pacing
decision-making procedures, ChatGPT can be a major force for the attaina-
ble of sustainable development. AI-powered language models can collect and
analyze massive amount of data, spot trends and produce insights that can
guide policy and decision-making. Such an AI tool is essential for develop-
mental journalists to track the issues pertaining to sustainable development.
Researchers and professionals can explore a wider range of options and find
more efficient SDG-achieving strategies by utilizing the power of AI tools.
8.3.8 Sustainability of Data Journalism and Artificial Intelligence
Understanding the importance of data, it is pivotal to make data journalism

sustainable (Stalph & Borges-Rey, 2018). In a move to make artificial intelli-
gence sustainable in the space of data journalism, knowledge of AI skills will
be regarded as essential qualities for the journalists working in newsrooms.
As a genre, the use of AI for data journalism needs to be a niche news story-
telling. It can only be possible when smaller newsrooms will start employing
AI tools for computational journalism. AI might get a smaller space in certain
newsrooms because of financial and cultural constraints. In view of this, AI
will continue to innovate the tools to make data journalism more effective.
It will foster the climate of competitiveness in news production in the ecosys-
tem of media which constantly keeps on evolving.
Since AI tends to provide newer tools from time to time as per require-
ments and demands, journalists need to acquire the required skills to use AI
tools in the newsrooms. Sometimes AI tools will create demand and then
newsrooms will adopt the tools for the proper execution of data journalism.
As a result, it will foster competitiveness among the media outlets. Initially,
progressive media organizations will adopt the AI tools in their newsrooms
and later smaller and medium size media outlets will follow suit. The diffu-
sion of innovation can take place in due course of time. In addition, since
AI is evolving in the space of computational journalism, educational and
training needs should be imparted to aspiring data journalists from time to

time. Designing sustainable data journalism activity is the need of the hour.
Sustainable data journalism will be the key talking point in the future. Since
AI tools are just evolving in developed nations, the wider deliberations on its
sustainability will be the next way forward.
8.3.9 Liberal, Democratic, Corporate Media, Artificial Intelligence and Data

Journalism
The use of data journalism in liberal and democratic media system and cor-
porate media system remains different as the functioning of states is different
(Crews Jr, 2020; Sauter, 2020). In this context, there is a dearth of stud-
ies on the use of artificial intelligence for data journalism. There needs to
be pedagogical overhaul to bridge the gap. Usually, liberal and democratic
media employ data journalism in a scant manner as compared to the cor-
porate media. In the context of using AI for data journalism, liberal and
democratic media are yet to employ AI tools. Corporate media platforms
tend to use AI tools for business and commercial activities. The newsrooms
in developing countries are keen to employ AI tools for the development of
human resources in their countries. The time has come how the liberal media
and democratic media can use artificial intelligence in developing journalistic
output and taking to greater heights in media systems across the globe. Of
course, the slight indication has been signaled, but is yet to be fully under-
stood and media houses to act upon it.
8.3.10 Transparency, Artificial Intelligence and Transnational Networks in

Data Journalism
One of the important aspects of data journalism is transparency in data

stories. It exposes corruption and alimonies by collecting, analyzing and
interpreting the data sets. It is found that data journalists are skilled with
transnational networks in developed countries. Similarly, AI-driven data sto-
ries tend to expose the shortcomings in the system. AI tools enable the news-
rooms to understand, to collect, curate, analyze and interpret the data for
telling data stories to the audience.
Ester Appelgren et al. (2019) state that data journalists across the globe
are bonded with strong transnational networking tradition. Journalists are
well versed with to arrange international conferences and imparting data
journalism skills to their peers. In this light, the application of AI tools can
be feasible through the transnational networking tradition. However, since
transnational networks of data journalists in developing countries are lim-
ited because of several reasons, the applications of AI tools for data stories
remain limited. AI can only function and do wonders from the data set only,
not beyond these. In a view to enhance the applications and credibility of AI
tools, transnational networking of the journalists in developing nations needs
to be accelerated. The tools of Public Relations and liaisoning are the felt
need in this direction. The administrative apparatus and political will need to
play a proactive role to understand the power of data and data journalism.
Porlezza and Splendore (2019) claim that data journalism is doing well
in Italy. Palomo et al. (2019) assert that data journalism is effective in Latin
America. In countries like Italy and Latin America, AI-driven data tools can
do wonders to bring transparency. On the contrary in the Arab region, data
journalism is yet to be effective (Lewis & Al Nashmi, 2019). Therefore, AI
tools may not work efficiently for investigative data stories in countries like
Arab regions. Suffice to say, such kind of discourse has logical bearings on the
journalistic practice, culture, media market space and the political climate.
8.3.11 Regional, National, International Media and Data Journalism
The importance of regional media or local media is immense in portraying

regional issues. A diversity of viewpoints is being felt and disseminated to the
public (Gulyás & Baines, 2020. However, it is observed that the space of data
journalism in regional media is scarce as compared to national and interna-
tional media. However, there is no scientific study conducted on this dimen-
sion. Similarly, the applications of artificial intelligence tools in regional,
national and international media organizations are to be comparatively stud-
ied. Timeline and comparative studies can be navigated in this direction. In
addition, which beat of journalism has gained the most in terms of executing
AI tools for data journalism is yet to be explored. Comparative studies and
exploratory research can be carried out to understand the penetration of AI
tools. Since the penetration of news media is on the rise in developing coun-
tries, the prospects of using AI in regional media cannot be ruled out.
8.3.12 An Impactful Data Journalism

Facts remain essential components of impactful journalism. It makes the news
storytelling with a purpose (American Press Institute, 2021). Sometimes it is
observed that after the news report, the government machinery takes prompt
action to overcome or correct the issue. For instance, the government took
corrective action to address the issues of farmers in India during the period
of lockdown caused because of coronavirus (Business Line, 2020). Precisely,
it is apparent that consensus on the importance of data journalism is on the
rise, keeping the journalistic practice and sustainability in the post-industrial
marketplace in mind. In this context, the use of artificial intelligence will be
enhanced, resulting in improvements in journalistic practice and impactful of
data journalism.
Some of the earlier credible studies pertaining to the impact of data jour-
nalism include audience participation in the media (Palomo et al., 2019),
journalistic constructs (Porlezza & Splendore, 2019), transparency, interac-
tivity and the attribution of information (Zamith, 2019), functioning of data
journalism projects (Young et al., 2017) and civic impact of data journal-
ism (Simons et al., 2017). In addition, there have been several studies which
highlight the importance of impactful journalism. However, academic studies

have not been directed to understand how AI applications will be beneficial
for impactful journalism. In a view to fill up the research gaps in the arena of
body of knowledge, academic probes can be directed in this direction.
8.3.13 Data Literacy, Artificial Intelligence and Data Journalism
In general, literacy is all about an individual’s ability to read, write and make
use of numerical. Literacy is always associated with social and cultural ele-
ments. UNESCO (2006) states literacy as the “ability to identify, understand,
interpret, create, communicate and compute, using printed and written mate-
rials associated with varying contexts”. Baykoucheva (2015, p. 80) also
defines, data literacy is the
“ability to read, understand, create and communicate data as informa-

tion. Much like literacy as a general concept, data literacy focuses on
the competencies involved in working with data. It is, however, not
similar to the ability to read text since it requires certain skills involving
reading and understanding data”.
Ragne Kõuts-Klemm (2019) asserts that data literacy skills are required for
journalists. Data literacy develops the skills for the processing of the data
required for data storytelling for the audience. However so far, the data liter-
acy skills among the journalists have remained inadequate. This could be the
cause and effect of low level of data revolution across the globe. Data revolu-
tion to actualize data democratization is often debated. It is quite apparent
that the issues of applying data journalism in western countries are different
from non-Western countries. The cultural orientation to data tools plays a
pivotal role in newsrooms (Mutsvairo, 2019b). Promoting data literacy for
adopting and emulating innovations is the key. In a similar fashion, the appli-
cation of artificial intelligence tools for computational journalism needs the
culture of data literacy and orientation toward the innovation of data stories
for the audience. To make this feasible, there needs a movement to be sup-
ported by the news media houses, government, private and civil society. Such
kind of holistic approach is warranted.
Significant amount of studies have been conducted on data journalism
pertaining to journalism. Some of the credible investigations include open
journalism (Porlezza & Splendore, 2019), challenges before data journalism
(Mulnix, 2012), assessment of data journalism (De Maeyer, Libert, Domingo,
Heinderyckx, & Le Cam, 2015; Zamith, 2019), practice of data journalism
(Borges-Rey, 2016), sports journalism (Horky & Pelka, 2017), education on
data journalism (Heravi, 2019), objectivity in data journalism (Tong & Zuo,
2021) and sustainability in data journalism (Stalph & Borges-Rey, 2018).
However, there have been no core studies conducted on the implications of
artificial intelligence on data journalism so far. So, scientific studies need to
be directed in this perspective.
Any successful data journalism must have effective communication. The

advent of ChatGPT has contributed to the scope of such a form of journal-
ism. Journalists are able to make varied data stories with the assistance of
this AI tool. As a result, data journalism is becoming more impactful and
meaningful to the audience. However, digital literacy in employing ChatGPT
in newsrooms has been raised. While using ChatGPT in data stories, journal-
ists should be literate in excising this AI tool, failing to which data stories
may be skewed in structure which will further adversely influence the cred-
ibility of news stories.
8.3.14 Leapfrogging, Dichotomy, Artificial Intelligence and the Paradox
Artificial intelligence tools in accelerating data journalism in newsrooms

across developing nations reminds of the application of leapfrogging in the
field of journalism. Several newsrooms have not used the simple applications
of technologies for data journalism. However, many of them have started
using AI tools for data journalism which is based on numerical and figures. It
is predominantly occurring in developing nations in the world. Leapfrogging
can occur in every aspect of life and profession. The practice and profession
of journalism is no exception to it.
Leapfrogging comes into existence when any organization or nation
adapts to the latest technology by bypassing the traditional stages of techno-
logical developments. This is one of the ways of alternative paths to devel-
opment by resorting to technological developments. A study conducted in
the year 2017 by the World Bank on the development in Africa comments,
“Vertiginous changes brought about by the digital revolution in the past
20 years make leapfrogging . . . not only a possibility but a necessity”
(Yayboke, Carter, & Crumpler, 2020). Similarly, the Ministry of Science,
Technology and Innovation in Uganda finds that Uganda “must support
and invest in R&D so that we can leapfrog the technological trends and
developments, as we modernize our industrial base and become a player
on the global technological platform” (Yayboke et al., 2020). In addition,
the National Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Policy Document
from Ghana argues, “In considering acquisition, mastering, development,
improvement and diffusion of new technologies, a chance remains to leap-
frog from the current low-technology status to more knowledge-intensive
technologies” through goals like “develop a national competence in com-
puter hardware and software engineering”, “attraction into Ghana …
world-class solar energy systems design and manufacturing capability”,
and “establish Ghana as a regional hub for high-performance materials sys-
tems” (Yayboke et al., 2020). The use of technology is not just the solution
to a problem in developing economies. Rather it should act as an enabler
to achieve the state of sustainable development for maximum transforma-
tive effects. So, the uses of technologies are expected to be sustainable and
societal in nature.
Moreover, with the emergence of newer technologies from time to time,

this has resulted in the state of digital divide. Earlier, Hall (1998) found that
elites attempt to monopolize the technological innovations. However, some
people belonging to underprivileged locations get access to the innovation
because of projects targeting decentralizing and implementing them in those
areas. Social conditions are not getting into discussion while implementing
newer technologies. The issue of content or technology-generated knowledge
is taking a backseat during the course of deliberation.
The use of technology is not a standalone entity rather it is based on epis-
temological assumptions which have bearings on certain amount of cultural
values or identities and representations (Alzouma, 2005). Technological
applications are also creating the issue of language in non-Western countries.
The excessive use of English and European languages while using technologi-
cal innovations has also invited sheer criticism and posed challenges for the
creation and implementation of indigenous knowledge. This is also occurring
in the field of digital newsrooms across the world and especially in develop-
ing nations. The discourse on using AI tools is no exception to these dimen-
sions and cannot be disqualified from such types of perspectives.
The issue dichotomy is amply visible in several facets of life (Saha, 2020). By
removing dichotomies, inclusivity can be maintained. Such kind of inclusive
approach can also pave the way for professional development (Waitoller &
Artiles, 2013). The profession of journalism can be aptly contextualized here.
There are dichotomies persisting in terms of using the data for journalism.
The acceptance of data journalism seems to have been negotiated on several
fronts for the sake of data journalism. Different countries have different media
markets. For example, Kiambi (2019) points out that the lack of knowledge
system is not allowing Kenyan journalists to fully exploit the power of data
journalism. Similarly, media markets of AI tools can be assessed, considering
the potential of exploiting such tools in various countries across the globe.
MdAminul Islam (2018) reveals that data journalism in Bangladesh is not able
to pick up because of lack of skills on the part of journalists and nonavail-
ability of open data sources. More significantly, confusion has been created
across the newsrooms regarding its role and performance until such kind of
journalism is not practiced diligently (Kalatzi et al., 2018). This could be the
possible reasons in developing countries in South-Asian countries. Similarly,
the penetration of AI tools in newsrooms in South-Asian countries is slow-
paced for computational journalism. Lack of skills and knowledge systems
to use AI tools in the space of data journalism could be a new issue in the
countries like India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal.
Be it an AI tool or any other technological innovation, it is not free from
domination or suppression of central powers. Alzouma (2005, p. 346) argues
similarly with Manuel Castells as
“technology is a symbol and a powerful means of domination for rul-

ing elites and societies. It participates in the perpetuation of power and
authority and becomes central to negotiating identities and social con-

flicts. Identities can be affected by the use of ICTs because individuals
have to think about themselves and define themselves in new ways.
New lines of division are even being created in the use of, or, more
precisely, the access to ICTs.”
For Castells (1997, pp. 82–92), the arrival of informational/global capitalism

is associated with a “dehumanization”, a “marginalization” or a “selective
integration” and a “technological apartheid” for developing nations.
With the emergence and execution of artificial intelligence tools in news-
rooms, the syndrome of information disparity has come to the fore. The
requirement and confusion over AI tools have created a state of information
rich and information poor. To some, it is called information rich and informa-
tion poor. It further adds to the syndrome of information inequality, which
ultimately influences the socio-economic and cultural dimensions of a society.
When there are attempts and efforts across the globe to mitigate the digital
divide, the advent of AI tools has posed threats to data and digital equality.
Digital divide has popped up in newsrooms in media outlets present in devel-
oping countries. The distress of automating inequality through AI tools can-
not be ruled out especially in developing countries. However, AI tools need to
be beneficial in overcoming the issue of information inequality. Since accessi-
bility to data and information are human rights, AI tools can be instrumental
in mobilizing data revolution and the data for sustainable development. The
executions of AI tools for computational journalism in these nations have
raised varied questions on journalistic culture and markets for further sys-
tematic investigations. By removing dichotomies in the professional sphere,
inclusive approach to AI can be achieved and maintained. Such an approach
can make the use of these technologies in the field of data journalism efficient
and sustainable. Moreover, the resource-strapped newsrooms can reach out
to sign for a fruitful partnership with academics or companies to have an
initial experience with AI tools to take things forward. The experimentations
with AI in the newsroom should start at a certain point in time.
Leapfrogging could be a good strategy to maximize the impact of data
journalism by using AI tools in newsrooms. Any technology used should
be an enabler of sustainable development (Yayboke et al., 2020). Since AI
tools can fasten the pace of journalistic process and production, it can bring
transformative effects in the newsrooms. Striking a perfect chord between the
machine and men in the newsroom should be critically deliberated. However,
there are all-time concerns on whether leapfrogging produces real value to
media organizations and the public.
Suffice to say, changing technological aspects remain a complex state
which is an interaction between the technological possibilities and estab-
lished journalistic forms. Further, Conboy (2013, p. 149) underlines, “[a]n
assessment of journalism and technology needs insight from both the prac-
tice of journalism as well as well as a general awareness of broader cultural
trends and how technology forms part of social history”. So, the technologi-
cal adoption and implications should be viewed in the prism of social and
institutional matrixes.
8.3.15 Cultural Contexts in Data Journalism and Artificial Intelligence
Asim Tewary who deals with the data science claims,
“It is not your data or my data; it is the firm’s data, and the value you
create for the business is from that data. It is a transformation. It’s
changing the people culture aspect, so there’s a lot of education. You
know, you have to be an evangelist. You wear multiple hats to show
people the value.”
(O'Brien, 2018)
Creating the change or shift in the use of artificial intelligence for computa-
tional journalism remains a challenge, even though such type of journalism is
effective in storytelling to the audience.
Cultural challenge remains a potential hurdle to use AI in transforming
existing newsrooms into AI-driven newsrooms. Digital cultural divide has
been the new subobstacle which prevents journalists from employing AI tools
in their data stories to the audience.
There is a definite connection between the culture and technology. A study
finds that culture poses a potential hindrance for the acceptance of changes
in the newsroom. The professional culture backed by the traditional method
of newsroom management also remains an obstacle for the acceptance of
technology in the newsroom. An innovative learning culture is required to
understand and apply any form of technology. In this context, it is imperative
to deliberate on innovative learning culture (ILC), one of the effective ways
for understanding and applying technologies in human’s daily lives. ILC can
be referred as,
“a social climate that stimulates people to work and learn together, to

grow as an individual and as a group (team, organization), and that
provides people with the autonomy needed to be flexible, to experi-
ment, to be creative, and to investigate radical possibilities in order for
the organization to have better chances for survival in the long run.
This is facilitated by serving leadership, open communication, mutual
trust, a supporting culture, shared goals, appreciation of individual
achievement, and training and development.”
(Porcu, 2020, p. 1559)
ILC can be attained by bringing the professional learning culture (PLC) and
explorative innovation culture.
Suffice to say, innovative learning culture is an amalgamation of explora-
tive innovation culture and explorative innovation culture. Since the adoption
and application of AI tools in newsrooms is involved with some kind of tech-

nologies, innovative learning culture can be contextualized in newsrooms.
Out of all characteristics of innovative learning culture features like learning
from each other, (re)search/investigation are experimental seems to be amply
apparent. The other features like autonomous, creative, radical and flexible
do not exist which is not making the AI tools to be effective in newsrooms
in several parts of the globe. Indeed, the case is somewhat discouraging in
newsrooms in developing nations. Similarly, out of the basic essential condi-
tions to make the innovative learning culture of AI in newsrooms; the climate
of leadership, communication, mutual trust, supporting culture, shared goals
and appreciation there in newsrooms. However, training and development
are largely missing when the use of AI tools in newsrooms is debated. The
ecology of newsroom management in developing nations is different than
that of developed nations. The media outlets are derailing the process of
learning as they are not resorting to the aspect of training and development.
The support from the management is a huge factor in developed nations as
compared to developing nations. Creativity is lagging behind when it comes
to the application of AI and machine learning. Overall, an innovative learn-
ing culture in newsroom is slow-paced. However, it is taking off and AI
tools are expected for the adoption among the newspersons across the globe.
Suffice to say, the inadequacy of innovative learning culture has exposed var-
ious factors which obstruct the process and pace of applying AI techniques
in newsrooms.
Rote learning is another method of learning and applying the new skills.
This is a method which highlights about memorization technique based on
repetition. This type of modus operandi of learning is widely prevalent in
countries like Malaysia, India, Japan and Italy (Mulnix, 2012). Traditional
didactic pedagogy and rote-learning are not beneficial when it comes to the
use and adoption of AI tools in newsrooms. Since this form of learning is
not associative learning and active learning, applications and adoption of AI
tools are predicted to be ineffective in newsrooms. The ecology of newsroom
management needs to be supportive for associative learning and active form
of learning which can accelerate the production, distribution and consump-
tion of news. Learning should be in such a way that technology can holisti-
cally deliberate with newspersons, creating a judicious space for men and
machines in the newsrooms.
The use of technology is influenced by umpteen factors. The technology
acceptance model (TAM) states how and when people tend to use and accept
a technology. The perceived usefulness and perceived ease-of-use have been
the influential factors on the level of adoption (Davis, Bagozzi, & Warshaw,
1989). The use of TAM has been in various fields which include hospital
industry (Lew, Tan, Loh, Hew, & Ooi, 2020), health and fitness apps (Cho,
Chi, & Chiu, 2020), e-learning (Sukendro et al., 2020), mobile library appli-
cations (Rafique, Almagrabi, Shamim, Anwar, & Bashir, 2020) and smart
farming (Ronaghi & Forouharfar, 2020). However, in terms of newsroom
management and areas in journalism, the studies on technological adop-

tion remain scarce. Some of the studies include robot journalism (Kim &
Kim, 2021), digital news photo alteration (Yao, Perlmutter, & Liu, 2017)
and journalism based on algorithms (Zheng, Zhong, & Yang, 2018). Since
there are a few studies conducted in the light of use and acceptance of AI in
newsrooms from the perspectives of technological adoption, quantitative and
qualitative studies can be intensified in this direction. To seek and attain the
state of innovative learning culture, newsroom transformation and profes-
sional ideology, it is believed that AI tools can do wonders. Certain efforts
need to be initiated to foster the interest among journalists from cultural
dimensions so that newsrooms will undergo changes with the usages of AI
tools in the space of data journalism.
8.3.16 Gender Dimensions to Data Journalism and Artificial Intelligence
Figl (2017) reveals that the team comprising gender-diverse data for data
journalism remains a challenge. The gender disparity is reasonably apparent
in German-speaking countries. However, study finds that the use of com-
puter-assisted journalism among women journalists has been used for quite
some years in the UK and the US. Fundamentally, data journalism is being
imparted. There have been fewer women journalists in the space of data jour-
nalism. Kira Schacht quotes,
“At Journo code, we do have slightly more women than men, but that
was never on purpose. However, we embrace diversity in all fields and
hope that the next generation will bring more women into journalism
and the tech scene”.
(Figl, 2017)
With the advent of artificial intelligence, the space of women using machine
learning for data journalism has raised intersectional perspectives. The delib-
erations on minority and gendered positions are much needed.
The American Society of News Editors claims that the Hispanic, black and
Asian women constitute only five percent of the total newsroom personnel
in the print and online news outlets (Abbady, 2017). Studies find that one
in top 25 newspapers publishing internationally is run and led by women.
Men contribute a whopping 73 percent of the top global management media
jobs. Women journalists earn comparatively lesser than their male counter-
parts. Gender disparity is more glaring in legacy platforms (Griffin, 2014).
Adding to this, a study finds that only 14% of top editorial decision-mak-
ers are women (Byerly, 2011). As women tend to quit the field of journal-
ism, fewer women journalists are able to climb up the leadership roles. One
study reveals that the presence of black women is only 2.5 percent in the
entire journalism journalist workforce in the US (York, 2017). Unlike other
professions, the industry of media and communication is not conducive in
supporting and elevating women professionals. This is a state of double dis-

crimination occurring toward women journalists. Women journalists suffer
more in digital platforms as there is a lack of proper established hierarchy
and culture as compared to traditional newsrooms. Traditional newsrooms
are organized to some extent and offer mobility for women and minorities.
Digital newsrooms need to rethink this aspect in order to amplify the impact
of AI tools in newsrooms, keeping women journalists in mind.
The space of women journalists in the top editorial positions differs from
a nation to nation. There are rarely women journalists who are at the top of
media outlets. 47% of the top journalists are women in the South African
media organizations (Andı, Selva, & Nielsen, 2020). Gender biasness is one
of the barriers which are unfavorable for inclusive media platforms for voic-
ing for the marginalized in India (Thomas, 2018). The fraction of male–
female writers and anchors in Indian media is skewed. Women journalists
are given the soft beats including lifestyle or fashion whereas men journalists
are assigned to cover the hard beat like politics and economy. A research
report from Media Rumble and UN Women states, “By thus marginaliz-
ing women’s voices and perspectives, the Indian media essentially denies
nearly a half of the population a chance to influence public opinion. This
runs counter to the principles of fairness, equality, and democracy” (Mantri,
2019). Women journalists tend to be victimized because of manipulative
factors. Manipulations of women journalists’ and weak bodies’ intellects
are the striking reasons behind their lower positions in media organizations.
Feminization of spaces in media outlets is scarce. Women journalists speak
soft and are more subdued than their male counterparts (Krüger, 2019). It is
quite apparent that top editorial positions are substantially and symbolically
influenced.
It is found that news produced and disseminated is indifferent from the
agenda of gender. In this context, Allan (1998, p. 133) claims,
“the means by which “hard” news is accorded an enhanced “prestige”

status over the “lighter” items of “soft” news are linked, in part, to its
greater reliance on monologic renderings of … news events. This per-
spective is also discernible in the attendant presumption that women’s
everyday lives [are] intrinsically less “newsworthy” as a result.”
Monitoring the media remains a significant effort as it throws light on the

understanding of media how it is being represented and what is being rep-
resented. It paves the way for “act in an informed, well reasoned way”
(Galtung, 1995, p. 104). In a similar way pointing out the contribution of
women in media, Angela McRobbie (2009, p. 2) states,
“women constitute half of the world’s population and their subordina-

tion and experience of inequality, though changed, remains unequivo-
cal and substantial. The idea of a global, though highly differentiated
feminist politics would indeed be a considerable challenge to the current

global and still patriarchal system of economic power and domination.”
In reality, journalism is a male-dominated profession which perpetuates the

male perspectives of journalism. However, the increasing presence of women
journalists has started challenging the masculine culture in the newsrooms.
Nevertheless, the public has downplayed and developed the mistrust on the
news production process by the female journalists. It is a known fact the
overpresence of male journalists in the newsrooms has created a masculine
culture of values (Carter, Branston, & Allan, 1999). This has further diluted
the participation of women journalists in the production process of media
contents. News to be judged on the parameters of news values, not on the
masculine culture should be the way forward.
The academic explorations on the presence and impact of women journalist
in the newsrooms and society have provided numerous perspectives. Certain
studies have been conducted in quantitative, qualitative and mix-method
approaches. Certain investigations are purely in the discipline of media and
communication whereas some are interdisciplinary in nature. On gender and
journalism, some of the noteworthy studies which include women journal-
ists and the news agenda (Craft & Wanta, 2004), women representation in
media (D’Heer, Vergotte, De Vuyst, & Van Leuven, 2020), masculine news
values (Ross & Carter, 2011), women in journalism profession (Mangun,
2011), women in TV newsrooms (Kanagasabai, 2016), gender equality in
journalism (De Vuyst & Raeymaeckers, 2020), engendering journalist prac-
tice (Ross, 2001), feminization process of journalism (Finneman & Volz,
2020; Lachover & Lemish, 2018), female journalists’ experiences in news-
rooms (Luqiu, 2022), news agendas and public discourse (Rodny-Gumede,
2015), conditions of women journalists (Steiner, 1998), women and politi-
cal reporting (Pain, 2017), women journalists and the minority syndrome
(Meyers & Gayle, 2015) and journalism and feminist standpoint epistemol-
ogy (Steiner, 2018). There have been ample number of studies on gender and
journalism across the world in quantitative and qualitative approach. Several
studies are cross-sectional and longitudinal in nature. However, so far there
is not a single study conducted on gender and application of AI tools in news-
rooms. Again, the research on the use of AI tools among women journalists
for telling data stories to the audience is glaringly missing.
First of all, the presence of women journalists in newsrooms worldwide is
quite negligible which raises the issues of gender disparity in the profession.
Feminization of spaces in media outlets pertaining to AI applications remains
non-existent. It has been found that women journalists tend to negotiate their
spaces in the newsrooms in terms of power and public discourse. The divi-
sion of labor in newsrooms between men journalists and women journalists
are skewed, raising the all-time concerns of dichotomy in the journalistic cul-
ture and practice. If women journalists perceive that true womanhood quali-
ties are purity, piety, domesticity and submissiveness, they may not excel in
the field of journalism. True womanhood cannot be judged and validated in

any professional spirit. True womanhood has nothing to do with journal-
ism in general, data journalism in particular. Since again data journalism is
an innovative way of practicing journalism, women with proactiveness can
excel in the field. Moreover, bringing AI applications into the discussion, the
career trajectory of women journalists for data journalism cannot take off
if they are not open to operate. Women journalists need to work with the
sense of professional freedom which further fuels their experiments with AI
for data stories.
The qualities of purity, piety, domesticity and submissiveness have no pro-
fessional bearings on applying AI tools in the newsrooms. If women journal-
ists’ contributions for socio-economic and cultural spheres are undermined,
the values for gender parity in the journalistic profession will go haywire.
The macho culture in the newsrooms will continue and news values from
masculine perspective will persist which is unethical and subject to profes-
sional marginalization. If this syndrome prolongs, women’s global margin-
alization will emerge, raising concerns across the newsrooms in the world.
The use of AI tools among women journalists for data journalism in the
newsrooms can be monitored. Monitoring of media remains a pivotal exer-
cise which highlights the nuance of representation which might “act in an
informed, well reasoned way” (Galtung, 1995, p. 104). If women journal-
ists are not allowed to voice their opinion, employ their skills and exper-
tise, such situations will curtail the democratic values in a society (Ross &
Carter, 2011). Moreover, if women journalists are not free enough in news-
rooms, they may not exploit the power of AI tools in enhancing the quality
of data journalism. As a result, women journalists’ labor and skills will be
gendered and sexualized for media consumption in the public. Further, the
larger concerns are pertinent to the journalistic norms, negotiating femininity
and sexuality and victimization of women. The journalistic code of conduct
and appropriate modus operandi, fair femininity and judicious space and
position for women journalists should be deliberated and the issues can be
amicably addressed. Top editorial positions in major news outlets should no
longer substantially and symbolically matter.
Inclusive journalism, covering the aspect of gender needs to be deeply
deliberated to raise abundant perspectives. Whether women journalists get
the job of data journalism or whether women journalists’ role is engendered
demand discussions across the newsrooms in the world. If women journal-
ists are excluded from data journalism driven by AI applications, it will only
create pernicious in journalism and gender disparity in the profession will
persist for indefinite period. In this context, UNESCO (2017) argues,
“There are only two kinds of journalism – good and bad. Good jour-
nalism involves fair and accurate representation and a search for diver-
sity and balanced reporting in subject matter, perspectives and points
of view … Women constitute half of the world population [yet] still do
not constitute half of the media images and voices, nor media messages
address half of women’s interests and concerns.”
8.3.17 Data Journalism, artificial intelligence and Constant Learning for

Applications
Journalism is a dynamic profession which requires and demands the media

organizations to test and apply newer ideas and technologies in the news-
rooms. Most importantly, with the surge of data, sensors and technological
upgradations, formats of news reporting are experiencing newness across the
globe. Moreover, AI tools are providing tailormade solutions for practicing
data journalism despite their relative novelty and complexity (de-Lima-San-
tos & Salaverría, 2021). ChatGPT, a new AI tool which has started influ-
encing the journalistic process. The applications of ChatGPT are arguably
enhance the skills of journalists for news stories in general and data stories
in particular. Precisely, using AI tools in the space of data journalism has just
started and each day is becoming a learning day for the journalists working
in the newsrooms. Learning curve will shape up the future course of applica-
tions in connecting to the news consumers.
8.3.18 Data Journalism, Artificial Intelligence and Redefining Beat Reporting
Since data journalism is backed by data and remains credible among the
audience, it has taken the height of beat reporting to a newer level. The use
of data is not confined to business journalism and developmental journalism.
Data stories are slowing increasing in the field of business, crime, investiga-
tive and other forms of journalism. Since the data are factual, data stories of
various beats have gained the trust of news consumers and this is going to
happen in a deeper level. With the advent of AI tools, investigative journal-
ism is undergoing numerous shifts in terms of data stories to the audience
(Sengul-Jones, 2021). Empowered with AI tools, investigative journalists are
able to pilot extraordinary analysis techniques which further make the pri-
vate companies and government entities accountable.
News media organizations have started using automation in newsrooms.
The audience expects their news to be delivered to them in real-time because
we live in an era of instant gratification. News disseminates more quickly
than ever thanks to social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. The
need for accurate and high-quality reporting does, however, increase with
the speed at which news is delivered. This is where ChatGPT comes in as a
tool to enhance the capability of newsrooms and journalism. This AI tool
enables journalists in all sorts of beating in journalism. Be it political, eco-
nomic, crime, business, entertainment or sports. ChatGPT helps journalists
in covering various events. This AI tool facilitates quick and effective fact-
checking and research for journalists. From locating pertinent sources and
articles to giving background knowledge on a particular subject, the chatbot
can perform an ample amount of works. For journalists, using ChatGPT is
changing the game because it gives them a tool that can make their jobs easier.
Journalists can concentrate on the more crucial elements of their reporting,
like speaking with sources and producing articles, by using ChatGPT. This
AI tool can also assist journalists in coming up with fresh ideas or viewpoints
on a story that they may not have previously considered.
8.3.19 Data Journalism, Artificial Intelligence and Hope for Newer Possibilities
Some of the newsrooms world over have given the scope to create a new
department within the ecology of production and distribution of news. The
creation of new department comprising data scientists, data engineers, data
analysts (EBU, 2021) has opened up news possibilities for the journalists who
are ceaselessly attempting to execute the data in the format of data stories.
This new department which is equipped to deal with AI tools in the news-
room is slowly getting formed. Time will say how the journalists will decode
the power of AI to shape up data stories for the audience. With the advent
of metaverse and ChatGPT, the use of AI tools for telling data stories might
undergo substantial shifts in the ecology of news media. The newsroom has
become more technologically complex in the digital era. Today’s journalists
create a variety of content using a variety of tools for a variety of delivery
platforms. ChatGPT has provided new hopes and media attention has been
drawn to this AI tool. Given its features, one would assume that journalists
would be eager to use it, if only as a tool for story writing. ChatGPT could
perform the labor-intensive work of their desktop research, generating ideas
for stories and perhaps even aiding in the first draft of their works.
Journalism is a field that keeps on changing in terms of incorporation of
newer technologies like metaverse, nonfungible tokens (NFTs), immersive
technologies along with artificial intelligence. Computer-generated imagery
is in the experiment stage. Metaverse-powered storytelling is expected to
enhance subscribers and revenue models for the newsrooms. ChatGPT, an AI
tool, is the latest addition to the list of technologies being used by journalists.
The AI-based chatbot can make news easier to understand, but nothing can
replace having eyes and ears on the ground. To make user prompts ChatGPT
friendly, formatting changes are frequently necessary. As a result, the response
is more beneficial and simpler to use in the process of journalistic production.
More newsrooms are attempting to experiment newer communication tech-
nologies in the newsrooms. Which technology will click, that the time will tell.
However, the experimentations need to continue on regular intervals.
Suffice to say, data journalism is doing well in newsrooms in developed
countries whereas it is taking off in various developing countries. This type
of journalism has a proven track record in reporting socioeconomic, national
and international events in the form of data stories. There is no doubt that
data journalism is not confined to computer-assisted reporting. Its scopes are

much beyond this. To make data journalism more improved and alive, mul-
tidisciplinary approach and professional methodologies are highly sought.
However, such forms of journalism driven by numerical and computer
have invited ethical concerns which need to be acknowledged and amicably
addressed on a priority basis.
Christian Pentzold and Denise Fechner (2020) reveal that since data jour-
nalism is enhancing the importance of aggregate digital information and
place accurate projections of news stories, it is getting wider acceptance and
its future looks promising. Despite the constraints in the process of data jour-
nalism, the future seems promising as several establishments, governments
and civil society are showing interest in it (Kalatzi et al., 2018). Computation
can make the journalism to quickly “produce transparent, credible and exclu-
sive narratives that can have enormous social and political impact” (Graham,
2017). AI can be instrumental in taking data journalism to the next level. As
Gray, Bounegru and Chambers (2012) have rightly enunciated,
“Information asymmetry—not the lack of information, but the inabil-

ity to take in and process it with the speed and volume that it comes to
us—is one of the most significant problems that citizens face in making
choices about how to live their lives. Information taken in from print,
visual and audio media influence citizen’s choices and actions. Good
data journalism helps to combat information asymmetry.”
AI-driven data journalism will provide the audience with multi-layered, mul-
tiplatform, gamified, database-linked dynamic and interactive content. With
the arrival of newer technological platforms like metaverse along with AI
tools will have greater influence on data journalism in the future. However,
the content will remain the king for the newspersons and the audience as
well. To have useful and relevant content, human intervention in the news-
rooms is of utmost importance. Needless to say, in computational journalism
run by AI tools suffers from certain amount of errors. Distrust will be there.
However, the applications of AI tools in newsrooms across the globe are on
the rise. Newsrooms across the globe cannot deny the fact.
Since studies have found that data journalism is doing well in telling news
stories in small newsrooms (Figl, 2017), the future of AI is believed to be
effective there also. For the adoption of AI does not depend on the size. Data
journalism is working well in small newsrooms in Germany, Austria and the
UK, a study revealed. In addition, Kayser-Bril asserts,
“You have plenty of very small newsrooms that do data journalism (…)
LeT_el_egramme (…) Heilbronner Stimme (…) we are basically talking
about one person or half a full-time position, and I think any smallish
newsroom can afford [this] (…) If you look at the investments that are
required to do data journalism, it’s basically zero because everything
is open source and free. So, I don’t see any theoretical argument that
would be a resource limitation to data journalism.”
(Stalph & Borges-Rey, 2018)
In this context, AI tools-driven journalism can do wonders in newsrooms

irrespective small or big. Let’s wait and watch how AI tools are doing in the
field of data journalism and how newsroom ecology is getting transformed
in the future.
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9 Artificial Intelligence in Fostering
Citizen Journalism
Investigating the New Form of Participatory
Journalism
9.1 Introduction
The discussion on the applications of artificial intelligence (AI) in the domain
of citizen journalism remains complex and draws an ample amount of curi-
osities on citizenship, journalism, citizen journalism, technology and AI in an
isolated manner and a combined compartment also. Since journalism, citizen
journalism, technology and AI undergo ceaseless changes, the transforma-
tive effects on each of the above entities are difficult to measure and it often
goes unnoticed. Therefore, understanding these concepts in changing times is
warranted, especially in the light of assessing the implications of AI on citizen
journalism.
Heater (2004, p. 187) affirms that citizenship “is more than a label”, in
which ideas of “identity and virtue invest the concept of citizenship with
power”. Blaagaard (2013) argues that the debates hover around the stock of
knowledge on academic literature which is beyond the space of citizen jour-
nalism. Citizen journalism (CJ) has become a prevailing articulation in the
landscape of global news and journalism in which citizens have enhanced the
stakeholdership in terms of creation, distribution and dissemination of news
content along with the citizens’ comments on the news contents. According
to Kaufhold, Valenzuela, and Zúñiga (2010, p. 517)
“Citizen journalism is defined by a number of attributes which make it

distinct from professional journalism, including unpaid work, absence
of professional training, and often unedited publication of content, and
may feature plain language, distinct story selection and news judgment,
especially hyperlocal issues, free accessibility, and interactivity.”
It is apparent that such type of journalism has become instrumental in terms

of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating the news contents to
the citizens. However, citizen journalism is usually termed as contextual. It
works differently for different people in diverse political and cultural setups.
Technological upgradations have the bearings on the origin and growth of
such unique form of journalism.
DOI: 10.4324/9781032716879-9
182 Artificial Intelligence in Fostering Citizen Journalism
AI, a form of innovation, remains a buzzword in the field of technologies.

However, its applications are apparent in almost all the professional fields.
The field of journalism is not exception to it. Journalists in the newsrooms are
exploring the implications of AI. AI in journalism is vastly making inroads
in the landscape of breaking news, investigating the facts, curbing fake news,
interactive news and the like. However, since citizen journalism otherwise
known as participatory or collaborative form of journalism is somewhat dif-
ferent from mainline journalism, the implications of AI on citizens, participa-
tory nature of journalism and society needs a series of deliberations.
9.2 Origin, History and Growth of Citizen Journalism

Tracing, understanding and making conclusive remarks on the origin and
history of citizen journalism remains fussy. A study finds that citizen journal-
ism commenced globally in the early 2000s when common citizens started
disseminating the news with a mild form of producing the news contents
(Gillmor, 2004). From the late 1990s onwards, the Internet has enabled
the citizens to discover the news and share information. The massive use
of the Internet has intensified the abilities of citizens for the enterprise of
citizen journalism. In this context, Gillmor (2004, p. 24) argues, “We could
all write, not just read, in ways never before possible”. Moreover, with the
rise in new communication technologies in the Westernized nations of the
globe, citizen journalism has paved the way for wider civic participation and
cosmopolitanism. To Allan and Thorsen (2009), historically this form jour-
nalism commenced post 2004–2005 South Asian tsunamis. Locksley (2009)
asserts that the massive digital implications of the 21st century have modi-
fied the modus operandi of mass media i.e., one-way communication and
top-down structure in terms of content production. It has also changed the
socio-cultural patterns of content consumption and has enabled political and
cultural processes in an inclusive and exclusive manner.
A study claims that citizen journalism in Asia is flourishing in the regions
that lack of media plurality. The regions could be particularly termed as
Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia in Asia (Zeng, Jain, Nguyen, & Allan,
2019). Citizens in China share information in social media platforms and
tend to question the Chinese media reports. On similar lines, Luo and
Harrison (2019) find that citizens are active on Weibo and are influencing
the policy-makers on various subjects. Darbo and Skjerdal (2019) assert that
even though citizen journalists in China are tagged as nonprofessionals, plat-
forms like WeChat have created a space for effective participatory journal-
ism in China. Wu and Wall (2019) add that mobile phones have fostered the
space for alternative source of news.
India is a diverse country with multiple sources and patterns of social,
cultural and political ideologies. Video Volunteers, established in the year
2002, attempts to stress on the daily issues of the underprivileged groups
who remain ignored by the mainline media outlets (Video Volunteers, 2019).
Artificial Intelligence in Fostering Citizen Journalism 183
Meri News (My News) established in the year 2006 has become a popular
platform for citizen journalism in India (Allan, Sonwalkar, & Carter, 2007).
CGNet Swara, founded by a former BBC journalist Shubhranshu Choudhary,
is a mobile phone-based platform which has fostered and sustained the voice
of the voiceless among the tribal communities in central India since the year
2010. This people’s voice has become instrumental in raising the issue of
corruption, human rights, bureaucratic hassles and social justice (Chadha &
Steiner, 2015).
The story of citizen journalism has a different story in different countries.
Citizen journalism in India has set the stage for sousveillance in which the
ordinary people are the citizens who are monitoring the activities of the gov-
ernment or top bureaucrats through the process of engagements (Zeng et al.,
2019). It can be rightly called as the citizens’ documentation which is the
contrast to powerful surveillance of citizens by the governmental or ruling
apparatus. The powerful surveillance of citizens over the ruling apparatus
could be on corruption, misrule or any sort of administrative blight. Most
importantly, several studies revealed that citizen journalists in India have
exhibited a sense of a strong public service orientation by highlighting human
rights violations to resolve civic-related problems (Paul, 2015).
The citizens in the African continent have been successfully engaged with
citizen journalism. For an instance, the half percent of Zimbabwe’s popula-
tion have access to the Internet (Internet World Stats, 2020). Further, another
study finds that the reason behind the rise of citizen journalism in Zimbabwe
is not because of political narratives only. Opposing the hegemonic news
frames has become quite apparent (Tshabangu, 2019). The journalism led
by the citizens in Zimbabwe is able to counter the mode of news dissemina-
tion in the authoritarian climates (Sheen, Tung, & Wu, 2020). A study finds
that the venture of journalism led by citizens has been successful in Southeast
Asia (Zeng et al., 2019). There is no denial that citizen journalists have met
certain success in Southeast Asia. This nature of journalism is in good form
in Indonesia in which radio, blogs and social networks have been instrumen-
tal for creating and disseminating alternative narratives. Lack of journalistic
pluralism in Indonesia has paved the way for citizen journalism.
Moving ahead, established in the year 2008, Malaysiakini, one citizen
journalism initiative has trained hundreds of aspiring citizen journalists and
revolutionized the independent journalistic spirit. It has influenced the main-
stream political discourse in which the independent journalistic spirit is often
missed out in the mainstream media narratives. Similarly, it is doing well in
Vietnam. Since huge amount of people are present in social networking sites,
it has enabled the citizens to be part of interactive dialogue and discourses on
ordinary citizens’ issues and daily struggles. Situations like nonprofit blogs,
crowd-funded investigative and citizen-reporters of the ‘Arab Spring’ have
brought the alternative media to the fore and positioned as a democratized
alternative of the mainstream media which is funded and managed the cor-
porate (Carpenter, Nah, & Chung, 2015).
Whenever there is a debate on the types of citizen journalism, there is no

such definite division. However, a study argues that there could be two types
of citizen journalism – institutional and non-institutional (Banda, 2010).
Institutional citizen journalism is guided and driven by organizational struc-
ture and its philosophy. The guiding principles of an organization motivate
and drive such journalistic initiatives. Even though an organization is the
core to the journalistic functions, the individual enterprise of envisioning and
executing citizen journalism – production, distribution and consumption of
news contents – remains pivotal. On the other hand, non-institutional jour-
nalism centers on individuals at the core of practicing journalism. The pres-
ence of such type of journalism is there among the citizens who tend to use
a combination of platforms which are further instrumental in producing,
distributing and consuming the news contents. Such initiatives are individu-
alistic in nature. Usually, it gets to thrive in a situation of volunteerism, with-
out being driven by any professional institutions or guided by professional
spirits. It is highly individualized and subjected to self-regulation. It so hap-
pens that sometimes citizen journalists from noninstitutionalized philosophy
are parts of an online group or several online groups which intensify debates
on single or numerous topics.
According to a study, citizen journalism started and flourished in a given
point of time. However, later they started chasing the audience and advertis-
ing which further led to tough competitions among the citizen journalism
platforms. As a result, certain platforms perished after registering audience
participation and growth (Lindner & Larson, 2017). Several perspectives
remain paradoxical on the origin, mission, growth and types of citizen jour-
nalism which usually prioritize the coverage pertaining to the interests of the
communities.
9.3 Space of Technology in Journalism and Citizen Journalism

The use of technology in journalism is not new. Over the years, it has greatly
influenced this professional field – reporting, writing, editing, distribution
and consumption of news contents. It is a known fact that in the form of
various technologies, Gutenberg’s printing press, newspapers, radio, televi-
sion, Internet and smartphone have brought revolutions in the field of media
and communication in general, and journalism in particular. Moreover, tech-
nologies have fast-paced this profession, influencing the sociocultural and
business dimensions.
A study by Pavlik (2000) argues that the changing patterns of technol-
ogy do influence the patterns and modus operandi of journalism. Broadly
it includes – working style of journalists, nature of news contents, structure
and function of newsrooms and relationship among the journalists, news
organizations and the public. Internet has brought sea changes in the field of
journalism and transformative impact on journalism is counting on. With the
rise in computation equipment, big data have encroached into every aspect of
life, including the field of journalism. The access to the data has enabled jour-
nalists to make data stories from varied perspectives. Tools like Checkdesk,
Logikcull, Google Media Tools, Storify, Citizen Desk and Twitter Counter
have proved to be a boon for journalists. Checkdesk enables the journalists
to check the false information. Even citizen journalists can exploit this tool
for their journalistic endeavors. They can upload their visual contents – pho-
tos and videos – in Checkdesk for further verifications. Once these are veri-
fied and cleared, these contents can be used in the newsrooms to make news
stories for dissemination to the audience. Since journalists encounter multi-
page documents which might be difficult to comprehend quickly, Logikcull
is the solution. In this situation, Logikcull facilitates journalists to upload
and organize ample number of documents for quick manageability. Google
Media tool makes journalists at ease to gather and report the news stories.
The advanced search functions and analytics enable the journalists to learn
and understand the issues that people are discussing and the issues need to
be reported.
Since these days content in social media is important, Storify is an asset
to journalists. This tool attempts to accumulate various social media sites
in one place. It helps journalists to search the contents required for making
news stories. This tool enables journalists in creating their news contents
via an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface. Also, news-oriented group of
journalists can collaborate, research and create a place in this platform. The
Internet has provided the opportunity for the people to disseminate informa-
tion. However, the information must be validated before posting to the pub-
lic. Citizen Desk provides the functions for the citizen journalists to create
the network of sources and communication is mobilized directly through the
app. Twitter as a platform provides information to journalists to break the
stories. By employing the tool Twitter Counter, journalists can track the cur-
rent happenings. Moreover, this tool is helpful for journalists in comparing
multiple tweets, understanding the suitable time for tweeting, and exploring
the users who interact with your tweets or news contents the most. All these
tools have major implications on newsroom management.
Globally, newsrooms are emphasizing more on specialism (LSE, 2021).
The focus on data and visual storytelling is on the rise. For these more tech-
nological inputs are getting utilized. For instance, The Washington Post’s
news on coronavirus was drawing huge attention. Data journalism is the
top priority with changing patterns and narratives. Technologies have pro-
pelled the newsrooms to find new pathways to explore and discuss the news.
Technologies have also enabled citizens to tell their stories in social media
platforms which are free flow in terms of disseminating information.
Technologies have restrategized the newsrooms for people’s engagement,
especially in the times of Covid-19. Emails and podcasts are restrategized
to build up the engagements with the people. Email is propelling the spirit
of entrepreneurial journalism. Substack, TinyLetter, Lede, Ghost and other
similar platforms are doing well in the time of uncertainties. For instance,
Substack is a digital platform which offers the inputs related to publishing,

payment, analytics, and design to maintain the subscription. This digital plat-
form is being used the journalists, experts and giant media sites. TinyLetter is
a digital platform which is used to send out updates, digests and dispatches
to one’s friends. Simplicity is the bedrock of this platform in which there
are not enough business features. It can be termed as a customized medium
which is primarily used for email marketing services. TinyLetter equips with
basic analytics that cover subscriber counts, open rates, and click-through
rates.
Going beyond, with help from the AI chatbot tool, BBC attempts to
answers the questions on the crisis of coronavirus. The South China Morning
Post is resorting to AI inputs to find out the look-alike audiences for target-
ing its news subscribers. Reuters, the news agency is employing speech-to-
text technology to add time-coded transcripts to the archived videos in 11
languages (Reuters, 2020). Sophi, an AI tool is being used by The Globe
and Mail in Canada on the editorial choices. The amalgamated functions of
combining newer devices and improved connectivity coupled with powerful
technology have pushed the field of journalism to the next level (Newman,
2021). At the same time, the field is facing numerous challenges, especially
in the crisis like Covid-19. Journalism as a business enterprise needs to be
revamped for the sake of transformations ultimately required for effective-
ness of media contents. The pandemic has shown the way for digital culture
which further needs to be changed and rechanged in course of time, need and
demand.
Globally, the emergence of distributed newsrooms has taken advantages
of collaborative online tools which have further enhanced the skills and out-
put of journalists in the field and newsrooms. To engage with the audiences
in the changing environment, newsrooms need to be proactive, especially
in digital platforms. As audiences are volatile and tend to migrate from one
platform to another for the consumption of media contents, there has been
accumulated pressure on media houses and again the expectations of audi-
ence have exponentially increased and counting.
In this context, Beckett (2020) argues that currently new media houses are
undergoing constant shifts. First online media emerged and later social media
ruled the media industries. Now, journalism is getting more distributed and
diverse in terms of how the audiences get their required information. AI and
machine learning technology are going to be the core of the ecosystem of
journalism. journalism in this ever-changing digital era attempts to build
a new way to deliver information. It attempts to connect, engage and fos-
ters interactive modes for its viewers. Audiences are able to raise multiple
perspectives through postings or comments. Multimedia journalism is mak-
ing inroads. News media houses are constantly tapping the power of social
media. Each time a new discourse evolves which is eventually becoming a
thing of the past. The nature of engagement with the audience is getting
defined and redefined. Change is the only constant thing here.
Kramp and Loosen (2018) find that digital technologies have transformed
the newsroom culture in terms of dialogue, moderation and curation of news
contents. However, the revolution of the journalism–audience relationship
remains a complex area. At the same time, the use of technologies has created
a sense of chaos in the field of professional journalism. The spirit of ethi-
cal and moral journalism is getting diluted. Talwar, Dhir, Singh, Virk, and
Salo (2020) confirm that authenticating news before sharing is not always
getting managed as there is a lack of time and cross-verifying the facts. The
digital technologies have influenced activities on the social platforms and the
spread of misinformation and disinformation is getting rampant. The spurt
in computational propaganda is being witnessed with undesirable outcomes.
With the disruption in traditional advertising, the traditional business model
for news production and distribution has been adversely affected with mass
unemployment. It has enhanced the pressure of deadline as the content-com-
missioning, production, distribution and consumption of news contents are
increasingly prioritized.
Precisely, clickbait practices are getting rampant which is ultimately erod-
ing the trust and credibility in professional journalism. Resorting to virality
is at the cost of quality and accuracy. This is not a professional benchmark
in which ethical standards are grossly missing. The uses of multiple technolo-
gies have further worsened the quality and accuracy which are the hallmarks
of standard journalism. In a bid to minimize the level of misinformation,
crackdowns are being carried out, which leads to internet shutdowns, the
blocking of platforms, and censorship. As a result, technologies are indi-
rectly held responsible for undermining and curtailing the press freedom and
freedom of expression rights. Some argue that communication scholars and
practitioners, community media is more powerful than technology-based
mass media. Direct communication is more relevant and matters more than
technology-driven interactive communication. Personal relationship with the
audience is much more important for effective communication. In addition,
technology-based journalism has spilled the beans of information inequali-
ties and public information is at the skewed end which needs to be politically
corrected at the earliest possible.
Citizen journalism has received massive boost with the proliferation
of Internet usages. There has been a rise of user-generated content (UGC)
because of proliferation of users of the Internet. Internet, mobile technology,
YouTube and AI have influenced the level of citizen journalism worldwide.
According to Statista, globally there are 4.66 billion internet users, 4.32
mobile internet users, 4.2 social media users and 4.15 billion mobile social
media users. There are above 3.6 billion people who are involved in social
media globally. This number of users is predicted to touch the mark of 4.41
billion in 2025 (Statista, 2021a).
Facebook remains the most used social media platform across the globe.
As of January 2021, there are 320 million, 190 million and 140 million users
of Facebook in India, United States and Indonesia respectively. There are
about 2740 million total users of this platform (Statista, 2021b). Therefore,
there are ample scopes in which citizens can produce user-generated con-
tent which can potentially fuel citizen journalism. YouTube is the second
largest social media platform in which total users of 2291 million users are
engaged worldwide. As per the data recorded by January 2021, Israel, the
Netherlands and United Arab Emirates have users of 92.7%, 92.5% and
92.1%, respectively, of YouTube penetration. Similarly, WhatsApp is the
third largest social media platform worldwide in which the totals of 2000
million users are engaged in various forms of communication. As of January
2021, the total of number of WhatsApp users in India, Brazil and the United
States are around 390.1 million, 108.4 million, 75.1 million (Dean, 2021).
India is the largest democratic country in the world. WhatsApp, as part of
citizen journalism, is being used for socioeconomic and political participa-
tion in the country. From social activists to politicians, all make attempts to
engage the citizens through this digital platform. However, this medium is
also grossly used for propaganda. WhatsApp is often used as a platform for
news consumption in Brazil. It is used as a tool for business, customer service
and community. Moreover, communities are taking up this digital platform
as a means of citizen journalism to articulate for varied purposes.
There are massive users of social media and the scope of user-generated
content is significantly increasing with each passing day. Mobile messen-
ger apps like WhatsApp, Facebook, Weixin/WeChat, QQ, Snapchat and
Telegram have been immensely contributing to the rise of user-generated
content . Such form of content is the backbone of citizen-driven form of
reporting. As of January 2021, in all global mobile messenger apps, there
are 2000 million, 1300 million, 1223 million, 617 million, 500 million and
498 million users in WhatsApp, Facebook messenger, Weixin/WeChat, QQ,
Telegram and Snapchat respectively. Since its launch in 2009, WhatsApp has
offered users an alternative to SMS and text messages. This digital platform
is available in above 180 countries the world over.
In the year 2021, there were 400 million users of WhatsApp in India, the
largest users of this app worldwide. There are 147 million WhatsApp users in
Brazil in the year 2021. Brazil is the second-largest user of WhatsApp world-
wide. There are 78.6 WhatsApp million users in the United States in 2021 and
is predicted to touch the mark of 85.8 million users in the year 2023 (Statista,
2021c). So far, the United States is the third largest user of WhatsApp world-
wide. Since the users of WhatsApp are significantly rising worldwide, it has
the potential to mobilize citizen journalism. Moreover, in countries like India
and the United States, citizen journalism is going to witness newer explora-
tions and perspectives with the massive usages of WhatsApp.
Started in 2004, Facebook messenger is an accepted social media platform
on mobile apps. It is the second largest Mobile messenger app among social
media platforms worldwide after WhatsApp. It is one of the fastest-growing
social media platforms, giving rise to user-generated content. Since citizens
are resorting to this digital platform, the amount of user-generated content
is on the rise. So far as citizen journalism is concerned, ordinary citizens to

human rights activists are on this social media, covering topics of gender,
environment, education, business and other allied subjects. Developed in
2011, Weixin/WeChat facilitates multipurpose messaging, social media and
also provides the facility of mobile payment app. WeChat is the largest social
media used by the citizens in China. Its users have increased from 633 million
in 2020 to 674.2 million in 2021 (Statista, 2021c). It is the third largest social
media platform among all mobile messenger apps. Since it has growing num-
ber of users, it has the potential to generate huge gamut of user-generated
content which is the lifeline of citizen journalism.
Overall, it is understood that technologies have immensely contributed to
the growth of citizen journalism. With the advent of various technologies,
the barrier between mainstream news and citizen journalism has been low-
ered. However, certain marginalized sections are yet to access the technology
for voicing their issues through citizen journalism. Technologically advanced
citizen journalism is able to create independent media products. In such form
of journalism, the culture of interactive media environment is prioritized.
Citizen journalism driven by mobile technology has created healthy public
sphere for the communities. Mobile technology facilitates democratic trans-
parency during the time of polls in several countries.
Suffice to say, technology has the transformative role in the journalistic
process. Starting from the printing press to artificial intelligence, each and
every technological tool has influenced journalists and journalistic practice.
AItools can empower the future of journalism. Blockchain,metaverse and
ChatGPT are the latest additions to the digital platforms which are going
to be tested in the prism of journalistic practice. Technology has never been
harmful to any form of journalism, rather providing an array of opportuni-
ties to make journalism better with each passing day. Digital journalism is
moving ahead with a fast pace with the changing implications of the technol-
ogies from time to time. In this context, citizen journalism is not exception
to it. However, the use of technologies should enjoy the status of relevance
and pragmatism.
9.4 Modus Operandi and Functioning of Citizen Journalism

Citizen journalism is popular among citizens as this form of journalism
enjoys certain functions and its unique way of modus operandi for the col-
lection, distribution and consumption of news contents. This form of jour-
nalism is participatory in nature and citizens are the core of it (IHS Markit,
2018). It is based on user-generated content (UGC). It is such a platform
which is navigating journalism for social change and development. As this
form of journalism is public oriented, it fuels the spirit of activism among
the citizens. It can give rise to the germination of social movements when
public start reckoning the importance of this formula of executing journal-
ism. It also influences the state of public sphere which is the core of public
discourse. News values and sustainability of such form of participatory jour-

nalism deserves judicious deliberations. This unique form of news gathering
and dissemination also provides the uses and gratifications to the citizens in
umpteen forms.
9.4.1 Creating Participatory Form of Journalism
The basic tenet of citizen journalism is that it enjoys the property of par-
ticipation. Citizens are duly engaged in dialogues which further foster and
sustain the sense of participatory journalism. This collaborative form of jour-
nalism accommodates all sorts of stakeholders in the process of production,
distribution and consumption of media contents. Citizen journalists can add
something to the precious content in order to further bring the plurality of
discourses. This makes journalism more dissimilar and equitable and paves
the way for democratic discourse. As citizen journalism is considerably more
diverse and focuses on equity and democratic discourse, it has situated jour-
nalistic field for an autonomous pole (Lindner & Larson, 2017). Since this
is collaborative journalism in nature, citizen journalists tend to provide an
alternative agenda to the public agenda over the agenda from the mainstream
journalism. Moreover, its democratic discourse leads to a more diverse, equi-
table and rational-critical space which are required for inclusive develop-
ment. This democratic approach to news and journalism calls for radical
societal changes in a given period of time.
So far as the forms of participation are concerned, there are several argu-
ments. The conversation between skilled journalists and citizen journalists
deserves judicious discussions. The citizen journalists are otherwise known
as audiences or amateur news participants who are the core in the process of
journalistic narratives. Participation that allows for reciprocity or other types
of relational exchange between professional and amateur news participants
has been successful over the years. Taking this discussion forward, it is an
open fact that citizens and participatory journalism play an important aspect
in news media environment.
Participatory journalism is positioned as the highest form of engagement.
Nowadays, news organizations have started looking forward to this form
of engagement or a behavior. Moreover, it is also influencing the narratives
on democratic discourse. Citizen journalism is popularly centered on diverse
democratic discourse. It has resituated the journalistic field for an autono-
mous pole because of its very nature of equity and citizen participation. There
is no doubt that artificial intelligence will be going to mobilize and boost the
functions and impact of such form of journalism. The coverage and implica-
tions might be more visible and captive than mainstream journalism in the
prism of public interests. However, since AI-driven collaborative journalism
may not create a conducive and situate journalism for an autonomous pole.
AI-driven journalism may dilute the very properties of equity and democratic
discourse. The properties of equity and democratic discourse of journalism
drives the society for social change and development. However, AI-mobilized
collaborative journalism may not fetch the autonomous journalistic pole
which usually paves the way for participatory communication and citizen-
centric communication.
9.4.2 Creating User-Generated Content

User-generated content (UGC) remains the mainstay of citizen journalism.
Tubman (2018, p. 9) asserts, UGC comprises the
“content from non-news sources such as blogs, forums, comments sec-

tions to social media video and images, in this paper, UGC will be
defined as eyewitness media, newsworthy images, animated image and
audio captured via smartphone, published via social media by a non-
professional journalist and used by a news organization.”
The excessive penetration of mobile phones and growth of domestic broad-

band have immensely brought the environment of UGC for audiences
(Wardle & Williams, 2010). UGC could be in the form of feedback, tips-offs
and eyewitness footage. Now, news has become a collective social experience
as citizens tend to exchange and share the links of information. It is a known
fact that the aim of journalism is to inform society (Harcup, 2022). In a con-
temporary world, both the journalists and the citizens involved with UGC
need to be aligned for the greater interest of society.
There have been discussions over the increasing use of UGC in newsrooms.
The benefits of UGC are the accessibility to contents, audience engagements
and empowerment and democratization of contents. Such content has fueled
the users’ empowerment and democratization of public journalism. In the age
of fake news and misinformation, it works proficiently in empowering the
citizens and communities. Over the years, UGC has enabled and enhanced
the trust between citizens and journalists for recalibrating the journalistic
process; encouraging diverse sources and stories; broadening the reach of the
newsroom; and reinforcing the reputation of mainstream media outlets and
citizen journalists.
Studies reveal that UGC has the influence on the dissemination of news to
the audience. Broersma and Graham (2013) underline that a tweet, a form
of UGC, is used by journalists in their news articles. The dynamics of social
media and UGC have transformed the nature and culture of breaking news.
Also, social media and UGC have continuously pressurizing the editors what
to prioritize and report for the production, distribution and consumption of
news contents for the audience. Now breaking news is no more the monopoly
of television news channels. These days, journalists with media houses are
heavily relying on views and perspectives of citizens through various social
media platforms. Media houses cannot pay the price of ignoring the public
stand on any given issue.
Democratizing journalism is a major aspect of citizen journalism. UGC

has made inroads in democratizing journalism which further carved out a
niche for inclusive news environment. It has further provided ample amount
of space for smartphones and social media app taking part in the process of
production and distribution of news. This UGC-driven participatory jour-
nalism is horizontal in structure whereas traditional form of newsroom is
adhered to the vertical approach to information distribution and top-down
in nature of functioning. Even though UGC creates value additions to the
production and distribution of news, it needs check and balance. The posi-
tive facets of gatekeeping in the light of using UGC in newsroom gains para-
mount importance and deliberations.
News organizations are still engaged in filtering and aggregating UGC for
the valuable dissemination of news contents to its audience. In the context
of maintaining the quality while incorporating UGC, Singer (2010, p. 128)
asserts,
“if there are no gates, there is no need for anyone to tend them, unless
the notion of gatekeeping, and therefore the value of the role, is recon-
ceptualized as being less about story selection and more about news
judgment, norms and practices such as verification to determine the
merit of what is disseminated. In this newsroom-centric view, everyone
can be a publisher, but not everyone can be a journalist.”
Suffice to say, UGC fosters and legitimizes the news contents through partici-
patory form of journalism. The form of journalism is useful for communities
and sometimes assists the practicing journalists in the newsroom. Tubman
(2018, p. 3) has rightly mentioned,
“while engaging with UGC is treated on a case-by-case basis, there

are common best practices shared amongst experts and journalists.
Ultimately, a newsroom that successfully engages UGC will build com-
munity trust, which in turn could encourage audience members to share
their content.”
There is a requirement to frame certain credible standards to protect social

sources, reputation and trust in the space of journalism.
9.4.3 Bringing Social Change and Development
Participatory communication is essential for social change and development.

However, the spirit and space of such type of communication is usually
scarce in mainstream media outlets. It does not mean that the mainstream
media, which is driven for profit, do not foster social change and develop-
ment. However, the pace of such social change and developmental activities
is slow. Therefore, over the years alternative media like citizen journalism
has gained importance for accommodating participatory communication

which is instrumental for social change, empowerment and development.
Since citizen journalism is community-oriented, it paves the way for social
change and development. Schaffer (2007, p. 2) argues,
“[citizen media] have watchdogged local government, provided news

that couldn’t otherwise be had, nudged local media to improve, helped
their community solve problems, even, to a degree, increased voter
turnout, and the number of candidates running for office.”
The benefit of citizen journalism cannot be best tapped in an isolated man-

ner. CJ tends to add values to the mainstream for the sake of diversity and
unique perspectives (Domingo et al., 2008). Citizen journalists contribute
to mobilizing and shaping up public opinion by creating hyperlocal con-
tents. The hyperlocal contents tend to connect among the communities
(Livingstone & Markham, 2008). Higher participation among communities
results in deeper engagement with the media and local issues. Even some-
times, CJ reinforces the mainstream to cover the news stories for the inter-
ests of the civil society.
Certain instances reveal the efficacy of citizen journalism. Citizens were
reached out first to cover and report on the Wenchuan earthquake and
Wenzhou train crash (Shao & Wang, 2017). Citizen journalism for social
change remains an alternative or counter-hegemonic community initiatives.
However, the voice of the marginalized groups through alternative platforms
like citizen journalism is not always felt. The established mainstream media
outlets continue to dominate and misrepresent the voice of the downtrod-
den sections of the society. These media organizations do not accommodate
the voice of the classes which have been suffering from socioeconomic and
political inequality. The plurality of voices does not seem to be in lined with
the contents and policies of media organizations. This flaw with the mainline
media outlets remains a blot when discussion on the coverage on the interests
of the poorest of the poor comes to the fore. At the same time, establishing
and nurturing citizen journalism will eventually situate plurality in an egali-
tarian frame of news media settings.
It is true that marginalized sections resort to platforms like citizen-driven
journalism to place their physical and discursive struggles in order to alle-
viate societal barriers. Marginalized sections can take on the state of their
exclusion in order to make their presence. They are keen to ventilate their
physical and discursive struggles to mitigate the societal barriers. Breaking
the barriers is essential and prerequisite for bringing social change and devel-
opment. Citizen journalism attempts to bring inclusive development in the
process of empowering the marginalized groups. Moreover, community-led
journalism intends to create and develop the identity of these journalists who
tend to contest for their space and rights in the domain of social change,
development, participation and empowerment.
9.4.4 Intensifying Activism and Social Movements
Citizen journalism has been essentially ingrained with the sense and sanctity
of activism. Laced with activism, such form of journalism provides voice to
the voiceless. This format of communication is globally persistent, giving
thrust to the public interest. Egypt can be cited where blogging could draw
the attention of the public on various issues. The mainstream media was
callous in covering the issues (Radsch, 2016). However, with the power of
citizen journalism and activism, the state’s monopoly on information could
have been mitigated to certain extent. The power of collaborative journalism
has started influencing the public policy and governance.
Citizen journalism, otherwise known for its public interest, gives rise to
activism, resulting in numerous social movements. There is no doubt that
social movements lead to social change and development. The origin and
development of such form of journalism in South Korea can be deliberated in
the light of activism and democratic process of information. This public-ori-
ented form of journalism gained a foothold at the end of the 1990s and later
intensified the social movement. Subsequently, this germinated the large scale
of protests which grossly influenced the political system and the mass media.
The South Korean social movement remained an interesting case globally
as it was a classic event in the history of development of citizen journalism
(Kern & Nam, 2009). The alterations in mass media, educational structure
and social movement molded sociocultural environment which was condu-
cive for the emergence of citizen journalism.
Similarly, Syria has a glorious history in terms of showcasing the power
of citizen journalism. It is hard to ignore the activists-journalists whose voice
seems prominent in Syria. Since 2011, the conflict has claimed several lives
and displaced numerous families. International media tend to rely on citizen
journalists to know what is happening in Syria. As Syria became restricted
for international correspondents’ entry, international media heavily relied
on citizen journalists for the information. They keep on showing the world
Syria’s reality, without changing facts and truth (AI Shimale, 2017). Hadi
Al-Abdallah, Khaled Khatib, Lina Shamy and Malek Tarboush are the few
names who are actively involved in citizen journalism in Syria for their cred-
ible works. Hadi Al-Abdallah has won Reporters Without Borders Press
Freedom Award. Worked on the Syria Civil Defence, Khaled Khatib has cov-
ered on the horrors of the war. Lina Shamy has been the voice of the civilians.
Malek Tarboush has reported Syria especially on the aftermath of an attack
and conditions of victims.
The argument over conceivability, capacity, reliability and acceptability of
citizen journalism for stimulating activism keeps on hovering due to laxity
in professional standards (Mutsvairo & Salgado, 2020). However, in repres-
sive societies, citizen journalism has essentially been instrumental for creating
and intensifying activism among the citizen for varied reasons from time to
time. Often there are debates on objective journalism and activism. Ideally,
journalists are the storytellers and skilled in objective reporting. An objec-

tive reporting reinforces the call for action. Sometimes, journalistic narratives
provide fodder to the sense of activism. Sometimes also when journalism
comes to an end, activism commences. When it comes to citizen journalism,
it is a form of journalism and activism. It has brought a sense of activism for
digital democracy. Digital democracy not only empowers the space of jour-
nalism but also the civil society and governance.
Social movements are being influenced by innovations. It is apparent that
innovations are the cores for attaining development and ushering in social
movements. The emergence and growth of such form of journalism have been
always followed by huge protest or campaigns. The origination and develop-
ment of citizen journalism leads to the commencement of new program, a
range of new action, newly formed establishments and addition of new social
groups. Moreover, it has redefined and produced fundamental changes in the
order of media and communication. It also attempts to destabilize political
systems and power structures. Since this nature of communication is driven
by public interests, it fuels the spirit of activism and social movements. Such
form of communication is appropriate for social change and development.
9.4.5 Artificial Intelligence Enhancing Uses and Gratifications
Each and every media content attempts to provide certain amount of uses
and gratification to its audiences. The approach of uses and gratifications
looks into the reasons behind using media contents. This approach tends to
probe the fundamental reasons behind why people consume media contents.
This perspective largely covers the functions which media tend to serve in
audience’s lives. Audience seeks out the media contents to satisfy their per-
sonal uses and gratifications. This perspective also reveals that the selection
of media facilitates to comprehend “the relationship between the attributes
of the media (real or perceived) and the social and psychological functions
which they serve” (Katz, Blumler, & Gurevitch, 1974, p. 20).
In the context of citizen journalism and consumers’ media consumption,
Lin (2014) finds that gratifications are being derived from consuming citizen
journalism news. However, there is a relationship among gratifications, atti-
tude and intention of media consumers to read and comprehend citizen jour-
nalism news. Out of all dimensions of gratifications, making a vigil for local
knowledge, relaxation and entertainment has become more prominent. More
specifically, Singer (2001) points out that the users have strong surveillance
desires for local news and entertainment. Consequently, media consumers
tend to seek out the contents published in citizen journalism platforms. It is
apparent that citizen journalists are keen to focus and publish on local issues
concerning their nearby communities.
Uses and gratification theory posits that audience use media technologies
to increase their level of gratification (Katz, Blumler & Gurevitch, 1973).
Moreover, media technologies tend to gratify their specific requirements (Dhir,
Khalil, Lonka, & Tsai, 2017). The use of media technologies could be to meet
social and psychological needs (Dhir, Chen, & Nieminen, 2016), accessing or
to sharing information among their followers or peers (Troise & Camilleri,
2020), purchasing goods and commodities (Talwar, Dhir, Kaur, & Mäntymäki,
2020), entertaining purposes (Dhir & Torsheim, 2016), building relationships
or seeking affection (Malik, Dhir, & Nieminen, 2016), instant messaging on
blogging (Hollenbaugh, 2011) and creating user generated contents (Herrero
& San Martín, 2017). One recent study reveals that individuals have derived
uses and gratifications from online streaming technologies (Camilleri &
Falzon, 2020). Social media utilization has further fostered bonding and bridg-
ing social capital (Raji, Arikewuyo, Oladimeji Adeyemi, & Pahore, 2020).
The understanding and perspectives of uses and gratification is linked with
media technologies including artificial intelligence. AI as a media technology
has its own uses and gratification. This technological tool has boosted citi-
zen journalism in creating user-generated content (UGC). AI is being used in
social media platforms and has enhanced the level of gratification among the
audience. Citizen journalists have derived certain amount of gratification by
using AI tools in creating UGC. The UGC could be in the field of building
relationships or seeking affection, shopping, instant messaging and satisfying
social and psychological needs. Understanding the applications of AI tools in
the space of citizen journalism has allowed us to expand the uses and gratifi-
cation theory of media.
9.4.6 Emergence of a New Form of Public Sphere
Whenever there are discussions on citizen journalism and its unique way
of functioning, the deliberations on public sphere come to the fore. Jürgen
Habermas (1962/1991, p. 52) states the public sphere as a “society engaged
in critical public debate”. Habermas states that inclusive, reasonable, and
civil deliberative discussions are prerequisite conditions to form and sustain
any democratic society. The formation of public opinion is also essential for
creating public sphere. All citizens ought to have access to everything and
anything. His understanding and definition are believed to be the formation
of public opinion and the formal acceptance of state and democracy in the
post-war Western societies.
Public sphere is understood from various dimensions in which public
opinion is formed. Citizens tend to congregate to articulate their opinions.
The space of public sphere has dignified space in state affairs and practicing
its political affairs. When we try to build up the relationship between citizen
journalism and public sphere, it is often commented that citizen journalism
has the potential for bringing a democratized public sphere. It seems the con-
nection between these two can be termed as hyperbolic and romantic. In this
context, Goode (2009, p. 1290) asserts, “there remains a tendency to invoke
a modernist, heroic narrative in which individual citizens … become flag
bearers of a nascent ‘fifth estate’”.
The role independent journalism in generating the discourse of public

sphere is immense. Online platforms encouraging independent journalism
are mobilizing citizen journalism. This has enabled the citizens to decon-
struct and take an active part in traditional and newer forms of news media
(Antony & Thomas, 2010). With the immense technological power of the
Internet, citizen journalism is a fertile ground for independent media which
can potentially compete with the corporate media. Such sense of optimism
can be realized with gathering of authentic resources, creating credibility,
and ultimately finding audiences.
Going beyond, the platforms like blogs and video-sharing system have
facilitated the citizens in setting their agenda (Livingstone, 1999). With the
new form of journalism, citizen journalists have attempted to subvert the
traditional from agenda-setting. Usually, the public agenda of media is set
and controlled by media owners. Media ownership patterns have always
control over public agenda which is driven interest of certain class of peo-
ple. However, citizen journalism has deconstructed the political economy
of journalism. The basic filters – ownership, advertising, sourcing, flak and
anti-communism and fear – in the propaganda model of communication has
been somewhat affected the form of public agenda.
The participatory form of journalism which is unlike corporate mass media
has changed and reoriented modus operandi of functioning the media. Public
agenda of media and subsequently the public sphere have been demystified in
course of time. However, it is a known fact that as citizen journalism grapple
with the issues of inherent subjectivity, it has opened up the doors to delib-
erate on role of affectivity in journalistic functions which largely cover in
deliberative and mediated spaces. Carpenter, Nah, and Chung (2015) claim
that with the advent of professionalism, public sphere in citizen journalism
has been reduced.
While deliberating the essentialities and conditioning for public sphere,
Habermas (1989) postulates that early states of capitalism has fueled the
atmosphere of bourgeois public sphere. This has resulted in the rise of pri-
vate property and largely influenced the literary space and other public enti-
ties. Post the mid-1800s, public sphere was controlled by an expanded state
and later taken over by corporate entities. Later, the space for ideal state of
public sphere has gone haywire. Moreover, it has induced the space of com-
modification of media and the public agenda of media being manufactured.
Therefore, this climate persists, the presence of citizen journalism in bour-
geois public sphere will be a sign of hope for public interest. Such form of
journalism has challenged bourgeois public sphere and attempted to usher in
an idea state of public sphere.
The origin, nature and growth of public sphere are based on varied dimen-
sions including media. Media, news and public attention are parts of public
sphere (Nah & Chung, 2020). Citizen journalism as an instrument tends to
overcome the shortcomings which are prevailing in traditional mass commu-
nication process and in the public sphere as well. Citizen journalism practice
with news production is creating an amicable sphere for collaborative jour-

nalism and collaborative public sphere as well. If such form of collaborative
journalism gets strengthened and continue to influence the citizens in the
form of production, distribution and consumption of news, a new form of
collaborative public sphere will emerge. This form of collaborative public
sphere will attempt to minimize the influence of corporate media on the lives
of citizens and the extent of corporate public sphere can be lessened.
9.4.7 Re-assessing News Values
Understanding and assessing news values remains an important and debata-

ble aspect in journalistic narratives. Johan Galtung and Mari Holmboe Ruge
(1965) were the first to introduce news values. Michael and Kayode (2014,
p. 15) define news values as the “factors that every experienced reporter or
editor considers, consciously or unconsciously, in deciding what to include in
a story or in newspaper or newscast. They are qualities of news but they do
not directly define news itself”. Further, Ryan (1991, p. 31) claims, “there is
no end to the lists of news criteria”.
News values are not common in nature and can be changed in varied cul-
tural settings. Certain studies reveal that news values activate more audience
responses. As a result, audience tend to share news on the platforms of on
social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter (Araujo & van der Meer,
2018). Moreover, García-Perdomo, Salaverría, Brown, and Harlow (2018)
claim that human interest, conflict, and controversy news values appear to be
the trigger news values which influence the users of Facebook and Twitter to
share news in social media forums. Social media like Facebook and Twitter
are the sources of creating user-generated content (UGC) and are connected
to citizen journalism. The UGC has failed to comply with the elements of
truth, commitment, ethics, and social responsibility which remain the essence
of traditional journalism (Kang, 2016). On the other hand, it is argued that
equipped with UGC, citizen-driven forms of journalism have given rise to
professional journalism which poses ceaseless threat to the value system of
traditional journalistic norms. However, citizen journalists can hone and
augment their credibility. It is apparent that there have been mixed responses
to this alternative platform of journalism.
In terms of journalistic objectivity as a professional practice, usually citi-
zen journalism is positioned as subjective and contextual. It functions dif-
ferently in diverse political and cultural settings. Waisbord (2013, p. 214)
argues that professional and traditional journalism is still safe and value-
loaded because citizen journalism is “not a collective, organized action by
groups who want to secede from journalism or want to capture practices
and privileges that journalism controls”. However, Muhlmann (2008) main-
tains that citizen journalism can be a source to resist the dominating force of
objectivity in traditional journalism and makes sincere efforts to decenter the
readers rather than unite them. Citizen journalism is taking up independent
journalism to the next level. All these perspectives directly or indirectly point
out news values which are the core of any ethical journalism.
Ryan claims that there is no limit to the criteria of news values. Since arti-
ficial intelligence is the latest addition in the field of journalism, it remains a
complex situation in understanding and assessing news values. In his book
Automating the News: How Algorithms are Rewriting the Media, Diakopoulos
(2019) argues that AI is a medium by which journalists can resort to ethical
values through various code of conducts they execute. However, maintaining
news values and ethical values in course of using AI in newsrooms has become
a tough task. Andrea L. Guzman argues, “AI poses particular challenges for
media and communication scholars, requiring them to cross disciplinary,
technological, and theoretical boundaries that have defined the field for dec-
ades” (Broussard et al., 2019, p. 2). Similarly, Shilton (2018) comments that
technologies including AI embeds and encodes human values and understand
the data for further use. AI employs algorithms and attempts to serve human
means and ends. However, this technological tool remains political and is
exuding the values. This purely signals the journalists and media outlets to
be totally aware of and execute their professional ability and values in the
newsrooms. If there are lapses and any further delay occurs, noneditorial and
non-journalistic entities will foray into the newsrooms and will encroach edi-
torial space. Consequently, professional journalistic standards will be diluted
and the compass of media laws and ethics will go haywire.
AI can do wonders in the field of journalism. However, it may lessen the
volume of jobs and journalistic identity in the long run. At the same time,
it has its own advantages like renewing journalism by taking over repeti-
tive and time-consuming tasks. French economist Michel Volle quotes, “The
good and the evil lie in the intention, not in the tool” (Dierickx, 2021).
The editorial values should not be dealt in an isolated manner rather they
should be integrated with AI technologies. Similarly, since AI is a platform
for journalistic delivery, AI should be operated within the ambit of journal-
istic values.
9.5 Literature on Citizen Journalism and AI: A Revisit

Since citizen journalism is an interest of many, the topic has been probed in
various dimensions. Some of the credible studies are – technological changes
in journalism (Lindner & Larson, 2017), radio for citizen journalism (Geller,
2012), mobile telephony and citizen engagement (Tettey, 2017), citizen engage-
ment (Chen et al., 2020), social movements (Pain, 2018), participatory jour-
nalism (Abbott, 2017), political agency (Korson, 2015), democratization
of mainstream media (Nduhura & Prieler, 2017), transformation of news
(Mythen, 2010), gatekeeping (Ali & Fahmy, 2013), policymaking process (Luo
& Harrison, 2019), photojournalism (Allan, 2013), professional journalism
(Lindner, Connell, & Meyer, 2015), user-generated content (Zeng et al., 2019),
rural region (Biswal, 2019) and public sphere (Antony & Thomas, 2010).
When it comes to the use of artificial intelligence in the domain of citizen

journalism, there is a dearth of scientific studies. On the topic of citizen jour-
nalism and artificial intelligence, some of the allied studies and perspective
write-ups are – content creation (International Telecommunication Union,
2021), software robots into journalism (Jung, Song, Kim, Im, & Oh, 2017),
citizen journalists with AI (Analytics Insight, 2021), citizen journalism fake
news and artificial journalism (Herk & Grogan, 2019), augmenting the citi-
zen journalists and the newsroom (Beckett, 2019), citizen news editors and
AI (Subramaniam, 2019), citizen journalism, fake news and AI (Staar, 2018)
and AI and user-generated contents (Sony, 2021). However, there is a dearth
of scientific studies on citizen journalism from the perspective of artificial
intelligence.
9.6 Artificial Intelligence Tools in Citizen Journalism

The tools that newsrooms can use to aggregate, contextualize, verify, and
license user-generated content (UGC) are provided by transformative tech-
nologies. The most important of these are AI and machine learning; these
developments will make it possible to fully automate the creation of meta-
data for content, creating scalable and effective digital libraries for use in
news production. The efficiency and precision of the verification process will
both increase thanks to these technologies' image recognition capabilities. At
first, human evaluation will be crucial. However, over a period of time, the
emphasis will shift toward automation. In this context, Beckett (2019, p. 32)
argues that the motto of using AI is to
“augment the user-citizen, journalist, and the newsroom. And to create

feedback loops that help us understand our users, content and our jour-
nalistic actions and the world around us in relation to each other. We
aim to provide a more direct, meaningful, and engaging experiences in
our main services. We aim to empower journalists in their news report-
ing and storytelling. And we want to create new methods and tools to
better understand ourselves and the world around us.”
Newsrooms are required to recognize the connection between AI and infor-

mation ecosystem through the lens of citizen-driven journalism. The exploi-
tation of AI has enabled the UGC harmonized in modern news workflows.
AI and UGC: Harmony in modern news workflows. AI can be instrumental
for UGC in terms of aggregation, verification, production, licensing and stor-
age of news. It helps in terms of automation, integration and acceleration the
UGC for the production, distribution of news contents.
The advent of smartphones with recording, camera and cheaper and larger
space available on it as well as on cloud, have become an inherent digital
tool of everyday life for almost everyone in the world. The phones are avail-
able with several application tools such as WhatsApp, Facebook messenger,
WeChat, QQ, Telegram, Snapchat, YouTube, etc., are to mention a few.

There are several such platforms are being available on the smart phones.
These platforms are helping people come together, share the messages in
the form of text, images, videos, etc. making everyone interested aware of
views and news. The power of this sharing is currently being exploited by
most of the news agencies across the world. The trend is on rise especially
during and after the pandemic in 2020. This way citizen journalism is trend-
ing all over the world. This is helping in quick receiving as well as updating
the news websites dynamically. Moreover, in case of disasters and emergen-
cies, the authorities can also be kept informed. In several ways the above-
discussed tools such as WhatsApp, Facebook messenger, WeChat, QQ,
Telegram, Snapchat, YouTube, etc. are beneficial if used ethically; however,
any unwarranted use by spreading fake messages, images, videos, news, etc.
knowingly or unknowingly may be disastrous and may bring huge chaos.
This was experienced by most of the social media users as well as common
people.
There are certain measures being adopted by such tools; however, as of
today, most of them are curative than preventive. The Spanish organization
named Maldita have built up a WhatsApp chatbot which helps in checking
the facts before they can be forwarded to the open social platform apart
from the closed groups. The chatbot keeps collecting fake news, photos, vid-
eos, messages from online crawlers as well as from different users. The data-
base or knowledgebase keeps generating dynamically. Once any of the users
sends certain news, photos, videos or messages, the chatbot verifies with the
database. If it is already verified fake/real, the proof is sent to the user. If
unverified, it is sent to the journalist for review. This way such chatbots are
becoming quite useful in stopping the fake news, messages, photos, videos,
etc. being spread in the WhatsApp groups. One of the examples, is the spread
of COVID positive certificate of a Spanish politician during a television
debate. The message was successfully blocked by this chatbot from being
spread over and disrupt the debate. In the hours’ time, it was proven that the
certificate was fake. There are several such cases of fake news blocked by the
chatbots (Maldita.es, n.d.).
The Netherlands-based newzer founded by Karim Maassen in 2017 built
the mechanism of giving power of news production to the news creators
rather than publishing houses. This is built using AI and Blockchain (Merten,
2018). This mechanism basically empowers the prosumers, building trust-
worthy content with a little space for sensation, emotions we well as wrong
information. It may help in building quality over a period of time. This may
in fact help in taking the right and correct news to the audience/reader. Such
tools built on the wisdom of crowd removes the advertising aspect from the
news content and gives power to the prosumers which essentially is the first
user-generated news agency.
As mentioned earlier fake news detection or avoidance is quite important.
The TotalStories is a social network (Analytics Insight, 2021) founded by
Diego Estevez in 2016 democratizes the production of news. It enables the

journalists and the people who experienced the news to share their experi-
ences and then using certain AI and Machine Learning (ML) tools classifies
it to reduce the bias and increase accuracy. TotalStories is a social network
that aims to democratize the production of news, by giving citizen journal-
ists and the people who experienced the events first-hand the tools to share
their experiences automatically and easily, and then use AI to classify them
and determine a quality index representing how unbiased and accurate they
are. The general benchmarks for the classification are tone, concept, ideas,
countries, etc. The users are informed about the news based on their geo-
graphical location, interests. The statistics of the news and other relevant
factors responsible for classification are also provided to the reader making it
more important to them. TotalStories shows a very innovative application of
AI, proving that it could successfully be used throughout the entire cycle of
news publishing: from the writing of the article to when the readers consume
it. Such a degree of automatization seems to have successfully built a bridge
between the citizens who experience facts and the consumers, in a trustwor-
thy and efficient manner.
The data in terms of news, images, videos, messages, etc. are highly mul-
timodal and required to be considered as big data as such data are and will
be characterized by being generated in big volume in very less amount of
time. Moreover, checking and establishing the value and veracity are major
challenges before the processing of the data. With the increase in number of
cell phones, increase in data storage, reducing the cost will flood the data
flow. As people from all age strata may share news, videos, messages, etc.
the storage of the data will be a challenge. The big data processing tools are
still in their inception stage requiring research and development in academia
and industry view point. The cloud computing along with edge computing
are the possible solutions. With the emergence of the concept of Explainable
AI the complexity in the field will increase; however, trustworthiness, quality
and integrity will be on the rise. The Explainable AI will certainly be helpful
in rationalizing the news and the conclusion as well as excerpt of the entire
news and events. Furthermore, the laws and regulations for the AI-based
news are required to be constituted to reduce the danger of biasness, fixing
the responsibility and enhance the trustworthiness.
For the users, it provides a much more improved way of reading news,
automatically getting summaries and analysis specifically determining how
valuable the articles are while offering a suite of statistics showing how the
report could be biased and what the writer is trying to convey. Given that
the pieces of writing are automatically analyzed for many tacit elements
such as sentiment, concepts, places, and ideas, it allows the system to clas-
sify the articles into very specific categories. From these, they could later be
recommended and shared to users that the algorithm predicted they should
know about. On the other hand, for writers, it automatizes the process
of sharing news while enriching those with related stories, events, people,
and topics. Simultaneously, it provides a standard of quality from which to

improve the reports (given that they receive a quality index), which incen-
tivizes writers to provide the platform with direct links to sources and evi-
dence. Writers also get a reputation index based on their articles, which
then becomes an unbiased way of ranking and comparing newspapers by
“trustworthiness”.
Citizen journalism is a journey from passion to possibility. Technologies have
envisioned and accommodated the future roadmap for citizen journalism,
participatory journalism and emancipatory communication. The participa-
tory media technologies have permitted the creation, distribution and distri-
bution of user-generated content to invade traditional notion of mainstream
media. Use of technologies in general and artificial intelligence including the
new tool ChatGPT in particular has the potential implications to create and
enhance various forms of citizen journalism. AI tools have innovative avenues
of reportage for the interests of the communities, paving the way for partici-
patory journalism which further leads to inclusive journalism and inclusive
development. However, affordability, digitally literacy and experimentation
with AI for citizen journalism are the challenging factors. Ethical issues and
machine changing the man in the newsrooms are the lurking threat to the
mainstream media and citizen journalism as well. However, AI is going to
reconceptualize the notion of citizen journalism. We cannot ignore technolo-
gies like AI which is coming in a big way and going to influence every aspect
of our lives. Technological interventions have become inevitable. However,
since citizen journalism is an alternative platform of journalism which pays
attention to alternative thought, ambition and aspiration of common citi-
zens, judicious employment of AI tools is to be discussed. Mere use of tech-
nological tools is not going to boost any professional entities including this
alternative podium to journalism.
Citizen journalists can be sensitized to both positive and negative
dimensions of AI in course of usages. Citizen journalism through AI can
reconceptualize the public sphere in which the common citizens and margin-
alized communities can initiate, foster and sustain participatory journalism.
Collaborative journalism has already disrupted the traditional form of jour-
nalism and is going to reorganize the economy of production, distribution
and consumption of news media in a great pace in the future. Eventually, the
organizational population dynamics and technological innovations of news
organizations, exogeneous political events, and endogenic disruptions in the
media ecology will shape up the course of citizen journalism over a period of
time. The topics of dichotomy pertaining to gender, geography and nature
of citizens pertaining to citizen journalism and AI will be the next level of
discourse that the world of journalism and technology cannot afford to evade
them.
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10 Deliberating Artificial Intelligence in the
Prism of Citizen Journalism
Comparative Perspectives and Competing
Explanations
10.1 Introduction
The presence of mainstream media does influence the citizens and shape up
their thoughts and decisions. Over all the years, mainstream media is often
treated as large news conglomerates which is often accused of media biasness
and disseminating homogenization of viewpoints to the citizens. This has
originated the notion and practice citizen journalism, which remains citizen-
centric in nature. However, citizen journalism is also not free from short-
comings. However, the factors like increasing number of internet users and
shifting stands on political dissent and participation have reoriented the idea
and execution of citizen journalism (Mutsvairo & Salgado, 2020). Moreover,
with the advent of artificial intelligence, the process of citizen journalism –
production, distribution and consumption of news contents – is going to
be influenced. Since citizen journalism and artificial intelligence (AI) are not
isolated entities, the use of AI tools in the process of citizen journalism has
invited debates in academic and industry fraternities. Each of the processes
of communication – sender, medium, message and receiver – through this
alternative form of journalism requires judicious debates. Few of the topics
like audience engagement, journalistic identity, developmental and participa-
tory journalism, public sphere, gatekeeping, digital divide, gender perspec-
tives and newer technological upgradations including metaverse, blockchain,
nonfungible tokens (NFTs), computer-generated imagery (CGI), immersive
technologies and ChatGPT deserve a revisit.
10.2 Citizen Journalism, Artificial Intelligence and Changing Perspectives

The perspectives are constructed and deconstructed on the use of artificial
intelligence tools in the field of citizen journalism. Since AI has been newly
introduced in the newsrooms in several parts of the world, it is getting tested
on the anvil of journalistic spirit and public interests. Varied perspectives
– gratification approach; new journalistic identity; digital humanism; social
imaginary and sociotechnical imaginaries; journalistic dimensions in social
media; transformations in newsrooms; democratization of media contents;
participatory journalism; surveillance of public interest; marginalized and
DOI: 10.4324/9781032716879-10
Artificial Intelligence in the Prism of Citizen Journalism 211
inclusive journalism; social change, empowerment and development; news

values; gatekeeping and quality control; social marketing and business per-
spectives; freedom of expression and dissent; public sphere; digital divide;
technological dissonance; misinformation, disinformation, fake news and
infowars; gender perspectives; advent of other newer communication tech-
nologies like metaverse, blockchain, nonfungible tokens (NFTs), computer-
generated imagery (CGI), immersive technologies and ChatGPT; and agenda
and politics need to be deliberated on citizen journalism in the light of tech-
nological implications in general and artificial intelligence in particular.
10.2.1 ChatGPT, Citizen Journalism and Emerging Perspectives
Institutionalized journalism is far behind citizen journalism in time. The

development of citizen journalism has been aided by the media landscape's
decline. Audiences are increasingly resorting to social media platforms and
alternative news sources as networks merge and local newsrooms close or are
acquired by major corporations. The public's mistrust of mainstream media
has also increased as a result of media consolidation. Mainstream media,
driven by profit and interests, ignores local news coverage that is important
to diverse and underserved communities (Medium, 2023).
Technology's quick development has had a big impact on journalism,
changing how news is reported and accessed. The rise of grassroots report-
ing and citizen journalism in recent years, in which common people attempt
to play the role of journalists to report news and share information with the
public, is one of the most notable developments. This phenomenon has been
aided by the growth of smartphones and social media platforms, which have
made it simpler for people to gather and share news in real time.
The emergence of ChatGPT, offers encouraging potential inputs in enhanc-
ing the caliber and scope of grassroots reporting as we continue to inves-
tigate new avenues for empowering citizen journalism. The introduction of
ChatGPT provides exciting potential for improving the caliber and scope of
citizen journalism. ChatGPT has been trained on a sizable amount of text
data, allowing it to produce responses to text inputs that resemble those of a
human. The potential of this cutting-edge technology has already been shown
in a number of applications, including email drafting, writing code, respond-
ing to questions, and even producing poetry. As this AI tool can support in
addressing some of the major issues faced by nonprofessional journalists, its
influence on citizen journalism and grassroots reporting is becoming apparent.
Lack of formal training in journalism, which can lead to the dissemina-
tion of false or biased information, is one of the main challenges that one
citizen journalist faces. By acting as an effective fact-checking tool, ChatGPT
can lessen this particular problem. This AI tool can help citizen journalists
to check the accuracy of their reports and make sure they follow the rules
of ethical journalism by giving them instant access to a wealth of knowl-
edge. This not only strengthens the reliability of citizen journalism but also
212 Artificial Intelligence in the Prism of Citizen Journalism
c ontributes to the domain of news industry to the fight against the spread of
false information.
ChatGPT is acting as a writing assistant which is able to understand and
maintain clarity and coherence of citizen journalists' thoughts and ideas.
This AI tool is extremely helpful to citizen journalists who are weak in
language. The tool can be used to summarize lengthy articles or reports,
allowing citizen journalists to present complex information in a clear and
understandable manner. ChatGPT can assist citizen journalists in reaching
out to a larger audience and enhancing the impact of their reporting by
providing an effective way to summarize the facts and figures. The AI model
can be instrumental in fostering multilingual citizen journalism. In a view
to translate news articles and reports and enable local reporting to be con-
sumed by a global audience, ChatGPT can be trained to comprehend and
produce text in a variety of languages. As a result, the gap between vari-
ous communities can be minimized and can provide the ways for inclusive
media environment. This technological intervention can lead to more inter-
active and participatory journalism. The future of news industry seems to
be more democratic, diverse, and inclusive than ever before with the growth
of citizen journalism, equipped with ChatGPT. The incorporation of tools
like ChatGPT with the hand of grassroots journalists can be crucial in deter-
mining the future of news reporting and information dissemination as we
continue to witness the transformative impact of technology on the media
landscape.
By sharing their perspectives, experiences, and insights with a global audi-
ence through ChatGPT, citizen journalists can place a distinctive and valu-
able perspective on current affairs. Sometimes gatekeepers in newsrooms are
not professional in spirit. Overcoming the layers of information gatekeepers
is ChatGPT's advantage. Any citizen can tell his/her story using ChatGPT,
regardless of background or the level of experience. The AI tool can be suc-
cessful in enabling more complex and varied news reporting.
10.2.2 Artificial Intelligence, Journalism and Uses and Gratification

Approach
The uses and gratification remain a vital approach for media uses. Audience
uses media technologies to augment the level of gratifications (Katz, Blumler,
& Gurevitch, 1973). In the context of using communication technologies, AI
may enhance the level of uses and gratification level of audience, but could
be restricted to the users who have the accessibility and knowledge of using
them. Again, this may happen if the technological acceptance occurs for any
sort of technologies including AI. A study reveals that online users employ
online media tools to access information or to share it among peers or fol-
lowers (Troise & Camilleri, 2020). However, as AI is believed to be a com-
plicated matter in terms of uses for the time being, citizen journalists might
not be proficient enough to create a good number of user-generated content
(UGC) of relevance. As a result, the very purpose of UGC and participatory

journalism will come to an end. Since AI is a new phenomenon, the level of
uses and gratification what CJ through AI tools will provide, will be a matter
of question. Gratifications derived from CJ coupled with AI tools will be a
core of debates.
Audiences expect and demand their news to be delivered to them in real
time because they live in an era where instant gratification has become a
standard norm. In social media platforms, news spreads quickly and there is
a presence of citizen journalists. However, there is a need for accurate and
high-caliber reporting. This is where ChatGPT comes in as a tool to enhance
journalism and news. ChatGPT can facilitate quick and effective fact-check-
ing and research for the citizen journalists. This is what this AI tool can bring
varied uses and gratification for citizen journalists.
10.2.3 Artificial Intelligence, Social Marketing and Business Perspectives
The future of AI in journalism looks relevant, yet it is getting complex. Apart

from journalism, it has forayed into other facets like marketing strategies and
customer behaviors. Charlie Beckett (2019) maintains,
“The future impact of AI is uncertain but it has the potential for wide-
ranging and profound influence on how journalism is made and con-
sumed. AI can free up journalists to work on creating better journalism
at a time when the news industry is fighting for economic sustainability
and for public trust and relevance. It can also help the public to cope
with a world of news overload and misinformation and to connect
them in a convenient way to credible content that is relevant, useful
and stimulating for their lives.”
Davenport, Guha, Grewal, and Bressgott (2020) argue that since artificial
intelligence has started influencing marketing strategies and customer behav-
iors, citizen journalism can be a part of start-ups and social entrepreneurship.
Social marketing, nonprofit ventures and community-driven initiatives can
be fostered and sustained.
10.2.4 Technology, Artificial Intelligence and New Journalistic Identity
Citizen journalism has contributed immensely to the field of journalism.

Citizen journalism builds citizens’ self-constructed journalistic identity which
remains an essential factor for attaining a sense of empowerment (Staples,
1990). However, since citizen journalists are not able to create effective UGC
for the communities, the level and importance of empowerment will start
declining. It is a proven fact that technology including AI in the field of citizen
journalism is a boon for fostering and sustaining empowerment. However,
if UGC by communities through AI tools are not public-oriented and vis-
ible, then the sense of empowerment will become momentary. Moreover, the
impact of technology as a tool of development, emancipation and empow-

erment will go haywire. It will reduce to mere idealism and the sense of
pragmatism will be grossly missing. This needs to be checked in the prism of
journalistic spirit and social development.
Citizen journalists are equipped with the skills to alter the process of
changing the patterns of journalism by creating values in the process of pro-
duction, distribution and consumption of media contents. Such kind of jour-
nalists at the margins tend to report and take on the status of socio-economic
exclusion. In addition, this alternative platform of journalism attempts to
bestow an identity to all the citizen journalists. Citizen journalists tend to
contest for their space in the domain of journalism.
Since citizen journalism attempts to bring inclusive development through
inclusive journalism in the process of empowering marginalized groups,
value additions from AI tools to this alternative platform of journalism
could be beneficial to the citizens. As a result, citizen journalists will be
able to break the barriers and it will create identities for the communities.
This nature of journalists needs to have accessible and adaptable technol-
ogy in overcoming the level of fear and social isolation. Eventually in course
of time, journalists will provide voice on behalf of public and they will be
turned into public voice. AI inputs could be considered as emancipatory tools
for social change by challenging the inherent fundamental flaws in foster-
ing and sustaining participatory practices. AI-driven alternative journalism
can play pivotal roles like checking and exposing corruption, encouraging
accountability, maintaining the documents on/against the mechanism which
misuses the power and fosters alternative views and discourses on local,
national and international current affairs. Further, the advent of ChatGPT
has fueled Personalization of news contents which has a larger space in
citizen journalism. As ChatGPT enables the creation of personalized news
content, audience may expect a more customized news experience, driving
news organizations to innovate and adapt to these changing preferences.
Since citizen journalism is an alternative form of journalism, this AI tool has
immense contribution in creating a new journalistic identity in the space of
news industry.
10.2.5 Technology, Artificial Intelligence and Digital Humanism
The use of technologies including artificial intelligence in citizen journalism

has brought the discourse on digital journalism. Digital humanism is the
amalgamation and juncture of computing and the disciplines of the humani-
ties. Burdick, Drucker, Lunenfeld, Presner, and Schnapp (2012, p. 112) assert
digital humanities as,
“new ways of doing scholarship that involve collaborative, transdisci-

plinary, and computationally engaged research, teaching, and publish-
ing. It brings digital tools and methods to the study of the humanities
with the recognition that the printed word is no longer the main medium
for knowledge production and distribution.”
Understanding digital humanism covering the aspects of AI in the space of

citizen journalism is an important area which needs further exploration. The
production and distribution of collaborative, transdisciplinary, and compu-
tationally engaged studies in the domain of citizen journalism remain scarce.
Therefore, the presence of digital humanitarianism who support research and
relief efforts through online work also remain thin when it comes to the uti-
lization of AI for boosting citizen journalism. Crisis mapping is an essential
means of digital humanitarianism. The research gap between the use of AI
in citizen journalism and theory-building can be bridged through the conver-
gence of digital humanitarianism and crisis news. In this context, academic
enquiries have to be initiated and sustained.
By introducing a new form of writing that makes use of AI, ChatGPT
is transforming the digital humanities. For AI-driven writing in the digital
humanities, ChatGPT represents a new frontier. A new era of writing pow-
ered by AI is a new beginning. Thanks to the digital humanities. The new
AI-based writing platform ChatGPT is setting a new standard. A team of
University of Washington researchers created ChatGPT, a natural language
processing system that can produce writing that resembles that of a human.
By assisting citizen journalists with automating the journalistic process,
ChatGPT can be used by the digital humanities to free up the citizen journal-
ists to concentrate on other aspects of their work. This AI tool has redefined
digital humanism in the space of citizen journalism.
10.2.6 Artificial Intelligence, Social Imaginary and Sociotechnical Imaginaries
Like the internet-mediated environment (Squire, 2021), AI mediated envi-

ronment needs to be discussed and analyzed. Since the implications of AI
tools in the domain of citizen journalism belong to a new domain, the dimen-
sions of AI-mediated environment, institutionalization of AI and social
imaginary of citizen journalism driven by AI deserve to be probed. There
is no doubt that imaginaries influence citizen journalism governing digital
technologies in general and artificial intelligence in particular. However,
the narratives on AI from industry perspectives – AI is inevitable for eve-
rything in sociotechnical institution – has become a dominant imaginary.
By investigating this dimension further, theoretical dimensions of social
imaginary and sociotechnical imaginaries can be explored and broadened.
Further, such deliberations can attempt to bridge the gaps between what
citizen journalism is performing for the people and what it should perform
for the people. As a result, the practical aspects of citizen journalism for
empowerment by artificial intelligence can be significantly enhanced for the
greater cause of the citizens. Such contribution of AI in the direction of
citizen journalism can contribute in the area of social imaginary and socio-
technical imaginaries.
10.2.7 Journalistic Dimension of Technology, Artificial Intelligence and Social

Media
The power of communication technologies is immense in creating various

forms of citizen journalism. Over the years, users are engrossed with social
media platforms and the presence of users in social media is on the rise.
Facebook is considered as the most used social media platform across the
globe. As per the data, there are 320 million in India, 190 million users in
the United States and 140 million users in Indonesia. There are around 2,740
million total users of this platform (Statista, 2021a). Therefore, there are a
plethora of opportunities in which citizens can create user-generated contents
which can pave the way for citizen journalism.
YouTube is the second largest social media platform across the globe.
This social media platform has accommodated 2291 million users world-
wide. The penetration of YouTube in Israel, The Netherlands and United
Arab Emirates has touched the mark of 92.7%, 92.5% and 92.1% respec-
tively (Statista, 2021b). WhatsApp is the third largest social media platform
worldwide in which total of 2,000 million users are associated in numer-
ous forms of communication. As per the latest data by January 2021 on
WhatsApp usages, India, Brazil and the United States have the 390.1 million,
108.4 million and 75.1 million users, respectively (Statista, 2021b). Since
Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApps are grossly used by citizens across the
globe, these platforms could be fertile forums for citizen journalists who can
create user-generated content on varied aspects of life. In this context, the
scope for utilizing AI tools has become widespread. However, the issue of
digital divide exists across the nations. Moreover, unfortunately these social
media platforms are also grossly used for propaganda and are misleading the
citizens in a ceaseless manner.
It is apparent that mobile technology, a form of communication technol-
ogy has strengthened the essence of citizen journalism by creating UGC on a
number of issues. Even to some extent, mainstream media attempts to engage
the citizens to some extent (Carpenter, 2010). Though crowdsourcing strat-
egy is not a new approach, but citizen journalism hugely endorses it. AI can
be mobilized in order to boost the spirit of crowdsourcing in terms of owner-
ship for the creation and distribution of contents. This further enhances the
levels of participation among the aspiring citizen journalists. This heralds in
new opportunities for plurality among citizens for journalism. This is a possi-
ble effort which can situate the plurality in an egalitarian frame which further
attempts to understand and dissolves the issues of the public through UGC.
10.2.8 Artificial Intelligence, User-Generated Content and Transformations

in Newsrooms
Over the years, newsrooms across the globe have been subjected to all
kinds of transformations. Even though citizen journalism is often termed an
alternative path to mainstream journalism, such nature of journalism has the

power and efficacy to transform both the civic and newsroom functionaries.
It has not only unraveled numerous debates between the professional versus
amateur journalism but also the role of citizenship within the spectrum of
citizen journalism (Campbell, 2014). Technology has the power to influence
the journalists in the newsrooms and the news disseminated from the news-
rooms is impactful on the audience. Technology has the ability to influence
citizenship within citizen journalism. However, skepticism still rules how AI,
as a part of technological input, influence citizenship within the gamut of
citizen journalism. Embracing digital technologies requires sincere attention.
Citizen journalism is equipped with various modus operandi in voicing
out for the marginalized. In this context, Campbell and Scott (2011, p. 277)
have rightly enunciated that citizen journalism
“seeks to encourage members of excluded groups into dialogue about

their health amongst themselves, as well as giving them a voice in
public debates about how to tackle obstacles to their well-being, and
involving them in efforts to challenge and renegotiate the way they are
represented.”
The issue of conceivability, capacity, reliability, and acceptability of citi-

zen journalists can be managed by technological interventions like AI. The
exchange of knowledge and interaction can be possible when a journalist is
capable of and afford the technological connectivity.
Needless to say, Facebook remains a platform of numerous conversa-
tions including the collections and sharing of news on lifestyle, interests and
behavior patterns by various communities. The impact of Facebook Artificial
Intelligence is immense. There is no end to innovation. Banerjee (2021) finds
that Facebook has started imparting trainings to its AI algorithms to criti-
cally understand the videos available on its platform. Ultimately, it attempts
to enhance the logistics and analytics to recommend or distribute the videos
among the users of Facebook. This is an attempt to enhance the engagement
of users with social media. Since the presence of several citizen journalists are
in there in Facebook, AI is directly or indirectly and knowingly or unknow-
ingly encouraging the level of engagement. As a result, participatory com-
munication through user-generated content has been significantly increased.
Hence, the required interventions from AI for this alternative platform of
journalism is a matter of discussion and intervention.
10.2.9 Artificial Intelligence and Democratization of Media Contents
The benefits of user-generated content (UGC) are the access to contents,

audience engagement and empowerment and democratization of media con-
tents. However, these benefits emanated from UGC may not be derived with
the incorporation of AI tools with UGC. Empowering citizens and commu-

nities help in maintaining the trust and belief of the audience. It leads to
community engagement which further expands the reach of the newsroom,
and strengthens the credibility of media contents. Democratizing journalism
creates the stage for UGC and makes the news environment inclusive. To
achieve this, technologies like AI may not have the solution. All we know
that so far, the use of AI tools for producing and distributing media contents
are in the hands of corporate media houses.
The handling of AI has been largely politically and economically driven
and is often termed as hegemonic in nature. However, including the citizens
in the process of producing, distributing and consuming news through UGC,
is argued to be
a powerful way to spread journalistic values, train residents on report-

ing processes and foster user generated content that is more useful for
newsrooms. Newsrooms are well positioned to become participatory
journalism laboratories, helping more people navigate, verify and cre-
ate powerful stories online and via social media.
(Tubman, 2018, p.16)
Nevertheless, with AI tools coming in the process of UGC, democratization

process in journalism will be a question mark. As it is a known fact that
for a meaningful and cohesive contribution for attainment of democracy,
the bottom-up approach to journalism is imperative. However, AI-driven
journalism may not accommodate a bottom-up model of conversation and
journalistic narratives which remain fundamental rudiments in citizen jour-
nalism. Nevertheless, ChatGPT may be the light which could mobilize citizen
journalism.
10.2.10 Technology, Artificial Intelligence and Participatory Journalism
With the arrival of AI in citizen journalism, the democratic worth of citizen

journalism and the deregulation of the media landscape have been getting
recognized. Greater access of media contents to citizens is getting accom-
plished. Community voices in news stories are becoming more apparent.
Greater community ownership of the news story is becoming possible and it
has given rise to the competition between citizen journalism and the elites of
state and commercial news media. Moreover, the technological inputs from
AI in citizen journalism have extended the scope of experiments with more
participatory tactics to journalistic creations.
It is found that professionalism has the domination of certain elite citi-
zens in the space of public sphere in citizen journalism (Carpenter, Nah, &
Chung, 2015). As AI involves skills and costly affairs, public sphere in the
space of citizens is going to be dominated by a special section of citizens.
As a result, with the introduction of AI, participatory form of journalism or

citizen journalism may get diluted in course of time and eventually, its real
position and cause may meet the dead end. You may blame shoddy profes-
sionalism to the core or the use of AI in citizen journalism without consider-
ing the requirement, context and relevance. This may destroy and minimize
the essence or beauty of this unique state of journalism which originally
aims to provide the voice to the voiceless. Further, this may jeopardize the
essence of activism and cause of disadvantaged sections who fundamentally
attempt to resort to the form of citizen journalism for a noble cause. At the
same time, eventually the corporate or business interests will take over the
noble cause and this unique form of journalism for public interest will go
haywire.
When news driven by AI is professionalized, citizens will become acquisi-
tive individuals instead of engaged citizens. Carey (1995, p. 254) argues that
such a tendency will alter the “notion of citizens of a common polity who
participate in a common political tradition [became] increasingly difficult to
imagine”. In addition, Carey (1995, pp. 249–250) states, “Ultimately this
view creates a passive role for the public in the theater of politics. The public
is an observer of the press rather than “participators in the government of
our affairs and the dialogue of democracy”. The adherence of profession-
alism needs to be duly customized. Participatory journalism and audience
engagement need to be factored in while considering the use of AI tools for
creating citizen journalism of public values.
The nature and face of citizen journalism is subject to change. Participatory
journalism through citizen journalism is becoming possible as newsrooms
continue to experiment with how they collaborate with their audiences and
communities. It is, essentially, a process of sharing power in the production
of content. A new era of potential transformation of journalism and media
content is being ushered in by AI tools (Pavlik, 2023). Citizen journalists can
resort to AI tools like ChatGPT which may generate text responses based on
its knowledge that it has gathered through machine learning through interac-
tion with the internet. ChatGPT can assist citizen journalists in the creation,
revision, and approval of their own narratives.
10.2.11 Technology, Artificial Intelligence and Surveillance of Public

Interest
With use of the technologies including AI, a plethora of concepts tend to con-
test with each other. Out of many, there have been contests and deliberations
on surveillance and sousveillance. To Mann, Nolan and Wellman (2003, p.
2) surveillance refers to
“organizations observing people. One way to challenge and problema-

tize both surveillance and acquiescence to it is to resituate these tech-
nologies of control on individuals, offering panoptic technologies to
help them observe those in authority. We call this inverse panopticon

“sousveillance.”
Sousveillance is like from the state being watched to watching. Zeng, Jain,
Nguyen, and Allan (2019) claim that with the sousveillance comes in, citizens
are able to track the functions of authorities. As one citizen journalist has
rightly spoken to the Atlantic, “The cultural significance of flesh searches is
this: In an undemocratic country, the people have limited means to get infor-
mation. Information about [the activities of] public power is not transparent
and operates in a black box, [but] citizens can get access to information
through the internet, exposing lies and the truth. It is a kind of asymmetrical
means of protest, and in some ways has had good effects” (Light, n.d.).
When AI tools are used with the hand of citizen journalists, sousveil-
lance will be stringent and they will be executing monitoring activities on
the administering mechanism or authorities to check the malpractices like
corruption, dilly-dallying of authorities and police ruthlessness. There is no
doubt that AI tools will enhance the watching culture of citizen journalists.
However, citizen journalists who track and procure the data for fair govern-
ance in the process of surveillance need to be proactive in understanding and
executing various technologies including AI tools.
10.2.12 Technology, Artificial Intelligence and Inclusive Journalism
Commodification of journalism has become a rising concern across the globe.

News has turned into goods which are used for the cause of competition and
best distribution among the audience (Palo, 2019). The use of technologies is
making journalism more in the form of goods. There is a slight distrust that
technologies have elevated humans from heavy, hazardous or monotonous
deeds to a better position. However, it has developed the commodification of
human work. With the arrival of AI tools in citizen journalism, there could
be commodification of human labor with unwanted dehumanizing penalties
and outcomes. AI may further intensify the commodification of news con-
tents. When AI is to be employed in citizen journalism, the involvement of
investing financial and trained human resources is the larger talking points.
If this happens, the participation of citizen journalists at the margins will be
downsized. With the commodification of journalism, the citizens who are
on the alternative platforms of journalism will eventually negotiate with the
levels of participation which will go against the nerve of citizen journalism.
It is known that this alternative forum of journalism brings the voice of the
marginalized groups. It attempts to mainstream their voice and somewhat
raises the concerns for their due human rights. Since the mainstream media
does not pay minimum heed to their voice, the marginalized sections tend to
resort to alternative platforms like citizen journalism. This form of journal-
ism can be treated as a connecting dot between the citizens and the admin-
istrating authority. With the advent of AI, citizen journalism can be better
to cope with the articulations of HAVE-NOTs. The user-generated content

(UGC) has the potential advantages which can signal social change for devel-
opment and can catch the attention of civil society. Even it can bring the
attention of newsrooms of mainstream media for the interests of the poorest
of the poor. However, since the use of AI demand certain skills sets and cer-
tain amount of cost attached, the efficacy of AI to make the UGC for bring-
ing social change and development may not be feasible. Again, the use of AI
can be only possible in the newsrooms of mainstream media settings or with
the hands of elite individuals. If this happens, AI cannot be a tool for social
change, empowerment, social development and inclusive development. This
will again enhance the gap between ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE-HAVES
and ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE -HAVE NOTS, causing socioeconomic
discontent and disparity. Whiling dealing with the AI tools for citizen jour-
nalism, the cause for the voice of the marginalized and inclusive journalism
can be attained.
10.2.13 Artificial Intelligence, Social Change, Empowerment and

Development
To Deuze (2009, p. 257), citizen journalism
“is not about people interacting and collaborating with each other
through news organizations (or brands), nor about citizens interacting
or cocreating with journalists. It is about citizens engaging in peer-to-
peer relationships with each other, independent of—and perhaps most
often in direct opposition to the mainstream news industry.”
Citizen journalism can be a potential catalyst for social change and develop-
ment. However, when AI comes into play, there is a doubt that the citizens
may not retain the property of alternative counter-hegemonic or community-
driven initiatives. Community may not afford to subscribe or execute the AI
tools proficiently for social change and community development to happen.
Once a community is unable to handle its own, individuals or elite media
organizations may take over the alternative platform of communication and
later very nature counter-hegemonic or community-driven initiatives of citi-
zen journalism will face its decay soon.
Several instances reveal that technology has played vital roles in lowering
the barriers among the marginalized to participate in the process of pro-
duction, distribution and consumption of news. Vicente and Lopez (2010)
confirm that with help from technology, citizen journalism has mitigated the
barriers between the elite and the marginalized. However, in reality it is often
found that the marginalized sections have disproportionate access to commu-
nication technologies. In a similar fashion, AI can be instrumental in bridging
the gap between information rich and information poor by creating user-
generated content (UGC). On the contrary, AI may not be a suitable factor
to mitigate the barrier between the information rich and information poor
and information equality cannot be attained. It may only add to the plights
of the marginalized sections of society, causing the vicious circle of poverty
and deprivation.
Jönsson and Örnebring (2011 p. 141) argue that user-generated content
“represents both an empowerment of citizens and an ‘interactive illusion’”.
Citizen journalism though UGC can empower the citizens or it remains an
interactive platform without any positive impact on community or society.
When it comes to the incorporation of AI to create UGC, the result could
by anything – positive or nonimpact on the citizens or communities. On the
other hand, opposite to citizen journalism, mainstream media have wider
reach and are being controlled in many respects. The contents in such type of
media structure are not community-oriented. These are driven by profit and
corporate interests so far as the political economy of media is concerned. In
this context, Jönsson and Örnebring (2011, p. 141) also assert “the paradox
being that it is difficult to achieve empowerment within the institutional and
organizational logic of mainstream media”. In these paradoxical narratives,
the use of AI for empowerment of the marginalized classes by voicing the
voiceless looks an illusion and needs to be revisited in the prism of social
change, development and empowerment.
The internet, one form of communication technology, has the power to
foster and sustain the process of citizen journalism. It is a tool of empower-
ment and social change and intensifies such type of journalism by creating
UGC . In this context, Luo and Harrison (2019, p. 1) claims,
“The Internet has changed the way people obtain and interact with
news and information about government policy, in part, because the
public no longer needs to rely on newspapers or television programs
for these purposes. People access news and express their opinions on
the Internet, especially through social media. Beyond traditional news
media, such as television programs and print newspapers, many people
gather news from social media such as Facebook and Twitter.”
Tang and Sampson (2012) find that social movement organizations across
the globe resort to the power of the internet to influence traditional media.
Studies claim that Chinese netizens are able to mold the perennial news
agenda through discussion on digital forums. Statista (2021c) reveals that
there are 4.66 billion active internet users, 4.32 active mobile internet users,
4.2 active social media users and 4.15 billion active mobile social media
users. According to the latest data by January 2021 in all global mobile mes-
senger apps, there are 2000 million users in WhatsApp, 1300 million users
in Facebook messenger, 1223 million users in Weixin/WeChat, 617 million
users in QQ, 500 million users in Telegram and 498 million users in Snapchat.
All these apps are internet-enabled platforms which have immense scopes for
citizen journalists to create huge amount of UGC on multiple subjects. The
subjects or interests concerning the citizens can be amply addressed. Since
artificial intelligence has substantial functions in these digital platforms, AI

can influence citizen journalism to a great extent.
The fundamental claim made by citizen journalism is to realize equita-
ble and inclusive democratic deliberations (Gillmor, 2004) which are largely
absent in profit-motivated mainstream media houses. The basic premise to
take on industrial journalism will be under carpet once citizen journalism
resorts to AI. The problems of AI will remain like the introduction of new
technologies in newsrooms. Resorting to AI tools in alternative platforms
of journalism will eventually go for collaborations with elite individuals or
mainstream media. Consequently, these mainstream media outlets will take
over these alternative media platforms in due course of time. As a result, the
very nature of anti-industrial journalism and democratic form of journalistic
content production will be diluted. Subsequently, there could be the decay of
citizen journalism in a real sense.
Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have started employing
AI-driven tools like ChatGPT to improve collaboration, communication, and
impact in their work as technology advances. By utilizing ChatGPT, NGOs
can improve operational efficiency, engage with stakeholders more success-
fully, and ultimately lead to social change, empowerment and development.
NGOs can benefit from ChatGPT. It can improve grassroots movements for
social change and communication, collaboration, and impact. Since some
citizen journalists are social activists and involve in numerous activisms,
ChatGPT can act a tool for social change, empowerment and development.
10.2.14 Artificial Intelligence, Social Media and Credibility
Citizen journalists are often positioned as far from reality. They are often
accused of carrying only diverse and contradictory attitudes towards main-
stream journalism. Their voice is termed as distortion of facts due to the
personal biasness. In fact, this is subjected to recurring debates. If this holds
true or this is partially proven, the use of AI tools for the enterprise and ven-
ture of citizen journalism will doubly detrimental as AI will be engaged in
algorithms pertaining to the data and perspectives available in the domain of
citizen journalism itself. AI is not going to fetch something new or interesting
out of the datasets available.
Luo and Harrison (2019) find that sometimes citizen journalists are ama-
teurs in behavior. Consequently, these journalists who are in the social media
platforms are not taken seriously for their journalistic endeavors. Again
Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are the bigger players in social media and
have their own dynamics in terms of operations, audience participation and
audience retentions. Here, the participation is not purely democratic as the
political economy of these social media forums is corporate-driven, not to
empower the citizens for the collaborative approach for the production, dis-
tribution and consumption of news contents. However, Miller (2010) argues
that social media like Twitter users can be dynamic in the process of creating
news which facilitates the citizen journalists to report the events with a
greater pace and with much freedom. With the AI tools, citizen journalists
on the social media platforms may be professional or amateurish, depending
on the nature of events or it could be the individuals’ position and interests.
Moreover, their credibility matters with the incorporation of AI with citizen
journalism.
ChatGPT is a potent AI tool that can assist social media platforms in
fostering varied narratives and conversations. It can produce natural, fas-
cinating, and interesting conversations. Moreover, it is possible to design
conversations based on the preferences and interests of the users. There are
several citizen journalists who are active on social media platforms. Social
media users should be aware of the potential risks associated with this tech-
nology even though it has the potential to revolutionize how humans interact
with AI. The use of ChatGPT in social media platforms can be tested on the
anvil of credibility. ChatGPT often produces responses that are inappropri-
ate for public consumption. Further, spreading false information is a pos-
sibility with ChatGPT. As the AI picks up knowledge from user interactions,
it may produce false information that could spread to other users. Moreover,
this AI tool allows for the impersonation of other users.
10.2.15 Artificial Intelligence, Gatekeeping and Quality Control
Endorsing the idea of gatekeeping in user-generated content (UGC), Singer

(2010, p. 128) has already claimed,
“if there are no gates, there is no need for anyone to tend them, unless
the notion of gatekeeping, and therefore the value of the role, is recon-
ceptualized as being less about story selection and more about news
judgment, norms and practices such as verification to determine the
merit of what is disseminated. In this newsroom-centric view, everyone
can be a publisher, but not everyone can be a journalist.”
When AI comes into play, there are more chances that citizen journalists will
be better weaponized with the skills to create UGC for journalistic activities.
However, the threat of poor and unverified news content can be disseminated
to the audience. So, UGC coupled with AI interventions should undergo
strict gatekeeping to keep the contents purposeful and the real participation
of citizen in journalistic activities can be mobilized and retained. However,
how the creation and engagement of UGC along with AI inputs can be inte-
grated into the news process remains a herculean task. It is a known fact that
in today’s digital world, the utility of UGC is not a niche function in a main-
stream newsroom, but have been influencing the practice of mainstream jour-
nalism. The UGC and AI ought to be clearly aligned with the principles and
ethics of newsroom management. In this context, both practicing journalists
and citizen journalists ought to be aware of the above perspectives pertaining

to UGC and AI tools.
10.2.16 Artificial Intelligence, Freedom of Expression and Dissent
Citizen journalism enhances the level of freedom of expression and articu-

lates the facts and information which might not be well-functioned in main-
stream media. It has brought a revolution in the sphere of information. With
the advent of various technologies including AI, citizen journalism has been
fueled to newer heights. With AI tools, citizens are able to disseminate the
information on people, events and even mishaps in no time. Moreover, the
dissemination of information is getting faster and citizen journalists are con-
nected to other citizen journalists and the rest of the world crossing beyond
the geographical borders. However, the accessibility of AI tools remains
restricted to citizens. Like AI, blockchain attempts to provide several inputs
for the profession of journalism to improve in its activities.
In this context, Peter Ng (2018) quotes, “The core of Civil’s journalism
protocol is built upon smart contracts written for the Ethereum blockchain.
These contracts provide interfaces to access the token curated registry, news-
room data and other components of the marketplace.” Again, blockchain
is also not free from the critics. David Gerard, writer of the book Attack of
the 50-foot Blockchain: Bitcoin, Blockchain, Ethereum & Smart Contracts,
argues that blockchain “is basically an add-only, tamper-free log – widely
used when it has a use case. Blockchain is a weird package of promises of
great things happening” (Erkkilä, 2019, p. 17).
Freedom of expression and dissent are the functions that an ideal media
outlet possesses to the core. These need to be fostered and provided to its
citizens. Even media outlets also need to enjoy the freedom to articulate
any issue for the sake of public interests. However, there have been shifts
in raising dissent and trending of opinion on social media (Morales, 2020).
Dissenting public or engaged citizens on online forums remains a political
participation and duty of media organizations. However, sometimes dissent
on online forums are turning into hate speech and fake news which jeop-
ardize the very essence and functions of journalism. It remains a systematic
blight that all the governments across the globe are striving to curb it.
Matamoros-Fernández and Farkas (2021) highlight that the issue of rac-
ism on social media is a complex matter and is being perpetuated in social
media contents. Citizen journalism, as an alternative forum to mainstream
media, accommodates numerous forms of digital dissent. Whatever the inten-
tions, politicians across the countries are banking on user-generated content
(UGC) on social media platforms. However, hate speech and fake news are
being endorsed in the name of freedom of expression, dissent and political
participation. The difference between dissent and hate speech needs to be
strictly demarcated and it should not create any chaos in the newsrooms.
In addition, dissent and hate speech should not confuse the minds of citizen
journalists.
In this context, the role of AI tools is a boon in terms of its elementary
functions. Digital dissent needs to be identified with the help of AI tools.
Citizen journalism platforms ought to be free from derogatory remarks.
Otherwise, AI in these alternative forums will only pick and multiply the
vulgar and hate speech through its algorithm mechanism, causing social
and political discontent. AI ought to filter and disseminate the UGC which
will pave the way for democratic freedom and ventilate democratic dis-
sent. Moreover, citizen journalism driven by public interests, is not to cre-
ate confusion or chaos in the society. Precisely, citizen journalists need to
understand that freedom of expression and dissent are the bedrock of a
democratic society.
Citizen journalists are engaged in human rights acts like the right to pri-
vacy and freedom of expression. Technological tools like ChatGPT can boost
the voice of the voiceless. Citizen journalists can amplify their voices and
support a more diverse and inclusive media outlet by utilizing the content
generation tools like ChatGPT. However, the users’ personal information
must be protected when interacting with chatbots like ChatGPT because they
are designed to mimic human conversation. By using ChatGPT, citizen jour-
nalists can communicate with one another and find information. However,
the chatbot could be abused to spread false information or endorse bigotry.
Chatbots like ChatGPT have the potential to completely change the way
citizen journalists communicate with one another. Hence, citizen journalists
need to use these technologies responsibly.
10.2.17 Technology, Artificial Intelligence and Public Sphere

Habermas (1989) has rightly pointed out that early modern capitalism has
created the climate for bourgeois public sphere where only the elite participate
in public conversations for varied structural transformations. As a result, the
discussions pertaining to the interests of the marginalized remained under the
carpet. However, with the advent of citizen journalism which is collaborative
in nature, has paved the way for a collective public sphere. Several alternative
platforms including citizen journalism could meet the aspirations of citizens
at the margin through public discourse and public sphere.
Nah and Chung (2020) confirm that with the very nature of collaboration,
citizen journalism is being practiced by the marginalized and democratic con-
sequences are being endorsed. Since technology is being used for the mobi-
lization and upgradation of this journalistic platform, the role of AI tools
can foster and sustain a collaborative public sphere. Since AI is based on
algorithm mechanism, collaborative public sphere through CJ will multiply
for certain collective causes. AI will fuel the presence of blogs, video-sharing
and other forms of participatory publishing which will further boost the level
of collaborative public sphere.
Habermas (1989) argues that inclusive, equitable, and civil deliberative

discourse remain fundamental to any democratic structure of a society. An
ideal public sphere attempts to bring all sorts of people and to engage them in
rational–critical discourse which is an essential part of a healthy civil society.
Habermas brings the discourse on weak and strong public sphere. A weak
public sphere is topdown whereas a strong public sphere is bottom-up in
approach. Public journalism or citizen journalism resorts to the strong public
sphere where rationally motivated conversation, or deliberation is encour-
aged to attain the state of democratic decision-making and solve the prob-
lems of the public. Also, Habermas mentions about refeudalization of power
in which public sphere seems an illusion. However, the internet as public
sphere has further propelled the situation which has pushed the individuals
and groups with numerous differences for the public discourse with a bend
of a collective action.
Like the internet, AI could be a boon which can motivate individuals
and groups with numerous differences to move for a collective action and
ultimately an inclusive, equitable, and civil deliberative discourse can be
attained. However, AI-driven citizen journalism needs to engage the citizens
in a rational–critical discourse in which a healthy civil society can be reim-
agined. Refeudalization of power needs to be kept at bay in order to place
and maintain the ideal form of public sphere through AI-driven journalism.
The technological potential and influence of the internet have created a
new media sphere (Beers, 2006). Like the internet, AI may extend the public
sphere to a great extent as it could be a fertile ground for independent media
entities. AI-driven CJ might create a new media sphere that can increase the
level of participatory journalism and also undermine the increasing influence
of mainstream media. However, establishing the credibility and finding the
audiences from time to time will be a challenge forever.
Citizen journalists from varied social classes are engaged with the varied
nature of social media platforms and this has created a new network soci-
ety (Shirky, 2011). Since technological innovations including the advent of
ChatGPT have implications on the functioning of social media outlets, the
very nature of public sphere has changed. Citizen journalists with help from
ChatGPT have deliberated on numerous public affairs and subsequently
formed public opinion. This AI tool has redefined the state of public sphere.
Public sphere often turns to transnational public sphere which is usually less-
controlled and opens avenues for broader democratic participation.
10.2.18 Technology, Artificial Intelligence and Digital Divide
The use of AI tools for citizen journalism will create space for digital divide
as all CJs won’t be able to employ AI in creating user-generated content for
various reasons. Usually, digital divide occurs if there is a gap between peo-
ple and communities in terms of accessing information and communication
technologies. Such type of digital divide results in inequality (Bryson, 2019)
in the domain of socioeconomic, education and demographic inequality

which are also undesirable for citizen journalism advocating for the crea-
tion of UGC. When it comes to employing AI tools for citizen journalism,
it can boost CJ in terms of reaching out to the communities. More amount
of UGC can be generated for the purpose of participatory communication.
However, this might not be possible as access and usage illiteracy could be
the barriers.
Broussard et al. (2019, p. 10) have rightly asserted, “Understanding where
AI fits into the larger cultural and historical arc of automation, therefore,
requires the study of technologies typically outside the purview of commu-
nication, including those of industrial automation”. In this context, citizen
journalism driven by AI inputs can attempt to build a newer relationship
between the news flow and the public. The news needs to be produced,
distributed and consumed keeping the people in mind. It is believed that
tools like AR, drones, voice, image and text generation, and wearables will
empower citizen journalism platforms.
Big data have forayed into every aspect of human lives. The profession
of journalism is no exception to it. Data journalism is on the rise with the
increasing use of media technologies. Tools like Checkdesk, Logikcull, Google
Media Tools, Storify, Citizen Desk and Twitter Counter have influence on
the citizens available on digital platforms (Rampton, 2015). For example,
with the help of Citizen Desk, citizen journalists can verify the information.
Moreover, they can develop networks with other users and can communicate
with them directly through this platform. By using Twitter Counter, citizen
journalists can track the tweets and enhance the level of engagement with
the users. When one finds that the information is ready on Twitter, Twitter
Counter tends to compare several tweets and facilitates the exact time for
tweeting and ultimately used for effective engagement with the users. With
the help of certain tools, citizen journalists can do wonders and they can
enhance the level of participation. However, if these tools are functional with
AI tools only, then ordinary citizens might not have the access and literacy
to use the abovementioned tools. If this happens instead of helping the citi-
zens, the AI tools only add to the ugly state of digital divide and information
inequality will be undesirably hiked.
With the introduction of ChatGPT, this AI tool has raised newer perspec-
tives to mitigate the digital divide. Usually unlike other tools, ChatGPT does
not demand a lot of money from the citizen journalists. This AI tool is widely
available across a wide range of nations. The chatbot uses machine learning
and natural language processing to comprehend citizen journalists’ intent and
deliver the most pertinent information. This approach has widely attempted
to bridge the digital divide. However, ChatGPT has already announced the
release of a premium version that offers preferred server access for $20 per
month. When ChatGPT's server capacity is at its limit, non-premium users
won't be able to use it (Industrial Analytics Platforms, 2023). This could pos-
sibly pose a challenge to citizen journalists and develop a dichotomy between
citizen journalists and professional journalists and between citizen journalists

in the Global South and Global North.
10.2.19 Technology, Artificial Intelligence and Dissonance
The use of AI for citizen journalism can be unlimited if citizen journalists are
capable of and have the affordability of using the technology. This will pro-
pel the citizen journalists to produce and disseminate a huge pool of infor-
mation, intensifying the level of participatory communication. However,
an excessive flow of news information might create dissonance among the
audience. It happens when the audience finds the information going against
their ideas and understanding. Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory (CDT)
exactly covers this dimension of mental functions of human beings. A person,
who experiences cognitive dissonance, is motivated to lessen the cognitive
dissonance later (Hinojosa, Gardner, Walker, Cogliser, & Gullifor, 2016).
However, an excessive flow of information through citizen journalism plat-
forms with the help of AI tools will force the audience to cope and such a
situation could be mentally stressful. In this context, AI will aid in unnec-
essary cognitive dissonance instead of boosting citizen journalists to create
user-generated content for the benefit of audiences.
10.2.20 Artificial Intelligence, Misinformation, Disinformation, Fake News

and Infowars
Misinformation, disinformation, fake news and Infowars remain threats to

the newsrooms and have been badly gripping the information environment.
Fake news is an impediment in the newsrooms. Jankowski (2018, p. 248 &
251) asserts that fake news has
“acquired status as a pejorative label for liberal media outlets, and has
lost commonly accepted meaning. in the light of the degree of atten-
tion and concern about fake news, it is safe to anticipate an increase in
scholarly attention to the topic.”
This apart, fake news in social media has wider implications on marketing
and consumers (Di Domenico, Sit, Ishizaka, & Nunan, 2021). In addition,
infowars keep on feeding pervasive and conspiratorial injustice to society
(Van den Bulck & Hyzen, 2020). These wars fought on computer technology
to disrupt the activities reinforce the wrong and preconceived notions to the
audiences on the digital platforms. They lay stress on the perceived credibility
of infowars as a means of information.
Needless to say, infowars is not trustworthy. Madison, Wright, and
Gaspard (2020) argue that sometimes viewers tend to witness the infowars
for the dramatic and aggressive conflict rather than to derive solutions to
the problems. Moreover, viewers may employ infowars as sources of infor-
mation to lessen the level of uncertainty. Suffice to say, misinformation,
disinformation, fake news and infowars are causing numerous damages to

journalism including citizen journalism.
Whittaker (2019, p. 137) asserts, citizen journalism is
“frequently hijacked by an “alt-journalism” brigade with Infowars

being perhaps the highest-profile site disseminating fake news across
digital channels. As such, it posed a particular problem for social media
companies that sought to present themselves as proponents of free
speech but which were also being held increasingly responsible for the
spread of disinformation. More acutely, the banning of Infowars threw
into sharp relief the power of big tech companies to direct and even
dominate the flow of information within various public spheres.”
Citizen journalists will go bridled to check the flow of information along

with disinformation. They may not be skilled or have support mechanism
to exercise these requirements. Moreover, Finneman and Thomas (2018,
p. 358) find fake news “is the intentional deception of a mass audience by
nonmedia actors via a sensational communication that appears credible but
is designed to manipulate and is not revealed to be false”. Again, with the
advent of AI, the quantum and level of information, disinformation, fake
news and infowars will gallop and the situation will deteriorate from bad
to worse. However, if a newsroom is strict in terms of execution, AI can be
instrumental in checking and filtering all sorts of ailments in information.
Then only AI-driven citizen journalism for newsrooms for mainstream media
outlets will be blissful.
Similarly, at the same time, some argue and vehemently do not agree that
infowars will fuel citizen journalism. Whittaker (2019, p. 138) underlines
that infowars do not provide
“an indication of how citizen journalism can thrive in the new digital
environment of news publishing, more how the frontier of social media
journalism allows charlatans to flourish. The reason why so many peo-
ple heard of Alex Jones and his fake news was because of big tech and
the digital duopoly in particular.”
Since sometimes infowars are latent in digital platforms, incorporation of AI

tools for boosting citizen journalism in creating user-generated content for
the interests of the citizens may be a far-fetch goal and might be reduced to
mere idealism. The role of AI in citizen journalism will be a missing link in
the lines of pragmatism. This missing link deserves a revisit in the light of
using AI tools for citizen journalism in times of misinformation, disinforma-
tion, fake news and infowars. ChatGPT, an AI tool, took very little time
to disrupt the functioning of journalism including citizen journalism. For
citizen journalists, ChatGPT can produce a ton of content – words, images,
sounds, and videos. Concerns about the spread of false information could
grow as AI-generated content is used more frequently. In this context, to fight

misinformation and ensure the integrity of news contents, citizen journalists
should develop strategies.
10.2.21 Technology, Artificial Intelligence and Agenda of Politics
While assessing the connection of citizen journalism with artificial intelli-

gence, understanding the link of the discourse, technology and politics comes
to the fore. Robin Mansell (2012) activates the idea of imaginaries to find
out the institutionalization of the internet in the modern era. Mansell’s schol-
arly works based on Charles Taylor’s idea of social imaginary expresses the
social imaginations, expectations and social existence of people in the time of
technology and internet (Asmolov, 2021). Jasanoff’s (2015) concept of socio-
technical imaginaries automatically pops up and tends to debate on techno-
scientific ventures, contemporary social constellations, and political tones.
The concept is interplay of science, technology and society which deserves
to be deliberated and analyzed. In this context, Jasanoff (2015, p. 27) states,
“Multinational corporations increasingly act upon imagined under-

standings of how the world is and ought to be, playing upon the
perceived hopes and fears of their customers and clients and thereby
propagating notions of technological progress and benefit that cut
across.”
CGNET Swara, an Indian voice-based online portal, is keen to cover the sto-
ries of public interest. It is also interested to inform, partner, and liaise with
mainstream media outlet on certain human-interest stories. Shubhranshu
Choudhary from CGNET Swara points out,
“The working model of mainstream media in India has shown that less
than 2 percent of people in India are funding 80 percent of the media.
What follows is the fact that 80 percent of the media speaks about
the agendas and concerns of 2 percent of India. That’s why we always
emphasize that if you want your information to be out and heard, you
need to own your media. Unfortunately, the media models that we have
seen so far are too expensive for communities to own.”
(Painter, 2013, p. 83)
If this is the function of the mainstream media, then the role of citizen jour-
nalism as an alternative platform, for the interests of the communities and
marginalized has been immense. Even though citizen journalism does not
have the answer to all the questions or solutions to all the problems, the
importance of such type of journalism is there. However, when AI comes into
play, the nature and priority might change. Since the political and economy
of any media technology including AI will have influence on the structure,
priority, content and effect of media on the citizens will be always there.
Consequently, citizen journalism might be controlled and biased.
It has been discovered that ChatGPT frequently produces responses with
a strong left-leaning and libertarian political biases on political and social
issues. ChatGPT responds differently at various times. ChatGPT responses
have a left-leaning political bias. Moreover, the training data is one potential
source of bias (Brookings, 2023). Similarly, this AI tool may adversely influ-
ence citizen journalists and their activities worldwide. ChatGPT can act as
a tool for politics. Today, misinformation and disinformation are used by
many political parties and organizations around the globe as a political tool
to advance their political agendas, shape public opinion, and polarize vot-
ers. There is a lot of speculation about how it might revolutionize journal-
ism, software, and education, but not how it influences impact governmental
operations. ChatGPT will necessitate reconsidering one of the fundamental
duties of any democratic government setup (Bloomberg, 2022). If citizen
journalists use this AI tool, they should be careful of the agenda of politics
otherwise the essence of such form of alternative journalism goes haywire.
10.2.22 Gender, Citizen Journalism and Artificial Intelligence
The representations of women in media – both depictions and women work-

ing in newsrooms – have been widely debated over the years. The depictions
of women in media have been perennially suffering in terms of misrepresen-
tations and underrepresentations. Tuchman (2000) finds that the portrayals
of women characters have been stereotyped. Media shows women as depend-
ent, inefficient and without the support of males. It symbolically annihilates
women. Further, Gallagher (2014) laments that in spite of huge transforma-
tions in national and global media settings, the representations of women
pertaining to power, values, representation, and identity have been under the
carpet. The representations of women have been grossly damaged.
Similarly, women working in the newsrooms are not free from stereo-
types. Ogundoyin (2020) finds that women journalists tend to face numer-
ous challenges like manipulation, sexual harassment and marital problems.
Usually, women journalists are allowed to perform anchoring jobs which are
less challenging in nature. As a result, their self-esteem and self-confidence
are adversely affected. Further, De Vuyst and Raeymaeckers (2019) assert
that the profession of journalism has been bifurcated along gender lines. It
has been unfortunate in the lines of gender dichotomy. The gender-related
career obstacles tend to influence women journalists. They do not enjoy the
flexibility in terms of working as full-timers or part-timers or using new com-
munication technologies to their fullest capability.
When it comes to the gender issues manifested in the domain of citizen
journalism, Singh (2008) points out that participatory video and new media
have been powerful to bring about social change and development. The power
of citizen journalism is there in addressing gender issues. However, there has
been a dearth of scientific studies on citizen journalism and gender issues.

Since AI is increasingly used in the field of journalism, understanding and dis-
cussing on the use of AI in citizen journalism is of paramount importance. As
the adoption of newer technologies including AI tools demand skills, training
and flexibility approach, this may not be feasible or facilities provided for the
women journalists working in the newsrooms. Further, the adoption of AI
tools among women journalists working in developing countries and devel-
oped countries won’t be similar and this area needs to be explored.
ChatGPT-4, an AI chatbot from OpenAI, has the power to improve and
reshape societies. However, ChatGPT maintains gender norms and ste-
reotypes associated with particular professions. The tool fails to translate
the gender-neutral pronoun. When given gender information in English,
ChatGPT respects Bengali (a regional language in India) words and offers
appropriately gender-marked versions of them, but it seems to show more
respect for men than for women who work in the same field (Ghosh &
Caliskan, 2023). The root cause of gender biases in generative AI is the use
of unrepresentative or even questionably moral datasets that are made avail-
able in the public domain, even though the specific information processing by
LLMs using deep neural networks tends to perpetuate these biases. The train-
ing datasets for generative AI have been known to contain explicit imagery
and defamatory stereotypes, leading to the kind of outputs mentioned above
(Observer Research Foundation, 2023).
Women are underrepresented in the research and design of digital tech-
nologies, their needs and experiences are also ignored by designers, and the
data used to train AI is frequently biased against women and girls. Only
20% of machine learning company employees in technical roles, 13% of all
researchers in artificial intelligence, and 6% of licensed software develop-
ers are female (UNESCO, 2022). In this context, Audrey Azoulay UNESCO
Director-General asserts, “There is an urgent need to rebalance the situation
for women in AI to avoid biased analyzes and to build technologies that
take into account the expectations and needs of all of humanity” (UNESCO,
2022). The above scenario which is scary, biased and disparity in nature,
has larger implications on citizen journalism. Citizen journalists while using
ChatGPT for their journalistic activities on gender-related issues, must be
aware of the issue. Collaboration in regulation is urgently required to resolve
the problem.
10.2.23 Artificial Intelligence, Technological Advancements and

Participatory Journalism
Blockchain, a newer form of technology, is disruptive in nature and has

started influencing socio-economic, technological and legal dimensions of
society. Such form of decentralized technologies in the light of disruptive
implications needs to be debated. And the profession of journalism is not
exception to it. Currently, there have been deliberations on the implications
of blockchain to make journalism more robust and sustainable business.

Debates are also there whether blockchain-enabled newsrooms can compete
with traditional centralized model of newsrooms.
There is a need to examine the socioeconomic, technological and legal
consequences of blockchain on mainstream journalism in general and citizen
journalism in particular. Needless to say, blockchain has started providing
solutions to various media related issues in the existing media ecosystem.
However, citizen journalism is an alternative platform of journalism where
participation of citizens is the bedrock of journalistic functions. The fac-
tors like monetization, discourse of rights, participation, gratification and
identity have the bearings on the use of blockchains in citizen journalism.
Similarly, metaverse will go for testing whether this form of convergence
of physical and virtual worlds will be a boon or bane for creating citizen
journalism of public values in the future. Future-proof your newsroom for
the metaverse is the larger talking points. However, it needs to be examined
on the anvil of citizen journalism which cares for the interests of the citizens.
Last not the least, future media trends will determine and decide how these
newer forms of technologies like ChatGPT, blockchain, metaverse, nonfun-
gible tokens (NFTs), and computer-generated imagery will work along with
AI tools.
The concept of citizen journalism has emerged when the whole world was
exploring alternative platforms against mainstream media outlets. Sometimes
citizen journalism is competing with mainstream media and sometimes user-
generated content is complementary for the mainstream media. Evidences
have revealed that citizen journalism has influenced the agenda of traditional
media entities (Luo & Harrison, 2019). Since artificial intelligence has for-
ayed into almost all the professions including journalism, the ecology of news
media is gradually undergoing changes. AI is newly getting introduced and
making its space in mainstream media. Therefore, comparative perspectives
on the use of AI in citizen journalism are the only way forward. The ecology
of news media on these alternative narratives will ceaselessly debate on grati-
fication approach of the audience, business perspectives, journalistic identity,
digital humanism, democratization of media contents, gender perspectives
and the emergence of new communication technologies like metaverse,
blockchain, NFTs, computer-generated imagery and ChatGPT. The future
of citizen journalism is bright as long as such form of journalism adheres to
ethics, credibility and journalistic spirit for the interests of the citizens.
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11 Socio-cultural and Economic
Implications of Artificial Intelligence on
Society
Understanding the Mediating Role of
Journalism
11.1 Introduction
Culture is reflected in a society's values, traditions, and actions. Through
people, culture probes itself to reflect a variety of perspectives, actions, and
values as well as the spread of technology. Technology has an incredible
influence on several fundamental aspects of our civilizations, including lan-
guage, art, mobility, education, and religion. A community's culture serves as
a standard for comprehending, judging, and continuously evaluating technol-
ogy (Alombert, 2019). Technology determines the course and development
of culture over a period of time. For the betterment of society, technology
should strike a balance with the sociocultural indicators of society.
The impact of technology on tradition remains an important dimension
which needs to be discussed. Tradition and technology continuously pose
challenges in community lives. The globe has become a global village as a
result of technology and globalization. It takes us back in time to consider
modern living without electricity, transport, and other luxuries like health
(Singh & Germine, 2021). Economic, engineering and other breakthroughs
have been made. Thanks to technological innovations. The development
of technology has contributed greatly to the advancement of the 21st cen-
tury. Tradition style thrives when its value is recognized. Technology fosters
changes, but should not erase the mark of heritage blindly. Given this, tech-
nology can assist in maintaining tradition.
The impact of technology on social values needs to be critically under-
stood. There is now a vast range of topics that can be discussed. a variety
of technologies are to thank. Any topic can be thoroughly explained to the
people, and more information has been effectively shared. The establishment
of new social classes and economic transformation are also aided by tech-
nology (Jyoti Francis & Bhaduri, 2021). Technology aids in building and
improving interpersonal relationships. Technology paves the way for inte-
grating modernity and traditional knowledge. For example, the marriage of
traditional craft with judicious amount of machine (sewing machines) used
is fostering creativity with social values. Even though when sewing machines
are employed, craftsmen are being engaged in placement and maneuvering of
DOI: 10.4324/9781032716879-11
240 Socio-cultural and Economic Implications
components of Chandua (applique) craft from the town of Pipli in the state
Odisha, located in the eastern part of India.
People tend to employ technological tools to interact with others in a given
social milieu. However, it is debated that development of certain new tech-
nologies has been responsible for the failure of traditional media. Appropriate
technological improvements have resulted in sluggish and machine-depend-
ent human population. Bombs, nuclear weapons and missiles are all made
possible by technology. In the course of demands and realities, technological
innovations and adoption keep on stimulating societal norms. Fast techno-
logical changes without societal thought and norms are to blame for shifting
social and cultural divides.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is one technology which could bring radi-
cal changes in society. We have been able to disseminate vast amount of
knowledge and data from one to one and from many to many. Thanks
to digitalization of knowledge. Moreover, thanks to the cornucopia of
intensely private information that has emerged in course of time from the
purposeful tying of a significant segment of society to the internet. Here,
we can employ it not only to work with human expertise, but also to create
new information and functions with machine-based computing. The use of
technology including AI needs to be thoughtful. It is vital to consider the
social and cultural effects of modern communication technologies, their
nature, restrictions, and circumstances, as well as their positive and nega-
tive effects.
It is also vital to consider the humanizing perspectives of fundamental
principles covering the dimensions of liberty, equality, fraternity, solidar-
ity, tolerance and cultural diversity. In a developing country like India,
sometimes tradition, cultural and social values of technologies are going
together. In Odisha, a state located in the eastern part of India, tarakasi
woks (silver filigree) remains a rich identity of the region, indicating the
well blend of tradition and technology. Tarakasi woks from the city of
Cuttack in Odisha have been widely accepted in the South-Asian coun-
tries. This craft has become a cultural indication of the state. Similarly,
Chandua (applique) craft from the state of Odisha in India has been pro-
moting man and a meagre amount of machine uses. Chandua crafts from
the state, inspiring tale of rural creativity is the indication of using hand
machines with many cultural values of India. Therefore, from tarakasi
works to highly mechanized industry based on AI tools needs to focus on
value systems.
When any technological developments and their connection to culture,
tradition and social values are accounted, the role of journalism is immense
in communicating their implications on the society to the masses (Belfiore,
2018). It can be the tarakasi works from Odisha or major industrial estab-
lishments in the US, China andthe UK where AI is heavily used and is driving
the show. In this context, journalism too has the role of disseminating cul-
ture, tradition and social values of varied technologies in a ceaseless manner.
Socio-cultural and Economic Implications 241
11.2 Media Activism, Artificial Intelligence and Journalism
Media activism employs the means of communication tools for initiating

sociocultural and economic movements. Carrying news on websites, produc-
ing audio and video investigations, disseminating information about protests,
and organizing campaigns pertaining to media and communications policies
are all instances of media activism techniques. Media activism serves a vari-
ety of functions. It is frequently used by anarchists and grassroots activists to
disseminate information that is unavailable in mainstream media or to share
news articles that have been eventually blocked or reduced to the minimum.
Media activity also includes certain types of politically motivated hacks and
internet-based efforts. Media activism is usually aimed at raising awareness
through media communication, which in some cases leads to action.
Social movements are the nexus of numerous media genres, technologies,
and forms that duly take on the hegemonic power. In many respects, these
media are the pulse of such movements. Collective communication techniques
that oppose and take on the status quo, including mainstream media, are
known as media activism. These media frequently receive less funding and
their lifespans are considerably shorter than those of capitalist, government-
funded or religiously supported media. They are part of the much bigger
continent known as alternative media and citizens' media (Downing, 2018).
When there is social unrest or a crisis, their roles may occasionally overlap
with those of the traditional media. Both social movements and their media
initiatives experience ups and downs. However, it is necessary for the revival
of social movements for some of these forms of media activism to continue
between the peaks of movement activism.
Media activism enables marginalized groups to unite and make their
voices heard in larger groups, enabling more autonomous activism to witness
social change. This enables more people to participate in some movements
online rather than in person and provides leaders with a free means of organ-
izing. On the contrary, there is disagreement on its effectiveness as this is also
a popular method of activism that celebrities use (Williams, 2022). One disa-
greement against media activism is that since everyone has a voice, whether
it be one person or many, extremists can completely derail the movement by
sounding as loud as the average person.
Social media activism is another form of media activism. Given that peo-
ple in a society that is digitally networked are frequently exposed to divisive
topics, it is crucial to understand how people use social media platforms for
activism and how this interacts with offline activism. Thanks to technological
innovations. Since artificial intelligence tools are used being in social media
outlets, the implications of such tools are there. Therefore, media activism is
getting connected with AI techniques. Tech giants are vying with one another
for authority in AI development. Unfortunately, they frequently fail to distin-
guish between right and wrong in doing so. Here's where moral AI and ethics
enter the picture. Ethical attributes to artificial intelligence that abides by the
rules and norms relating to core values which include privacy, non-discrimi-
nation, rights, and morals. We human beings, frequently overlook the poten-
tial and alarming long-term effects of these technologies while marveling at
the AI advancements made by industry titans. AI activities play a key role in
fostering such kind of critical thinking on varied subjects. AI-based activism
needs to be conducted in a circumstantial manner. In India, for instance,
understanding and deliberating on gender, class and region will open up
numerous doors for activism. Those who support AI have been outspoken
in their opposition to its unethical applications. Therefore, news needs to
be disseminated and create platforms for discussions. Hence, discussing AI
activism remains important and newsrooms in particular and journalism in
general should proactively work on these dimensions.
11.2.1 Community Media, Artificial Intelligence and Journalism
A media which caters to the needs and demands of a community is called

community media. It is an alternative and participatory media practice that
has emerged in the context of grassroots journalism. It is a radical approach
to mainstream journalistic practices (Deuze, 2006). Community media con-
tributes to civic education and social awareness campaigns. Access and par-
ticipation play a significant role in the development of community media.
Media creators are urged to get involved in providing people a stage on
which to voice or articulate their opinions. Such type of community media
is frequently given parameters, but its ambiguous organizational structure
frequently pushes against these limits.
Community media is distinguished as an alternative to social media and
public and commercial media by their participation in and accountability
to the communities they serve. They facilitate open forums for debates and
discussions and place more emphasis on regional concerns. UNESCO is a sig-
nificant supporter of independent community media that is operated by and
for the community. Especially, for remote and difficult-to-reach groups, com-
munity radio remains a medium of importance for offering an outreach tool
for enhanced access to education, self-expression, and communication. Such
stations provide the local people a sense of ownership over their own devel-
opment plans, empowering them to speak out in public, engage in discussion,
and promote their own culture, history, and language (UNESCO, 2021a). So
far as the sustainability of community media, it is important to support its
long-term viability through policies and strategies which precisely cover the
legal recognition, equitable spectrum and licensing access, sustainable fund-
ing sources, and inclusion in decisions regarding the digital transition.
Engaging AI-driven systems to involve regional communities in formulat-
ing strategies or addressing and coming up with solutions to urgent soci-
etal and environmental problems is the emerging landscape of community
media. Multiple parties with conflicting objectives are frequently involved in
such local or regional contexts. Through cocreation and field deployment,
it is necessary to ascertain whether AI models and pipelines can perform as

anticipated in various scenarios (Hsu et al., 2022). However, difficulties are
there where more attention and offer workable solutions are to connect AI
research with citizen demands based on case-based evidence in cocreating
AI-powered technologies with localities. With the aim to create AI-powered
systems in a multistakeholder context to solve local problems, promoting
the development of new collaboration techniques and attitudes has become
essential.
Through the use of new technologies and services' creative and participa-
tory potential, media literacy enables us to interact with others in the public
realm. With the advent of AI tools, media creation and choices are being
influenced. It is slowing making the content consumers in the process of pro-
duction and thereby making the sense of participation visible. This is the
very essence and property of community media. However, the power of the
AI systems created in this manner to function as planned in various regional
contexts while also empowering locals is still an unresolved subject. How
can scientists collaborate with local populations to develop AI systems that
address regional issues? This needs to be answered.
There is a need to understand and articulate problems in utilizing AI to
collect and interpret community data, adapt AI tools for persistent social
change, and co-design AI systems with locals through case studies. Studies
are to be conducted in collecting information on how to connect citizen
demands with AI research, including how to assess the social implications
of AI tools, gather community information for AI expansion, and create AI
outlets that can be used to explain data patterns to nonexperts. Traditional
media will be interested in making technology support democratic values
while also learning how such AI technology effects public dialogue for the
benefit of individuals, communities, and society. In this context, journalism
outlets should be deliberated in the public discourse on community media in
the light of AI. Journalists should understand and discuss the sociocultural
implications of AI on community media.
11.2.2 Democratization of Content, Artificial Intelligence and Journalism
A sociological understanding of the media as a frame for communication

reveals a complex issue that influences how the media is perceived and
understood in the light of recent shifts in societal patterns. Internet and other
interactive media outlets offer a diversity of information from many differ-
ent sources and present chances for social and political debates at the local,
national, and international levels. A variety of communication options also
demonstrate the plurality of media environments, facilitating faster informa-
tion flow.
The process of transforming and democratizing media space and content is
where media research is operationalized (Olavarria-Gambi & Levick, 2023).
Plenty of information sources, as well as described changes in social and
political communication, are the outcomes of the internet’s development as a

new media and the online sphere as a digital communication space. Through
the internet’s development, a greater variety of online portals and media con-
tent – or, more precisely, a variety of topics and styles – creates a space for a
conversation. As a result, we can apparently debate on media pluralism and
interpret the mediated communication space in multiple ways, while concep-
tualizing the shifts and processes in modern society and culture in the context
of the democratization and transformation of the media (Stoycheff, Burgess,
& Martucci, 2020).
Precisely, the internet, a more prevalent and significant factor in individu-
als’ lives and social congregations, fosters the reconceptualization for com-
munication meant for social and cultural ties. With its interactive features
and capacity for discussion and dialogue, the internet can be used as a tool
to reanimate the public domain. Deliberations in this connection are driven
towards changing the conversational environment such that the internet as
a communication medium takes on a central role. Finally, the media space's
diversity comes as a result of the democratization of the media and the crea-
tion of new media. In such a social structure, web portals with their dis-
tinctive reporting on various topics offer pertinent information and, when
viewed from a certain angle, can support conversation among interested
parties. Such media-related developments have become the focus of current
social discussions as well as sociological studies and analysis.
The world has been witnessing content democratization, a phenomenon
that was earlier unidentified. Massive amounts of digital content are pro-
duced, traded, and consumed by the public as of now. Thanks to the web
and the sizable content marketing system. The democratization of content
has given the content several ways to reach consumers. Numerous types of
materials are securing certain consumer demographics. This has enabled the
customers to have the option to hand-pick content to suit their tastes, similar
to what happens when they stream media from mainstream services. One
can now obtain content at any time and from any location. Thanks to the
democratization of access to the contents.
The advancement of democratic values via the dissemination of infor-
mation and communication is a significant element in the realm of media
democracy, as is the empowerment of individual citizens (Exoo, 2009). This
approach also argues that media systems should be democratic in their own
design, avoiding corporate ownership and rigid rules. Media democracy
means that both the media itself should be democratic and that it should be
utilized to further democracy. For instance, it considers the ownership con-
centration of media to be undemocratic and ineffective at promoting democ-
racy, making it a media feature that has to be critically analyzed (Hazen &
Winokur, 1997). In addressing persistent media monopoly and decline in
moral values, both the idea and the social movements supporting it have
expanded. It recognizes the role that media plays in influencing culture as a
medium with the ability to reach a big audience.
Social media functions as per AI tools. AI-based social media can act as
a democratic tool with emancipatory potential. Social media has become a
crucial forum for online users to argue and discuss issues. Since it may be a
tremendously useful instrument for amplifying the silenced and oppressed
voices, it has also evolved into a forum for activism. Social media cannot only
be categorized as having a negative or positive effect on democracies and the
institution of democracy since its overall effects on democracies are multifac-
eted. However, pragmatic educational pedagogy nurtures watchfulness and
critical thinking abilities which can further guarantee a good impact of AI
on society. In this context, journalism can be sensible enough to understand
this perspective and propagate it among the citizens in a seamless manner.
Socio-cultural implications of AI through social media in democratizing the
content remains important that media should understand and subsequently
critically cover these aspects.
11.2.3 News Agency, Artificial Intelligence and Changing Dynamics in

News Flow
A news agency gathers news and provides it to varied news outlets. Often
a news agency is known as communications service or news service. Global
media play a key role in today's globalization, fostering instant communica-
tion and endorsing the experience of global connection (Bielsa, 2008). In
this context, the role of news agency in disseminating information based on
events of global nature. However, the role and functioning of news agencies
have undergone changes with the upgradations in technological upgrada-
tions including artificial intelligence.
With the proliferation of AI tools in newsroom management, the automa-
tion of news content is being executed. There are certain instances which
reveal that global news media houses and small news agencies automate their
news content (Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 2023). Over the
past decade, AI tools have gradually become more common in the media and
in the newsrooms of news agencies. This growing trend has sparked a heated
debate about the negative effects of journalism, especially quality standards
and ethical principles. However, such tools improve the skills of journalists
by saving time, simplifying news production processes and thus increasing
the productivity of the media industry. Precisely, these tools enhance the per-
formance and reach of news agencies worldwide. However, there is a need to
change the way of thinking in the media ecology. In addition, the users need
to be educated to bridge the gap in knowledge and skills for the proper use
of technologies .
News Wire and The Associated Press compiled 300 articles from quarterly
company earnings reports into 3,700 articles using artificial intelligence. At
present, the AP newsroom’s AI technology automatically produces approxi-
mately 40,000 stories a year – only a fraction of the stories produced by a
global news agency, but the benefits of using AI and automation are numerous
(Gruber, 2023). Additionally, AI improves the efficiency and accuracy of

news. In China, the Xinhua news agency has employed artificial intelligence
anchors to deliver news (Analytics Insight, 2022). These digital anchors can
operate 24/7, allowing the news agency to deliver real-time news. They also
deliver news in multiple languages, which expands the reach of the news
agency. In some news agencies, AI tools are used to verify news articles to
ensure that published information is accurate and unbiased. This reduces the
workload of journalists and allows them to focus on more in-depth reporting.
The Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency's recent partnership with
Facebook uses AI algorithms and user feedback to authenticate news con-
tent. The AFP uncovers fake news on a daily basis. At the Associated Press
(AP) news agency, AI is essentially assisting to free up journalists to create
valuable content; they also created a job automation group in AP. Bots also
writes summaries of stories in the agency newsroom. At financial manage-
ment service in Bloomberg News, automation helps them write thousands
of stories a week from untapped financial data. AI tools help Bloomberg,
a news agency, to be very fast with the latest news and to automate thou-
sands of translations of these articles into several languages. The news agency
now describes itself as an information and technology company rather than
a media company because of AI tools. AI algorithms alert Bloomberg jour-
nalists to important stories and information; it correlates data, but it has its
limitations. The editor checks the content twice and create stories around AI
data (White, 2019). However, the eruption of ethical issues indicate ceaseless
effort to monitor and control the use of AI tools.
11.2.4 Digital Disobedience, Artificial Intelligence and Journalism
Civil disobedience is a sign of protest that is always integral to the collective

ability to express dissent. Protests and the expression of agitation are central
parts of freedom of expression, and they influence the formation of society
and public discourse throughout history. Over the centuries, individuals and
groups have used many tactics to reclaim rights and fight for justice. With the
changing times and the incorporation of technologies, protests and disobedi-
ence have been radically changed. Digital civil disobedience is being used by
global citizens to reclaim their rights.
At the same time, new digital tools and tactics offer significant opportuni-
ties for the future of civil rights. Today, we are witnessing the dramatic emer-
gence of digital transgression, broadly defined here as politically motivated
violations of internet laws (Scheuerman, 2016). Moreover, with the advent
of artificial intelligence, civil rights are undergoing shifts in many ways. The
impact of AI technologies on civilization and its allied affairs is ardently chal-
lenged. Many claim that AI will be indispensable for human’s everyday life.
At the same time, many argue that AI challenges human values, identity,
jobs and creativity. AI unnecessarily disrupts the creative value chain in two
ways – by giving individual creators more power and by transferring tasks
reviously handled by the people to algorithms. AI-generated content raises

p
questions about authorship, ownership, and copyright violations. To effec-
tively encourage innovation and research, new exclusive rights on datasets
must be chalked out and created. The employment of AI in media mate-
rial is causing huge concerns about language and cultural diversity. To stop
discrimination in distribution platforms powered by AI, public policies and
procedures need to be reframed.
Individuals' distinctive cultural values have an impact on how they learn in
daily life. AI that mimics the decision-making processes of its users may even-
tually start to exhibit those users' cultural values. With classifying images,
creating sounds, or producing texts and with the highest performance, AI is
frequently and more mistakenly viewed in this context as neutral. AI, on the
other hand, bases its predictions on data that captures sociocultural expres-
sions as they are expressed by music, films, photos, text, and social interac-
tions, which are profoundly context-specific and nonneutral. Consequently,
the extensive application of AI tools depends heavily on culture. Precisely,
if AI is not used wisely, it may cause digital disobedience. Analyzing the
evolution of AI will enable one to comprehend not only its development and
implications for philosophical and scientific communities, but also its reper-
cussions in a broader sociocultural environment. Since the job of journalism
is to bring awareness the abovementioned dimensions of AI tools can be dis-
seminated to the masses.
11.2.5 Social Relationships, Artificial Intelligence and Journalism
Matrimonial websites are now requesting for technical assistance to assist

you in finding your true mate. The process of looking for a life partner on
matrimonial websites has been advanced so far. Thanks to the usage of artifi-
cial intelligence by marriage portals to identify and suggest potential partners
for its members (The Economic Times, 2019). On matrimonial websites, AI
algorithms assist the users in searching for their preferred partners by analyz-
ing and comprehending the online activities and proposing suitable profiles
in real time. Partner and relationship are being matched up with AI tech-
niques. AI is all set to now find your ideal partner.
AI has finally entered the Indian matching market. By considering six rela-
tionship characteristics, including emotional, intellectual, relationship, and
moral values, AI hopes to transform the way conventional matching sites
in India provide matches. In order to provide matches, a machine learning
method will be used, along with other factors. Needless to say, this eliminates
the need for you to search through hundreds of irrelevant matches. Besides
finding an ideal partner for someone, matching algorithms in online dating
have come to the fore. From early 2000s, online dating sites to modern dat-
ing apps, matching algorithms have been progressed significantly and are still
growing. AI Algorithms are able to provide personalized recommendations
to the users. AI is able to provide better and safer better relations in real time.
A feminist dating app known for its cutting-edge design elements that defy
accepted gender stereotypes, has started utilizing AI to address harassment
of women on the platform (Bumble, 2021). Due to these fast-paced develop-
ments, it is critical to think about how algorithms may significantly modify
the long history of online dating in the years to come.
Now, algorithms are providing match through matrimony sites and love
through dating sites. However, whether these are socially and culturally via-
ble, whether they are genuine or fake in approach, these have become the
larger talking points for discussions in terms of socio-cultural implications of
AI. Since journalism has the role of social responsibility, it can create aware-
ness on these dimensions at regular intervals. As a result, human society can
harvest the fruits of technological interventions by mitigating the evil effects
of technologies including AI in particular. Let’s journalism outlets should
understand and work upon it.
Socio-cultural implications of communication technologies like metaverse,
blockchain, nonfungible tokens (NFTs), computer-generated imagery (CGI)
including artificial intelligence tools are important and hence debatable.
Metaverse is a universal and immersive virtual platform, equipped with vir-
tual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). A blockchain, a digital ledger
technology (DLT), facilitates as a catalyst for transformations. Using block-
chain technology for digital utility is immense. NFTs can be in the form of
artworks and real estate. NFTs can also act to embody a person’s identity,
property rights, and the like. This apart, NFTs can gain extensive attention
in the segment of popular culture and news media. In the field of journal-
ism, news articles are getting sold out in the form of NFTs. Precisely, NFTs
could move towards the solution in bringing a newer ownership pattern.
CGI is the incorporation of computer graphics for creative productions in the
form of art, audio, visual and computer animation required for creative and
allied industries. ChatGPT, an AI tool, has brought revolutions in society.
ChatGPT can craft write poems, songs and short stories for us. By collecting
and analyzing massive amounts of data and information, ChatGPT can save
a lot of time and effort in understanding user comments and social media
discussions and narratives. In this context, the sociocultural implications of
these technologies on human society need to be discussed in a critical man-
ner. Hence, the mediating role of journalism in examining and understanding
the importance, utility and shortcomings of these technologies on human
society remains vital and can be tested on the anvil of public interest. The role
of journalism cannot be undermined at any cost.
The socio-cultural implications of all the technologies including AI are
quite apparent. As AI learns the cognitive and behavioral characteristics of
its user, it may begin to resemble that individual. Even while AI may be an
artefact in and of itself, it's interesting to note that the cognitions and actions
it incorporates may be beginning to resemble those of its culturally oriented
users. If so, AI that takes in the decision-making processes of its users may
culturally diverge. Even though it is only an artefact, depending on the cul-
tural backgrounds of their users, decision-making processes of AI may differ,
just as users' actions do between cultures.
Depending heavily on the users' cultural backgrounds, relationship prob-
lems in terms of not maintaining quality may advance during ongoing interac-
tions between AI and its potential users. We need to mind that adoption and
use decisions should not be confused with emergent usage patterns because
the former concentrates on the longitudinal dynamics of use behaviors while
the latter focuses only on an adoption and use decision at an initial moment.
Since AI and its users are likely to be involved in usual business operations in
business units, AI may be able to comprehend a user's preferences and offer
suggestions for recommendations that correspond to those preferences, mak-
ing the identification of new usage patterns particularly crucial. However,
users may not completely rely on AI due to their history and cultural charac-
teristics, even if AI can validate users' predicted decisions.
Currently, creative AI technologies are being heavily used. AI tools are
increasingly being used in the arts including music, literature, and visual
arts. The development and application of this technology is being rushed by
many artists and AI developers, and certain parties are profiting financially.
There is no doubt that technological advancements like photography, sound
recording, and the internet have had a huge impact on the arts. The wide-
spread monetization of art, which goes beyond reproduction and distribution
and engages in automating the creation of works of art by copying, fusing,
and extending already-existing artistic styles, is to be brought to the forefront
by AI (creative-AI). Considerable amount of research into the effects of crea-
tive AI on the arts still needs to be conducted. Reliable AI systems for ethical
and sustainable applications in the domain of creative fields remain a matter
of debate and concern as well.
The emergence of AI needs to be treated as a social phenomenon that
interacts with the larger social, cultural, economic, and political contexts.
Sociologists are gradually investigating into the social creation, diffusion,
and consumption of AI. Some sociologists discuss this in the context of sci-
ence and technology which have produced the majority of the extant litera-
ture on the subject. However, several opine that it is not always simple to
read the literature and connect their research interests in AI to the existing
stock of knowledge.
UNESCO (2021b) has rightly asserted that despite the positives and nega-
tives of technology, it has attempted to improve the community lives of peo-
ple worldwide. It has succeeded in bringing people together across the globe.
Technology could mitigate the social, cultural and economic barriers to some
extent. The power of technology has reached and influence the community
lives from local to global arena. Overall, technologies should be aiming for
socio-economic and cultural development on a global scale.
Precisely, designing AI policies should prioritize the people first. Designing
AI policies should follow inclusiveness. Experts in artificial intelligence
and decision-makers address inclusiveness in the creation of AI policies.
Designing AI policies should engage multiple stakeholders. The policies need
to be debated in the prism of human rights, legal and regulatory frameworks
so that sociocultural implications of AI can be harvested. Most importantly,
journalism must be vigilant and keep on informing the civil society about
AI in persistent manner. This will make both journalism and AI inclusive in
approach. Apart from AI, journalism needs to discuss the technologies like
augmented reality, virtual reality, metaverse, blockchain, nonfungible tokens
(NFTs), computer-generated imagery immersive technologies and ChatGPT
as these technologies have started influencing human beings in particular and
society in general.
Nevertheless, disinformation campaigns or fake news and hacking have
become pervasive as social media is ruling the entire world. AI tools have
amplified the space of disinformation and provided room for hacking.
Automated hacking is also riding high day by day. AI and machine learning
are being employed to cause cyberattacks on our computer systems. This
may result in physical attacks by antisocial elements. Criminals, terrorists
and other persons with devilish intents can misuse AI tools for disinforma-
tion and hacking. AI must not dictate human beings which is right or wrong
in terms of socio-cultural and traditional values. Equity in terms of socio-
cultural implications of technologies should not be considered as tokenism.
Tellingly, journalism needs to comprehend the socio-cultural implications of
AI through placing judicious reportage and inviting popular opinion columns
for public discourse.
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12 Incorporation of Artificial Intelligence
into Newsrooms
Negotiating with Newer Ethical Issues and
Responsibilities in Journalism
12.1 Introduction
John M. Culkin’s (1967, p. 70) visionary observation “We shape our tools,
and thereafter our tools shape us” still holds relevance in the age of digi-
tal, innovation and transformation. It broadly highlights the fundamentals
of human technologies and their implications on society. Culkin’s visionary
observation can be quite apt while investigating the ethical issues because of
the incorporation of communication technologies in the journalistic process.
Technologies have their own advantages and disadvantages. If a technology
has disadvantages from certain perspectives, it raises ethical issues to the
core. The use of technologies has caused varied concerns in almost all fields
including journalism.
Ethics in journalism remains vital for all the times when we try to interject
the role of technologies in the field of journalism. Without being committed
to ethical standards, journalism cannot be trusted. Things will be similar, if
the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in newsroom or journalism is not ethical,
it won’t be trusted and hence, it is not sustainable in nature. In contempo-
rary times, it is often hard to practice an absolute form of ethical journalism.
Currently, news media is languishing in several issues like paid news, exces-
sive advertising-driven and politically motivated. The political economy of
news media has identified the flaws in the industry of news media. In this
light, the discussions often hover around the areas covering capitalism and
capitalist economy – wage labor and production for profit; concentration of
media ownership; support mechanism; government policies; globalization;
regulation; and neoliberalism. The political economy of news media can also
be directed and tested in the light of using AI and machine learning in the
journalistic practice.
Precisely stressing on the aspect of support mechanism, Olsen (2021)
attempts to find out the perils of a revenue structure for digital journalism
in which advertising continues to add to the revenue of digital news media.
The excessive reliance on advertising revenue is an ethical issue which
is often debated from time to time. Further, the use of AI and machine
learning in journalism brings the discussion on propaganda which largely
touches upon the dimensions of size, ownership of news medium; funding
DOI: 10.4324/9781032716879-12
Incorporation of Artificial Intelligence into Newsrooms 253
sources for news media; flak; and anticommunism ideology. Currently, the
field of journalism is facing certain external pressures starting from politics
to business (Hiltunen, 2022). Societal and political polarizations are sys-
temically influencing the journalistic output. Societal and political polariza-
tions are apparently affecting the process of news. Journalism is becoming
more partisan and political communication in nature than before. The news
industry is increasingly prone to political affairs and financial transactions
or trading.
The scourge of fake news tends to plague the news media industry
(Kleinman & Moore, 2014). Molina, Sundar, Le, and Lee (2021, p. 180)
point out fake news “as a concept, has ballooned to include more than
simply false information, with partisans weaponizing it to cast aspersions
on the veracity of claims made by those who are politically opposed to
them”. Paid news is a malady in the news media. It is curtailing the power
of news which can be a concern for the marginalized sections of society. It
is also narrowing down the democratic public sphere (Patching & Hirst,
2021). These are the larger ideological perspectives on news media. Hence,
critical understanding of news media from ethical perspectives is of utmost
importance.
Suffice to say, the profession of journalism is ceaselessly undergoing
transformations. Technological innovations have bearings on the process of
journalism. All agree on one point that necessity is the mother of invention.
There is no doubt that inventions especially communication technologies
including AI and machine learning have the implications on the journalistic
process. ChatGPT is the latest addition to the technological innovations in
the field of journalism. ChatGPT is a language-modelled chatbot that gener-
ates human-like responses. Once published, conversations about ChatGPT
spread like wildfire across traditional and social media. Conversations
recorded and analyzed during the observation period indicate that the ini-
tial enthusiasm for ChatGPT's automated capabilities quickly gave way to
concerns about its potential abuse and potential to replace human worksta-
tions. ChatGPT as a brand has gotten mixed reactions. Engineers, entre-
preneurs, journalists and many social media users see ChatGPT as a bold
innovation that opens up the horizons of services and solutions, but the
academic and creative industries are concerned and threatened by the latest
AI chatbots.
In general, technological innovations are imperative as societies need
them for thriving and evolving. For societies to thrive and evolve, techno-
logical innovations have become necessary. Technologies tend to upgrade
the manner in which the societies behave and function. Therefore, tech-
nological innovations and societies cannot be detached from each other.
However, the use of technologies has germinated the issues of ethics.
Currently, the arrival of AI tools considered a revolution in the field of
technological innovations. And the field of journalism is also not free from
ethical concerns.
254 Incorporation of Artificial Intelligence into Newsrooms
12.2 Artificial Intelligence and Ethical Issues in Journalism

AI is an application of machinery entities. The machine-driven actions are
dependent on the intentions of human beings. It accordingly functions with
the direction, command or will of human beings. Therefore, AI techniques
can be used for good or bad causes. The use of AI in haste may invite the issues
of digital propaganda, extreme or hate speech, disinformation or fake news
and hacking (Flores Vivar, 2019), dilution in privacy, creation of disparities,
faulty automation process, minimizing human interactions, unemployment,
cultural challenge, excessive commercial interests, conflict of byline or credit
of authorship and other allied issues which have been manifested in the jour-
nalistic process in some way or other.
12.2.1 Artificial Intelligence and Digital Propaganda
Jowett and O’Donnell (2018 p. 7) define propaganda as “the deliberate,

systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions and direct
behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the prop-
agandist”. These days, digital propaganda is infamously impacting the
newsrooms and the overall society as well. AI techniques are being heavily
employed for digital propaganda. The politicians are resorting to every pos-
sible thing to triumph in their electoral battles. The political consultants and
digital strategists along with the technocrats are responsible for malicious use
of AI tools. AI tools through old pictures and videos are being exploited to
cause political propaganda which has sheer destructive impacts on the soci-
ety. Divisive content, used in political communication, is cheaper than good
content. Contents in the lines of propaganda are being massively amplified.
Suffice to say, AI-driven digital contents are more dangerous than the propa-
ganda which is manually driven. Knowing the fact that digital has the power
and ability to shape up the voice of the public, information warfare books
are getting digitally crafted.
Deepfakes are being used for various forms of manipulation by using AI
and machine learning. Deepfakes, otherwise known as synthetic media, can
be used for blackmailing any individual. They can be used for creating por-
nography of female celebrities. They can be employed for misrepresenting
noted politicians’ opinions and statements in the format of videos. Deepfakes
have been an increasing threat for newsrooms worldwide. Deepfakes driven
by AI tools have the power to manipulate the text, audio and video.
Deepfakes powered by AI technologies were allegedly used in the UK
general election. Also, deepfake videos were allegedly used in the 2020 U.S.
elections. It is observed that deepfake videos have the ability to create an
extra appeal and convincing power because of advancements in the field of
Generative Adversarial Networks, which enhance reaching out to the vot-
ers. In actual sense, deepfake videos remain far from reality. Deepfakes are
being used for creating fake political statements that no political leaders have
ever opined (Sohrawardi & Wright, 2020). AI tools are being used to create
fake experts or journalists who can amply persuade the public for malicious
intent. Malevolent agents are employing deepfakes to disseminate extreme
forms of propaganda. Detecting the real out of deepfakes and disinformation
has become a herculean task for journalists.
Internet memes are coming out with the use of deepfakes. Deepfake pho-
tographs can be employed to generate sock puppets which are fake identi-
ties in endorsing someone or something on digital platforms including social
media. Deepfakes are being employed for producing nonconsensual pornog-
raphy which has potentially warned the newsrooms. In the past, to strategize
propaganda, human interventions were desperately needed (DiResta, 2020).
It was quite cumbersome and time-consuming. So, the pace of propaganda
was slow. However, in this digital arena, especially in the times of AI and
machine learning; writing tweets, posts, sharing and resharing the message
for the purpose of propaganda are being strategized at lightning speed.
12.2.2 Artificial Intelligence and Extreme or Hate Speech
Extreme or hate speech on online platforms is an increasing challenge for

democratic societies across the globe. There is an intersection of misinforma-
tion and social media hate in this digital times. Matamoros Fernández (2018,
p. 933) argues that social media is mobilizing “racist dynamics through their
affordances, policies, algorithms and corporate decisions”. Banaji and Bhat
(2022) point out that hate on digital platforms is linked to socio-political con-
texts and value system of social media users. Farkas, Schou, and Neumayer
(2018) argue that the platforms including Facebook and Twitter are being
criticized for fostering anonymity for the harassers. Further, Lamerichs,
Nguyen, Melguizo, Radojevic, and Lange-Böhmer (2018) find that racist
speeches are increasing in social media through weaponization of memes.
Social media driven by technologies are mobilizing racism and hate speech
(Matamoros-Fernández & Farkas, 2021).
AI techniques have the ugly stakes in creating and intensifying the extreme
or hate speech. It is argued that hate speech can result in a climate of harm
and violence which could be detrimental for any target group. Extreme
speech on online platforms can pose threats for democratic societies world-
wide. The use of AI is not being massively used for extreme speech but also
intensifying the extreme speech. The algorithm output may be inaccurate to
apply blindly in all the cases without verifying it. Certain ethical issues with-
out proper checks are on the rise.
Hate speech in digital formats is critical in nature and detecting and find-
ing the solutions to it has become challenging. Udupa (2020) has rightly
asserted, “The dynamic nature of online hate speech—where hateful expres-
sions keep changing—adds to the complexity”. Moreover, hate speech driven
by AI techniques is more critical to detect and check. Therefore, this calls for
a collaborative approach between the developers and communities and other
stakeholders pertaining to this issue.
12.2.3 Artificial Intelligence, Disinformation or Fake News and Hacking
Bakir and McStay (2018, p. 157) describe fake news as “either wholly false
or containing deliberately misleading elements incorporated within its con-
tent or context”. Egelhofer and Lecheler (2019) argue that fake news is a
two-dimensional phenomenon. Firstly, it is the deliberate manufacture of
pseudo-journalistic disinformation. Secondly, it acts as political instrument
to limit the functions of ethical journalism. Rumors and conspiracy theories
are often discussed in the light of disinformation.
Whenever there are discussions on disinformation or fake news, hacking,
another ailing factor in the domain of digital media comes to the fore. Sun, Xu,
and Zhao (2021) points out that data breach has become usual which results
in leaking of confidential information and causing economic losses. However,
Lydon and Garcia (2015, p. 73) is somewhat optimistic in their approach and
comment that hacking is “the way in which something is accomplished; it's
about finding ways around conventional rules to get to an end result, often
through an open source and a largely decentralized structure or method”.
Disinformation campaigns or fake news and hacking have become per-
vasive as social media is ruling the entire world. AI tools have amplified the
space of disinformation and provided the rooms for hacking. Automated
hacking is also riding high day by day. AI and machine learning are being
employed to cause cyberattacks on to our computer systems. This may result
in physical attacks by antisocial elements. Criminals, terrorists and other per-
sons with devilish intents can misuse AI tools for disinformation and hack-
ing. Fake news has already fueled mistrust in media, politics and established
institutions around the world. AI can be used to create deep fakes (voices,
images, videos, etc.) to trick people into saying or doing things they would
never do. On the other side of the story, AI tools can be instrumental to curb
the menace of fake news. So, the choice with journalists and the agenda of
newsrooms is how to use the AI tools.
12.2.4 Increasing Threat to Privacy
With the rise of digital media especially AI tools, individuals’ privacy is at

stake. Maintaining privacy has become an all-time herculean task. The rise
of automated journalism can give rise to libelous news content. Further, it is
escalating the issues of copyright and defamation. However, Lewis, Sanders,
and Carmody (2019, p. 74) argues,
“As artificial intelligence and automated decision-making advance to

the point that automated journalism can gather, synthesize and pub-
lish information with less and less human assistance, courts may be
confronted with whether an algorithm could qualify for testimonial
privileges (i.e., journalist’s privilege) to protect its sources—however
far-fetched such a scenario may seem today.”
12.2.5 Artificial Intelligence and Creation of Disparities
The multifaceted nature of the digital divide remains complex till today.
Vassilakopoulou and Hustad (2021) highlight that digital divide is a typi-
cal sociotechnical phenomenon. Digital inequalities are causing varied issues
in terms of access, real use and utility efficacy of digital resources. Matter
of privilege and exclusion are the ailing factors behind the digital divide.
Despite interventions from governmental mechanism, little precious has been
done to bridge the gap. Probably, we have not been able to understand the
real issue. However, bridging the digital divide remains imperative in achiev-
ing and maintaining sustainable digitalized societies.
In a similar fashion, the use of AI tools in newsrooms is predicted to
develop income disparity and other societal maladies. Unfortunately, gender
issues are being predicted and to be grossly accumulated. Women journalists
might be facing the issue to a great extent in terms of adapting to newer com-
munication technologies including AI and machine learning. AI techniques
are creating the space of inequality of information which further infamously
strengthens the digital divide. This is going to originate the state of dichotomy
between the developed and developing nations. Surprisingly, a newer level of
dichotomy between Artificial Intelligence-HAVES and Artificial Intelligence-
HAVE-NOTS has already emerged across newsrooms all over the world.
Moreover, this dichotomy will further result in ample amounts of unde-
sirable consequences. The inequality of information comprising the divide
between the information rich and information poor will eventually emerge in
the arena of information and communication. With AI in the process; ethical
scrutiny, level of transparency and democratic control will feather away in
the time to come.
Owing to bring parity in terms of using AI techniques in newsrooms across
the nations, policy initiatives can resort to the subsidies targeting specific
digitally disadvantaged segments in developing nations. Digital divides may
be amicably addressed by crafting appropriate policies to equip the news-
rooms for meaningful engagements with the journalists who are bedrock in
the process of gathering, producing and distributing the news. The design
and development of AI techniques should consider the differences from a
newsroom to a newsroom in terms of usages for creating appropriate stimuli
to different newsrooms. Innovative approaches for leveraging AI tools in the
areas of gathering, production and distribution of news can be initiated and
sustained. The matter of privilege and exclusion needs to be eradicated by
stressing on inclusive approach to AI in newsrooms all the world over.
12.2.6 Artificial Intelligence and Faulty Automation Process
AI techniques enable the newsrooms for automation which further saves time
and repackages the news contents, which is feasible as per audiences’ needs and
demands. The Fourth Industrial Revolution or 4IR or Industry 4.0 attempts to
synthesize the technologies, industries and human behavior societal patterns
but in a changed and highly automated manner (Hassan & Albayari, 2022).
The open data, big data, cloud, AI, blockchain and metaverse have taken the
pace of journalism to the next level by virtue of automation. Also, the non-
fungible tokens (NFTs) and computer-generated imagery (CGI) are expected
to influence Journalism in a big way. For an instance, metaverse-powered
storytelling is expected to outpace the subscription and revenue models for the
newsrooms across the globe. However, we need to talk and discuss trust in the
news which is delivered in an algorithmized manner. However, there is skepti-
cism regarding the quality of news. Trust deficit is slowly increasing day by
day. To lessen the gravity of an issue, the matter needs to be discussed. There
must be plenty of experimentation phases which will test the real capability
and compatibility of these communication technologies to be used in the field
of journalism. Ethical aspects need to be duly incorporated at each and every
stage of news from gathering to consumption. Journalists need to be more
equipped with technical skills and efficiency and should not simply leave the
data and AI techniques to data scientists.
AI tools are good and can function well when they are picked and exe-
cuted in a healthy pattern. Precisely, AI is all good at pattern recognition.
AI’s recognition patterns are being potentially used in social media outlets
like Facebook. However, in the process of pattern recognition, AI cannot
provide some other important things to the audience. Therefore, AI process
could turn to erroneous and biased outcomes. In the process of automa-
tion, algorithm which plays an important role, is a matter of randomness.
Algorithms have some sort of biasness and it is very much there when auto-
mation is executed in the journalistic process. When the algorithm process
is faulty from the stage of gathering of news, subsequently production and
distribution of news will become faulty and the entire ecology of news will be
erroneous. As a result, it will create trust deficit among the audience of news
media organizations. Trust deficit will have repercussions on news values
which will further invite ethical concerns.
The data, especially good data remain imperative in the process of AI
and automating the journalistic narratives. Good data are instrumental to
empower the marginalized communities which can create and take the dia-
logue beyond anthropocentrism. However, Daly, Devitt, and Mann (2021,
p. 104) points out,
“Data is the fuel for AI, providing value and power. AI capabilities
are typically designed, funded, developed, deployed and regulated (if
indeed at all) by the wealthy progressing the values of profit, power
and dominance. AI is constructed in a way that typically reinforces and
cements the status quo and existing power relationships.”
Therefore, in the context of journalism and news industry, the applica-

tions of good data to empower marginalized communities or foster social
causes in the journalistic process and narratives remain scarce as of now. The
production, distribution and consumption of journalistic contents for com-

munity and social development through AI and machine learning remain a
day dream.
In this context, Beckett (2019, p. 55) argues,
“Automatically generating articles from erroneous databases can lead

to the spreading of false information, potentially under the label of a
media brand that is considered trustworthy by the public. In general, it
is essential to keep in mind that the objective of a high-quality newspa-
per cannot merely be economic success. If a machine learning algorithm
is trained to maximize revenue, the risk of valuing click-bait articles
more than investigative research projects is high. Therefore, it should
be carefully considered what metrics to optimize for and how to main-
tain the quality standards.”
The automation in the algorithm process of news may cause racial or gender
biases which is socially and politically unacceptable. In the process of auto-
mating the news, fake news may be germinated. Anyone can ventilate one’s
opinion in the name of news and can also share others’ standpoints without
thoroughly validating them. There must be difference between opinion and
news pieces. The treatment of opinion and news pieces must be different.
That’s why, one should not trust everything one reads or watches in what-
ever platform (Black & Fullerton, 2020). Overall, it is risking the entire auto-
mation process which is biased and detrimental to the audience and entire
news industry as well.
12.2.7 Artificial Intelligence and Minimizing Human Interaction

Human Interaction and intervention remain vital in the newsrooms. In the
process of AI and automation of news, human interaction and human touch
are being curtailed. Many a time, machines do not understand what is impor-
tant to the audiences, what kind of news the audience wants to consume
and at what point in time. Again, sometimes when machines take the deci-
sion alone that audiences may not comprehensively understand. Decisions
taken by machines may not appropriately value human conversations. When
machines start taking decisions on behalf of humans, what happens to
those decision-makers in the near future? Ignoring or minimizing the role of
humans in the newsrooms has become an illusion which further trace out the
pinch of ethical issues.
Human and machine. These two are different entities in terms of their
genesis and implications on society. A line should be drawn between these
two and the demarcation should be made for the betterment of society as a
whole. When news gets automated through the process of algorithm, jour-
nalists tend to monitor the machines for various purposes including custom-
izing the news contents and completeness of the news contents. Monitoring
is usually about taking timely and meaningful decisions to keep the ecology
of news media intact from ethical and business perspectives.
While understanding and assessing the media ethics and editorial rules
pertaining to AI, newspersons need to put the applications of machines under
the scanner. Newspersons should apply the human intellect to assess the
credibility of news which are generated and disseminated through AI tools.
Again with the recent arrival of ChatGPT, an AI tool, journalists should be
more cautious to strike a balance between man and machine. In this context,
the necessity to keep a strong human basis for each meaningful decision has
become imperative. There is little doubt on the aspect of human values to be
incorporated in the process of robot or automated journalism. The balancing
act between machine and human values needs to be maintained in a sustain-
able manner in the ecology of news media. Let’s equally value both man and
machine or prioritize on one which is appropriately required at that point of
time.
In this context, Beckett (2019, pp. 62–63) has rightly mentioned,
“To make sure that the impact is a net positive, the journalistic val-
ues and principles need to govern the development of AI solutions. If
media outlets are too much driven by wrong technical metrics, they
can encourage journalists to try to compete with robots or game the AI
recommendation systems. Instead, patience, perseverance and curios-
ity are valuable human qualities and should be encouraged inside the
newsroom.”
12.2.8 Artificial Intelligence and Threats to Employment
The issue of unemployment because of automation in the news industry is

looming large. AI tools are working as communicators by swapping the role
of journalists (Jamil, 2021). As a result, skepticism towards AI and machine
learning cannot be avoided with the fear of downsizing the employment
prospects. With the automation and algorithm on the rise, there are increas-
ing threats to job cuts and the levels of unemployment can be increased. Job
cuts and levels of unemployment is getting rampant. Humans will be increas-
ingly redundant. Downsizing in the levels of jobs can miserably affect the
economic condition of the journalists who will lose their jobs. In the lines of
economy and national development, it can have further impact on bringing
the economy down in terms of per capita income.
Retaining the jobs in the age of automation demands newer skills to be
imparted and learnt in a continuous manner. To learn newer skills is not
always possible because of several obstacles like lack of personal will or
institutional support. Such nature of ethical issues is going to be grave in
the coming days. To cope with this changing environment, upgrading skills,
especially in the light of AI and machine learning is of utmost importance.
New jobs will be created at the cost of old jobs which are very prevalent in
the perennial structure of news media. However, newer skills will be required
as per news industry. The gap between the existing skillsets and required
skills set among the journalists will eventually escalate certain amount of
ethical issues on the spectrum of journalism and its impact on society as
well. Innovation in terms of AI in newsrooms has become a paradox from
ethical perspectives.
In this light in general, Huang and Rust (2018, p. 1) point out, “AI will
be capable of performing even the intuitive and empathetic tasks, which ena-
bles innovative ways of human–machine integration for providing service but
also results in a fundamental threat for human employment”.
12.2.9 Artificial Intelligence and Cultural Challenges
Culture has been found as one of the potential obstacles for change and
development in newsrooms. Professional culture, especially outdated pro-
fessional mindset tends to hamper the transformations in the newsrooms.
To mitigate the issue, innovative learning culture can be the solution. Porcu
(2020, p. 1568) asserts that innovative learning culture (ILC)
“can detect the drivers and obstacles for newsroom learning and inno-
vation processes that have not been identified earlier, as newsrooms
have not been considered from a learning culture perspective before.
Furthermore, with ILC a closer look can be taken at the newsroom’s
own capabilities for innovation, as ILC taps into the intrinsic resilience
and creativity of the newsroom.”
More specifically, revisiting ILC as a means of solution is to break the barrier

of technological lethargy in terms of using AI tools in newsrooms. However,
AI fatigue needs to be taken care of by maintaining the balance and bounda-
ries in the newsrooms. For good or bad, AI tools have come to mold the ecol-
ogy of news media all the world over.
Cultural barriers remain complex in nature. Cultural barriers cannot be
removed in a compartmentalized manner rather it should be dealt with in a
collaborative method. The editorial policy needs to be chalked out with the
IT policy of a given news media outlet. In this light, Beckett (2019, p. 48) has
rightly argued,
“There is a cultural gap between computer scientists and journalists.

Topics such as algorithmic personalization are straightforward and
sensible directions for computer scientists, but raise concerns with jour-
nalists around editorial responsibilities, filter bubbles, etc. We need to
keep everyone on board and get commitment before developing solu-
tions. The solution is to keep in touch/discuss with each other. We (AI
team) currently have monthly meetings with editors to keep everyone
on board, present our ideas and request feedback.”
Therefore, AI is not an easy key that can translate from abstract to reality in
terms of adapting technological innovations in the newsrooms. The adoption
of technological innovations needs to be relevant and contextualized.
12.2.10 Artificial Intelligence and Excessive of Commercial Interests
News organizations are hardly opting for ethical issues rather they chase their
corporate mission and interests. They are not thinking twice about dumping
the journalistic standards which are the bedrock of media laws and news
values. Several times, news media companies are not willing to reveal the
process of algorithm works for automating the news (Brennen, Howard, &
Nielsen, 2018) as it may hamper their business interests. The financial gains
by using AI and neglecting the interests of other stakeholders at the same
time could lapse in terms of ethical standards. Further, AI tools and those
who are in the process of executing them perpetuate the infamous format of
discrimination. In the context of using AI tools, investors or agents in news
media business are being brought and engaged in manipulating the facts and
disseminating the facts in a distorted manner. So, commercial interests also
stay responsible for the ill-effects of AI in journalism.
Lowering the editorial standard is a mark of ethical issue which occurs in
the process of automation. Using AI tools in newsrooms and curtailing the
editorial expenses blindly may lower the editorial standard which may fur-
ther deteriorate the standard of that news media organization. Furthermore,
a decline in the quality of news may hamper the revenue model including the
advertisements. The issue of so-called big and innovative companies will be
there always there. These companies will grip over the research and develop-
ments. However, they can be the point of connection for fostering innova-
tions and development. In the context of using technologies in the field of
journalism, the need for equity in employing AI tools should be there to
strike a chord between growth and ethical concerns.
12.2.11 Artificial Intelligence and Conflict of Byline or Credit of Authorship
Carlson (2015, p. 417) defines automated journalism as “algorithmic pro-

cesses that convert data into narrative news texts with limited to no human
intervention beyond the initial programming”. The problem starts here as
there is limited or no human intervention in the overall journalistic narra-
tives. In the context of assessing the effects of byline on the credibility of
news stories, McAllister III (1966, p. 333) points out. “The byline itself,
then, did little to enhance the credibility of the newspaper articles, nor did the
indication that the authors were experts”. However, the times have changed.
Audiences are increasingly connected to the authors of the news stories
which are participatory in nature. Over the years, participatory culture in the
ecosystem of news has emerged. This participatory culture creates a unique
structure of power relations within the news industry since audiences remain
the mainstay in this newly structured relation between the news media and
their audiences. In the realm of participatory culture, byline stories of authors

or journalists enjoy certain amount of weightage in the perspectives of audi-
ence engagement and persuasiveness.
Byline stories are better persuasive in nature. If bylines are missed out
or diluted, the credibility of news stories will be also diluted. Distrust on
news media will be developed. It will further weaken the advertising revenue.
Byline stories indicate a reporter’s social role in which a reporter is connected
to various communities and society as well. However, this aspect of journal-
ism is missing in robot journalism which runs through a process of automa-
tion or algorithm. Ignoring a reporter’s social role and trying to connect with
the audience through automation of news develops ethical concerns.
Usually, byline or authorship signals a creative domain (Fisk, 2006), indi-
cating the relations between a journalist and news media organization (Reich
& Boudana, 2014). However, with the race for competition along with AI
automation in news media, AI-generated persona of journalists is not sig-
nificant. Many things are lost in this process of algorithm or automation of
news. The human touch is slowly fading away. Thanks to the excessive use
of machine in general and AI tools in particular in newsrooms.
Algorithmic authorship remains complex and has mixed implications on
news outlets, journalists and their audiences (Montal & Reich, 2017, 2019).
The issue of discrepancies pertaining to authorship and crediting policy still
hangs in balance. An appropriate form of authorship and crediting policy
can create a sense of public interest. However, AI-driven news in newsrooms
is not able to afford the required amount of authorship or credit. Again, to
mitigate this issue is not a cakewalk as the whole news media industry is
undergoing transformations and still counting. The framework for a consist-
ent and comprehensive byline policy needs to be ethically attained and later
ecology of news media news can be organically strategized.
12.2.12 Artificial Intelligence and Other Mixed Dimensions to Ethical Issues
Apart from abovementioned ethical issues of AI in the field of journalism,

other dimensions like bad bots and dark web deserve due deliberations. Bots
are programs to develop and automate various assignments. Some of the bots
are useful in nature in the newsrooms. However, some are bad bots which
are directed towards destructive purposes. When it is detected that some bots
are bad, they must be verified and blocked as soon as possible before caus-
ing sheer damage to humankind. Bad bots which are malicious in nature, are
being used by fraudsters, cybercriminals and other nefarious elements. Those
bad bots are also being used for stealing valuable content from other web-
sites. Those contents could be information about any product, breaking news
items and user-generated content (UGC) from any community blogs. Going
beyond, those bots can be used for distorting and misleading marketing ana-
lytics, influencing the website’s search engine rankings, spamming commu-
nity forums with undesirable messages and influencing political elections.
Like bad bots, dark web is otherwise known as deep, invisible and hidden
web. It is being used for initiating criminal activities. Dark web is being bla-
tantly used for drug trafficking, child pornography and credit card deception.
Such AI-driven tool used in journalism is posing threats to public opinion
and democratic norms. It is acting as a means of surveillance of authoritarian
governments for various oppressive agenda. The Dutch operation episode
for collecting secret information is a classic example of dark web where it
was bad to the core (Kumar & Rosenbach, 2019). As dark web enforcement
capabilities are escalating, its impacts are becoming more lethal to human-
kind. Therefore, AI driven tools have started causing gross ethical issues grip-
ping the news industry.
With the automation rising in journalism; water holing, ransomware,
scanning, trolling, web crawling, act of cyber robot, web scraping is getting
intensified. Watering hole is a computer attack strategy and in this criminal
process the attacker tends to observe and contaminate others’ computers to
get access. Such type of social engineering attack which exploit the users’
trust that the users provide to the websites or interactive chat forums they
regularly visit. Ransomware is a disseminating malware which thwarts the
users from accessing their systems. Trolls and bots remain in interrupting
the functioning of social media. OpenAI’s super-trolling artificial intelligence
is also there. There are manipulations on Amazon (Zengel & Skowronski,
2023). Web crawling refers to indexing the data on web pages by a program
or automated script. Web scraping is an automatic process in gathering the
data from websites and disseminate the same information. All these tools
have the bearings on the process of journalistic process and ultimately, they
are causing ethical concerns.
12.2.12.1 Artificial Intelligence, Social influencers in Journalism and Ethical Issues

AI has the power to do good and bad to the state of journalism. An influencer
is someone who is able to affect the decision process of the audience. It hap-
pens as an influencer has the ability, expertise and relationship with the audi-
ence. Commercial brands and even organizations working for social causes
bank on the influencers for maximum endorsements. No wonder, some of
the people want to be effective social influencers (British Council, 2023).
Since social media have become accepted platforms, numerous influencers
are keen to manifest their presence in social media. The influencers try to
influence the audience through their posts which actively engage the audience
on these virtual spaces.
12.2.12.1.1 JOURNALISTS AS INFLUENCERS
The role of journalists keeps on changing. Nowadays, there are discus-

sions whether journalists are playing the role of influencers (Negreira-Rey,
Vázquez-Herrero, & López-García, 2022). Suffice to say, several journalists
and writers are popular and accepted among the audience and they tend to
influence the audience as well through their articles and opinion pieces. Some
of the journalists are popular because of their expertise in given beats. Some
of the journalists influence the people for their write-ups in the fields like
politics, economy, business, technology, agriculture, sports, entertainment,
development and crime. Sometimes, journalists as influencers are known
in print media covering newspapers and magazine. Some of the journalists
influence on television screens on prime time. Today is the age of digital
platforms. Some of the journalists’ influence is getting apparent on digital
news platforms. Moreover, some of the journalists are engaged in writing
biographies of noted personalities and they tend to influence the audience.
12.2.12.1.2 INFLUENCE INTENT
At present, social media influencers are delivering curated contents to the

audiences (Hund, 2019). The convergence of digital journalism and influ-
encer culture has spawned an entire genre of reporting to accommodate,
such as breath-taking coverage of book launches by popular authors. Like
others AI can assist journalists in boosting their influence on the audience.
AI has a lot to do with social influencers, social media marketing and jour-
nalism as well. These days, influencers’ communication and marketing
remains one of the most effective marketing strategies. Marketers agree that
it is effective in generating the best ROI and creating the most value for the
brand. When you're working with dozens of influencers, it can be difficult
to know which campaigns are successful and which aren't. AI in influencer
marketing can help you understand brand mentions, traffic, conversions
and more. It helps to directly link the key metrics of the influencer to their
specific initiatives. You can do this in real time and monitor whether influ-
encers are meeting the goals they have agreed with their followers. social
influencers do have direct or indirect impact on journalism. News media
tend to cover the social influencers and the brands they endorse through
their communication. Even though AI helps in understanding the social
influences’ impact, but it could be inappropriate to understand and measure
from ethical perspectives.
12.2.12.1.3 MEASURING INFLUENCE
With the advent of social media outlet, people’ interactions and communica-
tion have undergone massive changes. Influencers are getting apparent in all
social media platforms. Social media influencers are everywhere. Their influ-
ence on consumer collectives is quite apparent. They are engaged in conver-
sations with the consumers to further boost the business activities (Mardon,
Cocker, & Daunt, 2023). However, finding such influencers for particular
purpose or activity remains important.
These social media influencers have larger associations with the audience.
At the same time audience support and rely on the social media influenc-
ers for their commendable authenticity and stature (Lou & Yuan, 2019).
The nature and amount of engagement, outreach and expansion, sentiment

and progress are the key factors in measuring the impact of social influenc-
ers. Brands are roping in social influencers for their brand promotion. Social
media influencers are employed for their high credibility to influence the
audience. So, credibility is a major road to assess the impact of social media
influencing. Social media influencers have a beneficial impact on intensifying
communities’ effective outreach. Therefore, effective outreach is a scale that
measures the impact of social media influencers.
12.2.12.1.4 MONETIZING SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCE
There is no doubt that social media based on the technology of artificial

intelligence and social media influencers resort to monetary models. All
these social media activities boil down to business and monetary gains. Even
though influencers and influence agencies have arrived towards monetariza-
tion, they have different strategies for achieving it at this time. Precisely,
the key objective was to maximize monetization. Genuineness controls over
the process of monetizing influence, but it frequently implies. Influencers,
marketers and brands, especially in this early period, mean different things.
Influencers are aiming to maintain what they had immense pressure to mon-
etize with creative inspiration .
Since advertisers, influencers and viewers are all accustomed to traditional
product and service endorsements, motives for monetization for the influenc-
ers are nothing new in the industry. However, there is an incremental format
that offers publishers and influencers greater control over conversions and
unmatched chances for gritty targeting. Influencer affiliate marketing, a method
of traffic monetization, is becoming more apparent these days. One can direct
and navigate one’s potential customers to only reputable products with affiliate
link ads placed in your social media and make money for each click. The model
is not too complicated. By placing a link somewhere in one’s social media chan-
nels and informing one’s audience, one can supply an ad placement.
Social Media Platforms for Affiliate Marketing: Social media platforms are
being used for affiliate marketing. The nature and type of your reach and
the platforms you use may have you questioning whether the incremental
advertising approach would work for you. Nevertheless, influencers are not
all created equal. With influencer affiliate link structure, you may sign up
as a legitimate publisher for branded offers regardless of the social media
platform you are using. All types of social media influencers can develop into
influential publishers. The affiliate link format enables the users to embed the
advertisement for the promoted brand in a variety of settings.
Using Instagram Platform for Profit: Instagram remains a powerful means of

monetizing social media influence. Instagram is beyond an online photo book.
Another significant feature of Instagram is that it truly enables someone to
elevate his/her game as a creator by marketing and promoting one’s unique

links in various locations. Each format has its own qualities and will appeal
to audiences that are slightly different. Consequently, Instagram is most
likely the most adaptable social media network available, at least in terms of
affiliate marketing opportunities and techniques.
Using YouTube Platform for Profit: YouTube is comparatively less interactive

because of its nature and the trait of the platform. YouTube creators have
the capacity to keep their fans interested for a long time. However, it does
not alter the reality that, in the hands of an experienced publisher, its traffic
might develop into a genuine asset. The strength of YouTube creators retains
the attention of viewers for a long time. They have the opportunity to mon-
etize their astronomical number of visits through affiliate networks.
Using Facebook Platform for Profit: Facebook has become a powerful social
media platform in which social media influencers are active for monetary
gains. This platform has introduced newer windows for chronicling audi-
ences and followers as well (Zeropark, 2023). These influencers have an
ever-widening reach, with events, brand deals, TV shows and magazine cov-
ers being their playing fields. Where effective social influencers are engaged
with the audience, money flows. As per the Influencer Marketing Report, the
Indian influencer industry is expected to reach at Rs 2,200 crore by 2025 and
grow at a 25 percent CAGR, pointing out the fact that influencer business is
getting serious and visible. As per marketing experts, an influencer in India
based on the category they cater to, the niche and the deliverables can earn
from Rs 15,000–5,00,000 from one brand deal (CNBC TV18, 2023). As it is
a business affairs and cost is involved, brands know what they want from the
influencers and how the influencers will target their audience.
12.2.12.2 Artificial Intelligence, Translation in Journalism and Ethical Issues
Translation powered by AI tools has ethical implications in the domain of

journalism. AI translation just applies the power of machine. One of the
major innovations of this system is the translation of audio-visual content.
These translations are automatic, but can also be enhanced in terms of text,
voice and time by using synthetic voice-offs in the translations. The system
automatically creates video pills for social networks, ready to summarize and
translate messages into other languages.
AI-based translation tools can provide instant translations when jour-
nalists in the newsrooms need them most. AI translators can act as invalu-
able helpers for journalists. The best AI language tools can transcreate large
amounts of text with high accuracy, without the financial overhead associ-
ated with human translators. This can be a boon for the newsroom. However,
AI tools for translation in the domain of journalism is not free from ethical
flaws. Cultural misconceptions remain one major flaw with AI tools when
they are used in newsrooms. AI translators are more accurate than ever, but
they don't have deep knowledge of the local culture. Accurate translations
can still be misleading or offensive to locals, and humor is something that
computers are not well equipped to analyze the things.
News items should be easy to understand among the readers. However,
in the course of translation, complexity comes in, causing ionocovalence
to the news consumers. AI translation tools can struggle with unclear or
ambiguous source text. When it comes to terminology, it may not be ideal
for accurate translation. Some texts need to be complicated. Computers
are very good at repetitive tasks with definite results, but they are not very
good at making text attractive and readable. Text produced by AI transla-
tion is often boring and neutral. These drawbacks from ethical perspec-
tives may discourage journalists to use AI tools for translation in newsroom
management.
12.2.12.3 ChatGPT in Journalism and Ethical Issues
ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence tool, is seen as a game changer that rede-

fines how people learn and work. Journalists are no exception. They can use
ChatGPT to quickly verify information and ensure reporting accuracy. Using
the language model, journalists can paste a summary or part of a scientific
article into ChatGPT and ask the software to simplify it. Journalists can use
this tool to better understand an article or idea before interviewing the arti-
cle's author. ChatGPT helps journalists gather information on various topics,
saving time and allowing them to focus on the writing and reporting process.
Newsrooms can use ChatGPT to generate ideas for articles, headlines and
story angles or generate summaries and highlights from long pieces of con-
tent. This AI tool helps journalists analyze large data sets and uncover trends
and insights related to reporting. ChatGPT can summarize long articles and
news into concise, easy-to-understand summaries, helping journalists keep
up with the latest developments in the field. ChatGPT is being used to make
headlines. Even though ChatGPT is bad and unethical, certain newsrooms
apply this AI tool for writing articles. Using this AI tool in the newsrooms has
invited ethical and legal repercussions. ChatGPT can be disastrous for jour-
nalistic truth. Platforms that can imitate the writings of people who have no
commitment to truth will benefit the individuals or organizations who make
money from disinformation. Use of such AI tools cannot go unbridled. It has
disrupted the essence and process of journalism.
For journalism purposes, a huge amount of material (words, images,
sounds, videos) can be produced very quickly. The problem is that they are
not committed to the truth at all. Just think of how ChatGPT users can
flood the internet with bogus messages that look like they were written by a
human. The most disturbing fact to reiterate is that ChatGPT is not respon-
sible for the truth. As the MIT Technology Review puts it, large language
model chatbots are "notorious bullshit". Disinformation, fraud and crime
also usually do not require true confessions. Visit the blackhatworld.com

forums. People involved in malicious acts share ideas for making money from
fake content. ChatGPT is touted as a game changer for generating better fake
reviews and comments or compelling profiles.
The applications of ChatGPT for all sorts of communication or journalis-
tic narratives have invited ethical apprehensions. As humans started banking
on machines to conduct conversations, the real human connection can be
lost. The ability to get associated with other is a central aspect of human
beings and any wayward use of machines including ChatGPT could bring
damage to human beings and society as well (Bogost, 2022). ChatGPT has
admitted to its weaknesses. AI is a double-edged sword, disrupting decades-
old revenue models rooted in digital advertising, while potentially allowing
newsrooms to ditch human writers to save costs. ChatGPT was created by
collecting a large amount of information from around the internet, so the
information returned is as biased as the information used for training. When
journalists use ChatGPT, they not only double-check the content presented,
but also reach out to others with different point of views, including those
who may disagree with the prejudices built into ChatGPT.
Many scholars believe that journalism is in the midst of a revolution and
that mastery of content-generating algorithms and AI tools will be a key
battleground. This could lead to a major shift in the space of publishing
companies, promoters and search engines, encountering with new media
technologies like AI tools. ChatGPT, an AI tool, cannot be useless for jour-
nalists. It can assist the journalists to make things better. However, ChatGPT
or other AI tools for the journalists’ jobs are debatable.
12.3 Promise, Perils and Predictions of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism

Needless to say, technology has had a wonderful, almost unimaginable
impact on humankind since the dawn of civilization. AI, a part of techno-
logical innovations, is all around us. And newsrooms are not exception to it.
The power of AI is transforming the process of journalism. AI is evolving and
providing the newsrooms with a promising productivity. This is providing a
newer level of engagement with the audiences. Apart from other technologies
like metaverse, blockchain, NFTs, computer-generated imagery, immersive
technologies and ChatGPT are going to influence the state of journalism in
big way. When it comes to journalism, the intersection of journalism and AI
tools is at the crossroads.
ChatGPT has surprised internet users around the world by answering a
series of questions. The search interface has also been addressed by fixing bro-
ken code. Bots continue to engage different people including the journalists
to answer experimental questions. Needless to say, experimental questions
are the ethical issues which are often discussed in the domain of journal-
ism. It comes with certain challenges such as the threat of plagiarism, phish-
ing and misinformation campaigns. ChatGPT is suitable for certain business
uses, but it is not yet proven and may not see mass adoption by news persons
until future versions are rolled out.
Nevertheless, any technology including AI is detrimental to newsrooms
in particular or society in general if it is not used with good intents. It is the
way that decides whether AI is a boon or bane. The nature of usages draws
a line between good and bad from ethical perspectives. There is little doubt
that our information ecosystem is fast moving towards unreality. It sounds
surprising, but is true. The perils of excessive reliance on AI in the ecology of
news media are causing gross ethical issues in various forms. While using AI
techniques for journalistic narratives is indeed revolutionary, there are cer-
tain downsides to it. New communication technologies are always invented
for creating good causes for the newsrooms and audiences as well. AI has
the ability to make the newsrooms better than before. However to make the
newsrooms from good to better, we ought to choose the technologies that
accord with ethics or principles. Applying AI in the ecology of news media
should not be wayward in nature.
The evils of disinformation and emergence of dubious news platforms
are the dimensions which demand discussions from ethical perspec-
tives. The dissemination of disinformation will be spiraling in the future.
Disinformation campaigns for the dissemination of disinformation demands
a lot of human effort. However, by employing AI tools will assist the agents
of disinformation and push this evil to the next level. Things have crossed
beyond a certain point that argues for AI literacy. In this juncture, AI lit-
eracy has become the need of the hour. The incorporation of AI techniques
into newsrooms has given rise to new ethical issues and new responsibilities
in the profession of journalism. Precisely, possible pathways comprising
AI strategies judicious in nature can be applied which will attain ethical
concerns in the ecology of news media. Evaluate what are the areas of news
media outlets where AI can be operated without any ethical concerns. This
can be the guidelines for the newsrooms which are novice in the time of
using AI tools.
Identifying key ethical issues posing ethical issues by the use of AI tools in
the field of journalism, needs to be attained. Training the resources, enhanc-
ing the skills and mitigating the cultural barriers can lessen the magnitude of
ethical issues. While being mindful of their hazardous outcomes in the news-
rooms and society as a whole, embracing AI techniques in news media has
become inevitable. Through the concerted and continuous efforts of news
media and other stakeholders of the industry of journalism, AI can make the
ecology of news media better than before without any ethical concerns.
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13 Foundations, Ferment and
Future of Artificial Intelligence in
Journalism
13.1 Introduction
Journalism with artificial intelligence (AI) is now a reality. Nearly every area
of our lives now includes AI, including journalism. We inadvertently tend to
receive content based on AI techniques everywhere because of the develop-
ment of digital media. Our Facebook feed, YouTube-suggested videos and
the kinds of adverts we see on standard websites are all individually tailored
to you with the use of AI tools. The application of AI tools in media and
communication in general and journalism in particular, entails communica-
tion revolution. The future of communication technologies including AI tools
navigates the history, process and future of the communication revolution.
In this context, recapitulating Carey and Singhal is of pivotal importance.
Going back to the history and navigation pertaining to the communication
revolution, Carey (1965, pp. 23–24) asserts,
“In the 18th and 19th centuries western countries were hit with two
successive waves of revolutions, revolutions separated in time but tied
in logic. The first was the industrial revolution which reorganised the
nature of work and the structural basis of class and community. The
second was the revolution in communication and popular culture
which reorganised the basis on which art, information, and culture was
made available and the terms on which experience was worked into
consciousness. While some commentators chose to treat these revolu-
tions as independent events, it is obvious they stand as cause and effect,
successive moments in the same process. The timing, interrelationship,
speed, and extensiveness of these revolutions vary considerably from
country to country, but both the direction of change and the major
implications of these revolutions is everywhere the same.”
On the other hand, Singhal and Rogers (2001) specifically indicates the pro-
cess of communication revolution in India, bringing the discussion on the
role of governmental level and in private enterprise, technology parks and
the internet revolution.
AI has the potential to influence how journalism is produced, distributed
and consumed. However, journalism needs to learn from varied industries,
DOI: 10.4324/9781032716879-13
Foundations, Ferment and Future of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism 275
like technology companies and start-ups, marketing and advertising and

marketing practices. There is no denying that AI has both the sides, some-
times it paves the way for newer explorations and sometimes it proves to
be detrimental for the newsrooms. ChatGPT, an AI chatbot, has brought
revolution in the field of media and communication. ChatGPT is a revolu-
tionary language processing model developed by OpenAI, one of the world's
leading AI research institutes. Designed to understand and generate natural
language responses to various inputs, ChatGPT is a game changer in the field
of communication.
In addition to its application in the business world, ChatGPT will also have
a major impact on future communications. As more people use AI-powered
chatbots and virtual assistants, the need for advanced language processing
models like ChatGPT will continue to grow. This has eventually changed the
process of communication.
At OpenAI, we are committed to advancing the field of artificial intelli-
gence and developing new technologies that have the potential to change the
world. With ChatGPT, we believe we have created a model that can revolu-
tionize the way we communicate and interact with the world around us. The
ChatGPT tool is certainly impressive and has implications for everything from
education and classroom assignments to journalism and marketing. However,
its output is funny, sometimes funny, fluid, compelling but unreliable and pro-
duces answers that can be surprisingly wrong. In an information environment
rife with cybercrime and disinformation, ChatGPT’s human-mimicking parlor
tricks add gas to an already burning dumpster fire. Using the language model,
journalists can paste a summary or part of a scientific article into ChatGPT
and ask the software to simplify it. Journalists can use this tool to understand
an article or idea better before interviewing the article's author.
13.2 Artificial Intelligence in Journalism: A Mixed Response

The use of artificial intelligence in journalism can be a boon or bane (Biswal
& Gouda, 2020). The use of technology can eliminate countless hours of
tedious effort. Computers, for instance, can group together files of a similar
nature that would normally need a lot of time to study, freeing up reporters
to concentrate on the subject (McCarthy & Kunova, 2021). The basic objec-
tive is to free up the journalists to concentrate on the most creative aspects of
their work while automating mundane activities, but new case studies indi-
cate that the advantages may be more than we realize. By transcribing audio
and video interviews, AI can also save the reporters’ time.
AI tools can perform a wide range of functions. You do not need to shift
through a ton of spreadsheets because they can do it for you. They can iden-
tify peculiarities like a significant expenditure by your local council, unusu-
ally high or low temperatures in your area, or a sharp rise or reduction in
hospital admissions. You may even employ the tools to write material and
validate it. They can personalize your website or newsletter for the readers
276 Foundations, Ferment and Future of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism
and instantly publish it. There are limitless options which can make journal-
ism better. Although you must initially spend some money, the majority of
AI-powered technologies result in long-term cost savings.
Kumud Das, a journalist-turned-academic in India, argues,
In news gathering, artificial intelligence can be for the regulator stuff

like press release and other regulatory filing. In broadcast medium, it
can be more relevant but again here in news production rather than
news gathering. AI can play a vital role in news distribution and think
AI will gain momentum. AI is not going to be a very costly technology
and it will be taken well both in developed and developing world.
Upasana Singh, working as a correspondent with Reuters News points out

the use of artificial intelligence in news gathering, news production and dis-
tribution is not only time efficient but it has also led to a higher degree of
accuracy. However, when AI models are used to produce news, they often
lack the human element of emotions. At the same time, Inam Mohammad,
the chief content creator, working in one of major Hindi news media outlets,
Hindustan opines that the use of artificial intelligence is not there in regional
media and Hindi media in India because of lack of knowledge and finance.
However, the importance of AI in dealing with news consumers during
Covid-19 times has increased. The high-quality camera and mobile phones
are required for journalists working in Hindi news media outlets and these
are not available. Hi-tech software and their use are also limited. There is
room for change here with the inclusion of AI in newsrooms.
Journalists can harvest open datasets using AI-powered technologies and
stores the content in the cloud. Humans then use the data to create narra-
tives that speak to people’s concerns about a variety of issues, including
air pollution, crime, traffic and the coronavirus. Every item of informa-
tion can be turned into local news by including a location tag. Investigative
journalism can profit from the use of machines, much as local reporting.
Newsrooms are also utilizing computational tools as accountability tools,
utilizing the technology to quickly evaluate enormous amounts of data. To
combat misinformation, work is being done to create AI systems that will
assist journalists in fact-checking politicians in real time. The AI community
is expanding, and its participants are eager to assist journalists in overcom-
ing their reluctance to collaborate with computers. The consensus among all
presenters was that you don't need to have everything sorted out in order to
start; all you need to do is ask someone you trust for guidance. However,
Das asserts,
“I think the prominence of fake news can gain momentum with AI as

the developers of these technologies will be the first to misuse it. The
biggest fear is on financial news where a misinformation on a com-
pany’s results or a corporate action can lead to rise/fall in market cap in
billions of dollars in few minutes. It can be easy to plug-in a fake press

release. So, creating the trust on AI could be difficult.”
Singh finds that when it comes to privacy and AI which is applied by major
social media networks such as Facebook nowadays, the theme of ethicality
often becomes blurred. On the one hand, people willingly share information
on such channels, but this information is systematically organized to discern
individual patterns and target particular news items. In some ways, this could
lead to propaganda.
Automated journalism writing is becoming possible with assistance from
AI applications. Media outlets have to rely on experienced journalists for
many years to create news items or cover events on a daily basis. Journalists
don't want to imply that this is no longer the case, but AI has given rise
to new approaches to basic communication and content creation. In order
to free up professional journalists' time to write more in-depth pieces, AI
is increasingly writing rote articles or articles that are essentially reports.
The majority of natural language generation (NLG) techniques used to cre-
ate these articles were initially made available by software providers like
Narrative Science. Many media organizations today have created internal
versions. AI can improve the reporting process in the same way that visiting
numerous websites can make it easier to conduct online research.
AI is currently making inroads in the journalistic industry. AI now plays
a far larger part in journalism as a result of social media's effect. As a result,
media companies are aggressively looking for AI assistance to improve their
content. Robot reporters are designed to produce vast amounts of informa-
tion more quickly. Trust is essential to maintaining the confidence and sub-
scriptions of news consumers in a world where disinformation is on the rise.
Such AI technologies have been proved to be useful to make journalism more
unbiased. As a result, technologies can make journalism beneficial and rel-
evant for people too.
Commenting on the use of artificial intelligence in journalism in developed
countries and developing countries and the possible emergence of the digi-
tal divide in a new form, Lalatendu Acharya, a faculty member associated
with public health, social development and communication from Indiana
University Kokomo, United States asserts, artificial intelligence can actually
reduce the existing digital divide rather than exacerbate it. AI offers crea-
tive platforms to enable more equality in journalism in digitally developed
and developing countries. For example, AI solutions can be preloaded into
devices commonly used by journalists in developing countries with unreliable
internet, digital platforms to enable increased access to data. AI has been
extensively used to address global disparities in health, education and other
areas. So, one has to see AI as an enabler in bridging the digital divide and
building a much more inclusive society.
In this context, Das argues artificial intelligence can be used in automated
systems especially with respect to official press releases and filings with the
regulatory bodies and this can be used across the board whether in developed
or developing countries. Editing is one area which could gets impacted. So,
AI can be more about cost optimization rather than improving journalistic
capabilities. Das does not think that it would create any digital divide as
journalism is all about trust and credibility and there is a good possibility of
trust being less in the AI and digital world. The use of the word “Fake News”
is more prevalent in post social media.
AI tools can be used to lessen the amount of bullying and abuse. AI tools
are being used in journalism in a wide range of ways. Numerous news organ-
izations are also utilizing AI to filter readers’ comments, promote positive
debate and get rid of bullying and harassment on their websites. AI is iden-
tifying the mark of prejudice and tendencies. In order to lessen the bias in its
own output, bots are being used. Another intriguing prospect is that articles
may start to be written specifically for certain niche audiences and ultimately
for each of us. At the same time, the use of artificial intelligence is not free
from shortcomings. The problem is that most journalists are not computer
experts and are more interested in the results of artificial intelligence than
in how it operates. Again, computers can also be biased, just as people. We
still live in a world that is ruled by humans, so while data represents human
behavior, it also reflects our mistakes and prejudices.
Pallavi Guha, a faculty member with Towson University, United States
asserts,
“artificial intelligence is useful in certain aspects of news and journal-

ism, such as big data analysis, data journalism, voter estimates, elec-
tion campaign spending, and others; however, it can impact ethical
issues and news values, if not used responsibly. Algorithms are, after
all, taught and have biases. One example would be the AI correction
of non-Anglo-Saxon names, threatening the accuracy of news stories.”
AI has created disruptions in almost all spheres of society. AI acts as a dis-

ruptive innovation which is increasingly felt day by day. The field of jour-
nalism is not free from such kind of disruptions. However, this disruptive
innovation has invited political upheaval across the countries which has fur-
ther fueled political polarizations. Often, political polarizations are not good
indications of democratic governance. As a result, political extremism driven
by vested interests gets a boost which goes against the mission and vision
of a democratic mechanism. So, communication technologies including AI,
metaverse, blockchain, machine learning, computer-generated imagery (CGI)
and immersive tools need to address such pitfalls that technologies can be
fruitful for societal growth.
If the audience is to believe, the reporting process must be open and some-
one must take responsibility, whether it is a human or a machine conduct-
ing the reporting. AI tools enable journalists to understand and interpret
the data at a faster pace. In this context, Maarit Jaakkola, Co-Director,
Nordicom, Nordic Centre for Media Research, University of Gothenburg,

Sweden asserts,
“As the most recent development already has shown, artificial intel-
ligence will facilitate the acquisition of information, as well as the col-
lection, curation and analysis of (big) data. AI will assist journalists in
standardized writing tasks, facilitating the journalistic work by mak-
ing it quicker and freeing journalists from routine tasks. This could, in
optimistic views, mean that journalists will have more time to concen-
trate on the qualitative dimensions of their work and reallocate their
time in more productive ways, which may result in more investigative,
interpretative reporting. If we want to sustain the optimism, this might
mean more quality journalism, which distinguishes journalism from the
forms of production of bulk content and can, at its best, lead into reap-
preciation of journalism among the audiences. However, the develop-
ment is not linear and progressive, and AI may also mean some negative
consequences, not only for journalism, but for the whole information
ecology, as the automated production of dis-information and mal-
information will increase.”
Acharya emphasizes that artificial intelligence provides a method(s) for

extending a journalist’s access and reach in her reportage of events. AI is
here to stay and grow and get more and more integrated into news gather-
ing, summarizing and delivery. So, the key here is to understand and build
on how AI can be used to facilitate the journalist’s reportage. Here, one
must understand that AI does not do magic in gathering or reporting news.
The old adage of GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out) still operates here as the
news is as good as the skillsets of the human journalist who gathered the pri-
mary data and sees the “news” angle (the newsy element!). AI helps in con-
solidating, aggregating, generating trends, suggesting new ideas/patterns for
further journalistic usage. For example, AI can ensure that a journalist can
tap into the raw material generated at numerous health-related events hap-
pening in the area and thus enables the health journalists to analyze the data,
develop a news angle and report. This support from AI is extremely useful
in development and health journalism as a journalist can access numerous
sources (expanding coverage) negating the impossibility of being physically
present at all those sites. AI can be used to generate machine-written arti-
cles which can be used as a draft for journalists helping them in tackling
the complexities. Improving workflow process, generating alerts/ trends,
helping reduce human bias, transcribing audio and video data, generating
audience-specific(personalized) news are other ways in which AI can impact
the media ecology. AI thus supports the news media ecology in increasing
access, news aggregation, mapping trends, helping complex investigative
projects, tackling human bias and generating options for news summaries
and distribution.
The applications of AI tools in journalism also helps to lessen the flaws

pertaining to the data. The Janetbot is one such piece of AI software. This
technique was useful in examining the variation in the proportion of gen-
dered images that appeared in newspapers. However, it had to be terminated
because the AI could not distinguish between genders. AI literacy is the need
of the hour. As Jaakkola points out, “Artificial intelligence may affect citi-
zens in ways that require more awareness of its uses. Journalists should try to
increase the awareness of how AI works and how people can, for example,
withdraw from it or protect their privacy”.
Delivering his unique stand on artificial intelligence in news media on
health-related issues in the context of privacy, ethical issues and news val-
ues, Acharya argues, artificial intelligence can be a valuable tool, resource in
building the current privacy, ethical and value framework while delivering
news on health. News media is home to an extremely diverse set of media
persons who deliver news in different formats. They also possess a fairly
wide and diverse training and qualification. Over time, the need for basic,
additional and refresher training is felt which can be addressed by AI. Thus,
AI can strengthen the current privacy and ethical climate in delivering health
news. That being said, there are a lot of inherent risks involved and there are
no easy answers. Lack of legislation, protocols and the diversity of health
contexts around the world, raise more challenges. There is a need to develop
ethically robust AI systems that incorporate ethical issues in delivering health
news with the understanding that these systems are tailored to the individual
country contexts (policies and laws). For example, privacy and ethical issues
in health would differ in the US and Indian context (similarities aside).
The prospect of coexisting with AI poses a threat to many journalists. The
COVID-19 pandemic's economic effects have sparked an unparalleled jour-
nalistic crisis that threatens to destroy media outlets all across the world. AI
may be crucial to journalism's survival in the future. Sadeep Sahu, a senior
correspondent of BBC in India has rightly confirmed that artificial intelligence
can certainly be a wonderful tool for journalists, especially when it comes to
mundane, cumbersome tasks like transcribing audio/video interviews. The
use of AI can save valuable time and allow the journalist to focus on the more
substantive aspects of writing like deriving insights. It can also help examine
and interpret large volumes of data and flag trends and anomalies emerg-
ing out of it. To a certain extent, it can also reduce the scope for subjective
interpretation of data and the element of bias. But excessive use of AI poses
the danger of what is called “robot journalism”. The human element must
remain an essential part of quality journalism.
AI techniques can be used to focus on local news by including a loca-
tion tag. However, local or small news media outlets are not able to exploit
the power of AI. Similarly, technologies like metaverse, machine learning,
blockchain, computer-generated imagery and immersive technologies are not
able to get accommodated in small newsrooms. This raises the larger pic-
ture of vernacularization of communication technologies in general and AI
in journalism in particular. The political economy of AI needs to be factored

in while understanding this dimension. However, this remains a challenge. In
addition, metaverse, machine learning, blockchain and immersive technolo-
gies need to be understood in the light of political economy as these technolo-
gies are going to shape up the future of journalism.
Domestication of communication technologies remains insightful.
Domestication of using artificial intelligence is newsrooms is an unavoidable
area in the domain of media technology and journalism. However, domesti-
cation of AI in newsrooms and journalistic narratives is taking a back seat.
News outlets should not be crazy about the use of AI tools only rather they
must be engaged in studies and descriptions of the mechanisms governing
how journalists choose to embrace, use, or reject AI tools. Domestication
theory pertaining to AI in journalism can highlight the involvement of users
in innovation as a component of the social shaping of technology method to
understand how technology is formed. The process of incorporating AI tools
is also important like understanding any process. Especially, domestication
of AI can be tested on the anvil of local news. Similar treatment ought to
be provided to other communication technologies like metaverse, machine
learning, blockchain, computer-generated imagery and immersive technolo-
gies in the light of journalistic uses and gratifications.
The future of artificial intelligence can be bright with due precautions in
the realm of journalism. However, it is not exactly known to anyone. The
employment level in journalism won’t be eliminated or replaced by AI. In
fact, editors and journalists need to be reoriented toward value-added con-
tent, such as long-form journalism, feature interviews, analysis, data-driven
journalism and investigative journalism. In the worst-case scenario, automa-
tion might replace human labor and endanger jobs as well as the unique-
ness of journalism. In its ideal form, technology may revitalize journalism
by taking over time-consuming and repetitive duties, freeing up journalists
to concentrate on creating high-value content. However, the automation of
journalistic production techniques is not just restricted to text creation.
Artificial intelligence can be instrumental for communicating social
change and development. Development communication, especially devel-
opment journalism can get a Philip when communication technologies like
metaverse, machine learning, blockchain, computer-generated imagery and
immersive technologies along with AI will be used for positive, purposive
and pragmatic manner. The nonfungible tokens (NFTs) can also be factored
in the light of ownership pattern of news media outlets which have further
bearings on developmental news and development of society. Maintaining
the credentials of positive, purposive and pragmatic approach to journalism
will direct the pace of journalism from mere communication to development
communication and from mere journalism to development communication.
Since developing countries are gripping with numerous developmental issues,
development journalism through technological interventions is of paramount
importance.
In this context, Pradip Thomas, University of Queensland, Australia, who

is an expert in development communication comments,
If artificial intelligence enables the collection and analysis of Big Data is

useful in investigative journalism, advocacy journalism, developmental
journalism, human rights journalism, public interest journalism, I have
no issues with it. If on the other hand, it is used in stories to justify
discrimination against specific communities, create negative profiles,
misrepresent reality or advocate for policies that justify the selective
development of communities, then artificial intelligence should be cri-
tiqued and there should be efforts to protect the ethics of development
journalism. I think that we live in the times when every type of journal-
ism simply has no choice but has to make its pace with AI.
On the use of artificial intelligence in the field of development commu-

nication, Manisha Pathak-Shelat, Professor, Communication & Digital
Platforms and Strategies; Chair, Centre for Development Management
and Communication, MICA, Ahmedabad, India, comments that like any
other technological innovation, artificial intelligence can be liberating and
democratizing or it can be disruptive and discriminatory. If we prioritize
ethical design and use of AI, it can certainly contribute to development and
development communication. With its powerful facilitation of data min-
ing and analysis, AI can help design more evidence-based communication
strategies, it can make information cheaper, quicker and more accessible,
and it can help in scaling up successful communication campaigns. AI can
also be useful in customization of communication for various audience seg-
ments conducting formative and summative research for communication
initiatives.
Commenting on the future of artificial intelligence in journalism, espe-
cially in development communication/journalism in general and journalism
on health in particular, Acharya states that the integration of AI and reli-
ance on it is just going to increase. It’s better our journalists to acquire the
required skillsets to perform in that environment. They should understand
the risks and benefits of using AI and focus on how it can be used as a rein-
forcing beneficial tool.
In recent years, AI is playing an important role in the domain of journal-
ism. Many businesses have internal software that can produce news items
in a matter of minutes or even seconds. The data are all that artificial intel-
ligence need. Now, this information may take the shape of numbers, audio,
or video. Newsworthy stories on them will be generated by the software.
With the use of language processing software, major media institutions like
the Washington Post, BBC and Bloomberg are employing AI to write news
pieces. Imagine the supplying of any form of data to an AI program, includ-
ing the specifics of a business's assets. In that instance, the computer program
will automatically interpret the data and provide you with a published-ready
piece. However, Das asserts that artificial intelligence has not much relevance
in business journalism beyond press release. But for reporters surviving on
plain vanilla press reporting and editing jobs could have a problem. The anal-
ysis (especially financial numbers), in-depth investigative stories and good
features writing cannot be done using machines. It’s like when the computers
and mobile phones came people thought demand for paper will reduce, but
it has actually gone up. AI will lead to good quality journalism and journal-
ist. AI could have a very restrictive role in editing and distribution. But on
reporting, Das does not think it can replace people.
Singh predicts that in the field of journalism, artificial intelligence is here
to stay. Although it might take several years for it to match the human quo-
tient of journalism, it is increasingly becoming popular for its timeliness and
accuracy. At the same time, Inam highlights that the attitude and perception
of the new generation news consumers towards Hindi media outlet is negli-
gible. New generation news consumers tend to visit online news sources and
social media which are better equipped with artificial technology tools. The
space and future of AI in Hindi media is quite bright.
The use of artificial intelligence is directly or indirectly connected to the
teaching pedagogy of media and communication, especially the education of
journalism. It is a known fact that classroom teaching also produces and pre-
pares journalists for the future. Imparting theories with adequate practical
training is required for the optimum learning on the use of AI in practicing
journalism. It would be necessary to study programming concepts, statistics
and probability, as well as linguistic engineering and data quality issues, and
to work on comprehending algorithms. It would also include developing the
required critical mindset. Simultaneously, several academic voices are urging
journalists to cultivate computational thinking in order to encourage com-
munication with computer scientists.
In this context, Guha asserts,
“I am seeing the inclusion of AI tools and scholarship in journalism

courses here; it is imperative as the nature of journalism has changed and
evolved. What we need is to include more equitable and inclusive tools
and scholarship on AI in journalism. It is not perfect due to the inherent
biases, but a step toward making investigative journalism accessible.”
On the applications of AI tools in the pedagogy of development commu-

nication, Prof. Pathak-Shelat points out that the effective use of artificial
intelligence in pedagogy of development communication depends on several
factors: scale, spread and affordability of infrastructure; capacity building
of communicators and audiences; inclusivity in design and delivery, and the
political will to reach the last mile. AI-based pedagogy can be immensely use-
ful when we don’t have adequately trained human resources for developing
and delivering development communication. It can be innovatively used to
set up triggers, nudges and alarms with respect to certain behavioral change
goals. AI can also assist us in curating customized learning modules for indi-
vidual learners.
The discussion of artificial intelligence in the light of journalism has been
insightful pertaining to evolution and revolution in journalism; development
journalism; changing ecology of news media; data journalism, citizen jour-
nalism; social–cultural implications; and ethical issues and responsibilities.
Precisely, Bryson (2019) underlines,
“beyond the economic and governance challenges, we need to remember

that AI first and foremost extends and enhances what it means to be
human, and in particular our problem-solving capacities. Given ongoing
global challenges such as security and sustainability, such enhancements
promise to continue to be of significant benefit, assuming we can estab-
lish good mechanisms for their regulation. Through a sensible portfolio
of regulatory policies and agencies, we should continue to expand—and
also to limit, as appropriate—the scope of potential AI application.”
This also applies to the field of journalism.
The discussion of artificial intelligence in the newsrooms frequently devi-
ates from journalism and focuses exclusively on algorithms, databases, and
machine learning. Algorithmic necessity or necessity evil in journalism are
the larger talking points. Journalism with AI is now a reality. Nearly every
area of our lives now includes AI, including journalism. We inadvertently
receive content based on AI everywhere because of the development of digi-
tal media. Your Facebook feed, YouTube-suggested videos, and the kinds of
adverts you see on standard websites are all individually tailored to you with
the use of AI tools. In a similar vein, AI is currently making inroads in the
journalistic industry. AI now plays a far larger part in journalism as a result
of social media's effect. As a result, media companies are aggressively looking
for AI assistance to improve their content.
Machine learning is gradually but surely entering the journalistic process
in addition to the specialized technologies we just highlighted. Newman
(2021) highlights,
“New technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) will also drive greater
efficiency and automation across many industries including publishing
this year. But as AI moves out of R&D labs into real-life application,
we can expect more heated debate about its impact on society – about
the pace of change, about transparency and fairness.”
Jaakkola remarks, artificial intelligence does not “cure” or “fix” the possible
shortcomings of journalism, but what is still needed is the human input and
intervention – that is, journalistic competences are still at play. Journalists

should continue to examine the world, yet now with new technologies that
may facilitate this important public mission but does not change the core
task, which is informing the public in fact-based, truthful and accountable
ways. Guha highlights that artificial intelligence is much needed, considering
the level of misinformation, and disinformation we are dealing with. Open-
source AI tools are helpful for investigative journalism and audience engage-
ment, such as AnecbotalNYT. Gradually, in the profession, we will see more
mature development and implementation of AI tools.
Collaboration is the mantra when we consider the judicious applications
of AI technology in the journalism industry. It comes to the judicious use of
AI tools in journalism. Collaborating with computer scientists to develop
concepts that would improve and facilitate journalists' work is essential for
the future of journalism. AI is a component of a novel commercial strategy
based on dismantling media silos. A close-fitting collaboration between the
editorial staff and other media teams, such as engineers, computer scientists,
statisticians, sales or marketing professionals, must be established. Suffice
to say, the journalists will coexist with the machines. Moreover, the use of
metaverse, machine learning, blockchain, computer-generated imagery and
immersive technologies are coming up in a big way along with AI. Ignoring
or not fully exploiting these communication technologies is not the solution.
The way out is to examine, trial and accept the technologies based on the
nature and functions of given newsrooms.
Innovations and technologies do influence the process of whistleblowing
platforms, especially digital whistleblowing. Technologies can bring radical
approach to journalism and strengthening the watchdog culture (Di Salvo
& Leaks, 2020). Similarly, the use of AI can be considered as one tool for
digital whistleblowing which can redefine the culture of digital whistleblow-
ing. With no surprise, whistleblowing enables the citizens to curb unethical
practice and brings workplace ethics, integrity and honesty in the governance
and mechanism.
Currently, some of the news media organizations have started using
social bots. They are being used for writing news stories. These bots are
instrumental for providing technological supports in terms of production
and dissemination of news. Keeping the need and demand of AI, news media
outlets will heavily rely on AI, metaverse, machine learning, blockchain,
computer-generated imagery and immersive technologies. AI provides the
speed and accuracy to the ecology of production, distribution and consump-
tion of news.
In this context, Beckett (2019, p. 90) points out,
“AI technologies will not save journalism or kill it off. Journalism faces
a host of other challenges such as public apathy and antipathy, com-
petition for attention, and political persecution. Perhaps the best hope
for journalism in a world where AI becomes more powerful in so many
areas, from politics to medicine, is that AI and the world need good
journalism more than ever.”
Since the future of local media and local news content is promising, under-
standing the vernacularization of artificial intelligence in the context of
local news and local media outlets has become the core attention. However,
it remains a challenge and needs to be discussed and explored further.
Domestication of AI in journalism in general and local news in particular
needs to be studied. Needless to say, this area enjoys the research area of
novelty and the study warrants due execution in course of time.
Of course, the size of the newsroom must be considered while incorpo-
rating AI tools. A tiny weekly or a hyperlocal media company might not
have the resources to deploy AI swiftly. However, it's crucial to get mov-
ing straight away for the others. To make the most of this, journalists need
to receive better training and start cooperating with colleges and start-ups.
AI is not a passing trend. It will not go away. People with a certain set of
talents are needed for AI initiatives. However, the newsrooms and product
developers at smaller news organizations with whom we met do not have the
bandwidth despite having those capabilities. They have to commit to their
current responsibilities. Moreover, without human and financial resources,
AI cannot exist.
Artificial intelligence in journalism needs to foster inclusive journalism so
that the benefits and equity of journalism can be reached to all the citizens
who are the last ladder of governance and beneficiary. Inclusive journalism
paves the way for authentic commitment and diversity. Inclusive journalists
equipped with AI tools need to be good listeners, humble, innovative, self-
aware and keen to change the status quo. Journalism with AI is about new
powers, but with new sense of responsibility. New powers have to strike the
right chord with new responsibilities.
AI tools are becoming an important part of the news industry. However,
these are skewed and distributed. AI tools are increasingly used in the produc-
tion, distribution and consumption of news among the audience. However,
the news industry should not merely idealize and emulate the effectiveness of
such technology without criticality. New ideas or technological innovations
often come with skepticism. Change is tough. However, it is possible. Hence,
AI can be the future of the news industry.
AI literacy is to be fostered across the news organization. Since ChatGPT
is buzzing in the domain of journalism, ChatGPT literacy has also become
inevitable. AI skills including coding and training needs to be disseminated.
The use of AI must enjoy ethical norms. This technology can be used to
improve data accuracy with ethical standards. AI should be restricted to the
use of machines rather treated how the tools can be more human and societal.
Machine empowering the journalistic outlets should adhere to human touch
and the factor of humanistic insight needs to be treated as a premium. The
question remains hunting everyone whether journalists are using and viewing
artificial intelligence. Precisely, AI is an effective technology for industry for

which its uses are increasing. However, the use of such technology is in the
state of infancy. Keep your hopes high and try out AI in journalism to see
how it works.
Precisely to conclude, Prodnik (2021, p. 220) suggests,
“critical observations should not be taken as some Luddite rejection of

technological progress, where the only path is either acceptance of algo-
rithms or their complete rejection. Instead, there is no doubt that algo-
rithms of a different sort can serve democratic means, reduce human
toil, reduce inequalities and help to bring about overall improvements
in the quality of our lives. But this presupposes their fundamental reim-
agining in how they are made and for what purposes, together with
political struggles that take into account the fact they can – and should
– be changed if this is to happen. And this cannot be done without a
change in who has control and ownership over these systems. In other
words, this presupposes social relations that go beyond those imposed
by digital capitalism.”
Needless to say, ChatGPT, an AI Chatbot, quickly became one of the most

powerful natural language processing tools. OpenAI's language model,
ChatGPT, is the latest breakthrough in AI research. It is based on the GPT
(Generative Pretrained Transformer) architecture and is optimized for a vari-
ety of tasks, from answering queries to writing texts to reading poetry. The
first step in this process is collecting data from different publishers to under-
stand which news events are being discussed and by whom. The next step
is to run these articles through a model that the founders have created with
journalists. This model assesses the quality of plays based on criteria such as
the presence of facts and elements of prejudice. ChatGPT has made it possi-
ble for everything and everyone to go online. The massive digitization of eve-
ryday life has led to a very extensive corpus of texts, the internet. ChatGPT
inhales all this text and uses it to predict patterns and develop phrases.
The first look at how ChatGPT and similar tools are used in adversarial
ways, undermining trust in the information environment, pushing people out
of public discussion and into increasingly homogenous communities. That's
it. Second, a series of fascinating experiments to adapt image and text gen-
eration tools such as ChatGPT and Dall-E as a society to actually benefit
these incredible advances in ways that really serve society. And I predict that
research will be seen in the field. Gain benefits while limiting harm, especially
to the most vulnerable. Finally, we anticipate and expect increased interest at
the federal level in creating meaningful guardrails for the development and
deployment of these and other AI systems. Beyond pure innovation.
Another challenge to the larger role of generative AI in journalism is the
factual mistakes that ChatGPT often makes. ChatGPT may provide the con-
tents with nonexistent references. ChatGPT cannot distinguish fact or fiction,
true or false. Tools cannot form opinions. Answers are (still) based on public
information, disinformation and misinformation. ChatGPT is still a search
engine. Go to next level. ChatGPT uses 3–4 more words and uses natural
language processing to communicate aggregate results. ChatGPT also looks
shady in the field of journalism. Here are some of the things that ChatGPT
does not do. Investigate, fact-check, or edit at a minimum reasonable level. In
fact, ChatGPT proves that finding the ‘truth’ is much more difficult than hav-
ing enough data and the right algorithms. Despite its capabilities, ChatGPT
is unlikely to match human capabilities. Its technical design and similar tool
design lack basics such as common sense and symbolic thinking.
Das, a journalist-turned-academic in India, argues that ChatGPT can help
journalists and analyze large chunks of data quickly and efficiently. By input-
ting data sets, the language model can provide insights and trends that can be
used to support news articles. Also, it can help journalists generate content
for their articles, soft stories in particular which may include review, obituary,
profiling of personalities, etc. Moreover, it will be of much use for the prepara-
tion of cartoons, diagrams, charts, infographics and even artists’ impressions
for a journalist to help complete his story. Besides, ChatGPT may be of tre-
mendous use for a journalist to complete his/her homework before going for
an assignment or preparation of queries to conduct interview of a celebrity.
There are apprehensions that technology could eventually replace human
writers. While AI can process vast amounts of data and generate responses
quickly, it lacks the creativity, empathy and critical thinking skills that are
essential for many professions. Still, there are certain areas of journalism
where AI can very well replace human beings like analytical writings, fact
findings and above all capital market commentary where reporting has to be
done in a certain format and only figures with facts are needed to replace.
ChatGPT does possess a certain facility with language, proficiency in data
processing and a certain talent for generating responses at lightning speed. Of
course, it comes with riders like it lacks the qualities that make humans truly
exceptional. In conclusion, ChatGPT can be well utilized as a complement to
human journalists.
Leah E. Bryant, Associate Professor and researcher in the domain of
Communication Studies, DePaul University, United States,
“ChatGPT and other AI writing programs are changing the landscape

of how information is reported. There is justifiable cause for concern
and also excitement at the new opportunities created by this new tech-
nology. The concerns that ChatGPT may obviate the need for human
content creation has merit; however, creativity as well as accuracy
checks lie within the purview of living breathing people. This is a new
frontier, leaving us awed and alarmed.”
There are several discussions happening taking the future of ChatGPT in

journalism in particular and media and communication in general. We need
to challenge the notion of automation that seems to be pervasive in conver-

sations about ChatGPT and other forms of “artificial intelligence”, that AI
can operate alone and threaten to replace humans. One of the things we have
learned in out research on the history of technology is that all too often,
when technology is invented, there are exorbitant expectations placed on it.
Airplanes bring world peace. Movies will make schools obsolete. We have
the advantage of being able to look at this history and recognize that no tech-
nology is really inevitable and that the march of progress will (inexorably)
involve many unexpected turns.
Since ChatGPT's popularity, many have wondered if the job of a journal-
ist is becoming obsolete. AI tools have really permeated the newsrooms. But
to say it makes journalists irrelevant is vague. The future of journalism is
about to change. However, it is important to get used to, learn and adapt
to change. Therefore, we need to fully understand why the use of AI in the
media does not render the work of journalists obsolete.
Journalists are well placed to fight hype. Don't let these tools blind you
beyond measure. Don't humanize them. Ask tough questions about what the
people or state or world should do. Of course, it's always been the job of jour-
nalists, and despite the impact of artificial intelligence, it's going nowhere.
References
-responsibilities
Biswal, S. K., & Gouda, N. K. (2020). Artificial intelligence in journalism: A boon
or bane? In A. J. Kulkarni and S. C. Satapathy (Eds.), Optimization in machine
learning and applications (pp. 155–167). Singapore: Springer.
Bryson, J. J. (2019). The past decade and future of AI’s impact on society. In
Towards a new enlightenment: A transcendent decade (pp. 150–185). Madrid:
Turner-BVVA.
Carey, J. W. (1965). The communications revolution and the professional
communicator. Sociological Review, 13(1), 23–38.
Di Salvo, P., & Leaks, E. (2020). Digital whistleblowing platforms in journalism.
Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
McCarthy, I., & Kunova, M. (2021, May 26). How artificial intelligence can help
solve journalism’s problems. Retrieved from https://www.journalism.co.uk/news/
how-artificial-intelligence-can-help-solve-journalism-s-problems-/s2/a825693/
Newman, N. (2021). Journalism, media, and technology trends and predictions 2021.
Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Retrieved from https://reutersinstitute
.politics.ox.ac.uk/journalism-media-and-technology-trends-and-predictions-2021
Prodnik, J. A. (2021). Algorithmic logic in digital capitalism. In P. Verdegem (Ed.),
AI for everyone?: Critical perspectives (pp. 203–222). London: University of
Westminster Press.
Singhal, A., & Rogers, E. M. (2001). India’s communication revolution: From bullock
carts to cyber marts. New Delhi & Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Index
4IR 257 citizen journalism 181

5G 25, 42 citizenship 181
360 video 34 civil disobedience 246
civilizations 239
Acta Diurna 4, 24 clickbait 187
advertising 54, 197 collaborative enterprises 35
advocacy 13, 80, 87, 282 commercial journalism 13
affiliate marketing 266 communication campaigns 282
AI policies 250 communication revolution 24, 42, 274
AI tools 103, 256 computational image processing 33
alternative journalism 13, 56, 214 Computer-assisted reporting (CAR) 133
applique 240 Computer-generated imagery (CGI) 47,
appropriate technology 46 65, 90, 173, 234
artificial intelligence 1 computer-mediated communication 65
Artificial intelligence (AI) 10, 20, 21 conscientization 62
artificial intelligence-HAVE NOTs 221 conventional matching sites 247
artificial intelligence-HAVES 115 copyright 106, 247, 256
Artificial Studio 40 counter-hegemonic community 193
audioblogs 28 Covid-19 12, 23, 185, 280
augmented reality 5, 31 cradle-to-cradle framework 47
authenticate news 246 creativity 104
authorship 263 credibility 9, 103
Autodidacticism 157 crowd journalism 43
automation 20, 87, 100 cryptocurrency 43
autonomous technology 60 cultural challenge 138, 261
cultural diversity 80
beat reporting 103 cultural divides 240
big data 53, 84, 140, 159, 184 cultural misconceptions 267
blockchain 10, 25, 45, 47, 49, 51, 73, cultural resistance 102
90, 92, 111, 114, 210, 211, 225, curating 98, 157
234, 236, 248, 250, 258, 269, 278,
281, 285 data deluge 157
bourgeois public sphere 197, 226 data journalism 3.0 123
brands 11, 266 data mining 32, 101
byline 263 data-poor 140
data revolution 136, 158
CAGR 267 data-rich people 140
campaigns 9, 195 deceptive information 8
Chandua 240 Deepfakes 9, 40, 254
chatbots 6, 99 DeepSwap 40
Chat GPT 87, 107 defamation 256

292 Index
democratic media 160 Geojournalism 131

democratic societies 2, 9, 255 GIGO 279
democratic transparency 189 Global North 89, 113
democratization process 218 Global South 38, 89
demographics 244 good governance 76, 139
developing nations 85, 167 Google 41, 142
development communication 61, 72, Google Media Tools 185
74, 281 Google News Initiative network 41
development journalism 13, 63, 75, 77, Google Waymo 22
78, 91 grassroots 79
de-Westernization 91 grassroots communication 14, 80
dichotomies 136, 164, 165
digital anchors 246 Habermas, J. 196
digital avatar 30 hate speech 9, 255
digital democracy 195 HAVE-NOTs 81, 221, 257
digital divide 113, 277 high-caliber reporting 213
digital ecosystem 32, 33 homogenization 210
digital humanism 214 human intelligence 1, 48
digital humanitarianism 215 human interaction 259
digitalized journalistic profession 64 human intervention 100, 262
Digital Ledger Technology (DLT) 248 human labor 220, 281
digital native media 1, 60 human rights 78, 226
digital storytelling 27, 126 Hyperlocal data journalism 155
digital transition 10, 15, 242
disinformation 8, 277 ideology 168
disruptive 42, 104, 233 immersive journalism 5, 29–31, 39
dissent 225 impactful journalism 161
domesticity 170 inclusive development 72, 77, 214
DOMYSHOOT 40 inclusive media platforms 169
inclusiveness 1, 76, 250
economic disparity 87 Industrial Revolution 20, 24, 82, 257
emancipatory communication 78, Industry 4.0 42
79, 203 infographics 134
empirical research 53, 177 Information and communication
epistemologies 53, 65, 129 technologies (ICT) 73
equity 1, 2, 74, 76, 78, 85, 190, information asymmetry 174
262, 286 Innovative learning culture (ILC) 166
ethical standards 3, 7, 87, 187, 252, Instagram 266
262, 286 intellectual capability 19
interactivity 181
Facebook 11 inverted pyramid 13, 124
fake news 7, 8, 110 IOT-5G technology 42
feedback 61, 191 IT policy 261
feminist media theory 63
feminization 169 journalism 2
flak 13 journalistic balance 53, 65
fourth estate 2 journalistic values 199
gatekeepers 7 language 5
gatekeeping 53 Large language models (LLMs) 84
gender 55 leapfrogging 47, 99, 114, 145, 150,
Generative Pretrained Transformer 163, 165
(GPT) 287 learning ability 19
geography 5 libelous 256
Index 293
local ethos 139 political economy 48, 55

localization 108 political narratives 183
local journalism 155 political polarizations 253
location tag 276 predictive analytics 1, 48
printing press 24, 25, 189
mainstream journalism 13, 78, 190, 234 privacy 30, 256, 280
mainstream news 80 professional training 181
mantra 285 propaganda 7, 53, 54, 74, 254
marginalized 62, 193 public discourse 3, 91, 170, 189–190,
Marginalized sections 193 226, 227, 235, 243, 246, 250
masculine 170 public domain 244
matrimonial websites 247 public relations 12, 160
media consumers 125 Public Sphere 196
media genres 241 public trust 3, 213
media ownership 197
Meri News 183 quantitative approach 39
metaverse 5, 44
migration 87, 88, 134 racism 255
Mobile journalism (MOJO) 26 refeudalization 227
mofussil reporting 103 regulation 6, 233
multidisciplinary cooperation 135, 157 reliable AI systems 249
multimedia journalism 26, 186 representation 232
research agendas 62
Newer Ethical Issues 252 Robot reporters 277
new journalistic identity 210, 213 robots 20, 23, 109, 200
news agencies 40, 245 RSS feeds 98
news agency 40, 245 rural journalism 13
news aggregation 41, 87, 152, 279
news contents 189 sentiment 86, 155
newsrooms 31 silver filigree 240
news values 54, 198 social influencers 264
newsworthy 4, 14, 36, 142, 169, 191 social media activism 79
NLP algorithms 86 social movements 194, 195, 241
Nonfungible tokens (NFT) 248 social responsibility 7
social values 239
objectivity 3, 120 sousveillance 183
online dating 247 spatial storytelling 35
OpenAI 41, 42, 106, 233, 264, 275, 287 spiral of silence 58
open data 122, 142 stakeholders 74, 102, 190
Open SDG Data Hub 158 stone craving 5
oppressed voices 245 storytelling 5, 27
organizational structure 242 subobstacle 166
surveillance 219
participatory communication 82, 191, Sustainable development goals (SDGs)
193, 228, 229 1, 83, 91, 93, 136
participatory culture 262 sustainable technologies 47
participatory environment
communication 63 Tabula 131
Paywalls 7 Tarakasi 240
pedagogical approach 136, 157 technological determinism 59
pedagogical deliberations 135 technological inequality 115
pedagogy 135 technology 23
plurality 124 technology acceptance model 167
294 Index
TinyLetter 23, 185, 186 Verizon 5G 42

Topaz 40 virtual reality 6, 30, 34, 86
traditional journalism 129 visual effects 114
transformation 27 visual storytelling 185
translation 102, 109
transparency 120, 136 watchdogs 8
TV subscribers 44 webcasts 2
Twitter 141, 142, 185, 223, 228 WeChat 182
WhatsApp 188
UNESCO 1 whistleblowing 16, 285, 289
User-generated content (UGC) 99, 191, Winnow Solutions 22
213, 216, 221 womanhood 170
uses and gratifications 195
uses and gratification Theory 54 yellow journalism 8

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“Technology has always been a disruptor of the status-quo and creator of

Santosh Kumar Biswal (PhD), Associate Professor and Head, Department

Anand J Kulkarni (PhD), Professor and Associate Director, Institute of

Santosh Kumar Biswal and

1 Introduction to Journalism: The Journey and Experience

2 Understanding Artificial Intelligence 19

3 From Stone Carving to ChatGPT: Understanding the

4 Deliberating Theoretical Justifications in the Prism

5 Situating Artificial Intelligence in the Space of

6 Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism:

7 Data Journalism and Artificial Intelligence: Interrogating

8 Data Journalism with Artificial Intelligence: An

9 Artificial Intelligence in Fostering Citizen Journalism:

10 Deliberating Artificial Intelligence in the Prism of Citizen

11 Socio-cultural and Economic Implications of Artificial

12 Incorporation of Artificial Intelligence into Newsrooms:

13 Foundations, Ferment and Future of Artificial Intelligence

Santosh Kumar Biswal is an Associate Professor and Head of the Department

self-organizing systems. He pioneered optimization methodologies such

The intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and journalism is a rapidly

equity to access to holistic development comprising knowledge, technological

“journalism, the collection, preparation, and distribution of news and

Going beyond, American Press Institute (2022) defines,

“journalism is the activity of gathering, assessing, creating, and pre-

The gathering, assembling and presentation of news are the fundamentals of

1.3 Nature and Forms of Journalism

1.4 Origin and Development of Journalism

1.5 Socio-economic and Cultural Dimensions of Journalism

Unfortunately, news media is being maliciously employed for the direction of

“We see that a growing number of news organisations across Europe

Therefore, the issue of paywalls warrants a delicate and comprehensive solu-

1.6 Journalism and Ethical Standards

1.7 Journalism, Yellow Journalism and Fake News

of fake news. AI techniques are being widely used in manufacturing digital

users’ needs and requirements by flagging incorrect information. Logically,

1.8 Artificial Intelligence, Audience and Media Analytics

1.9 Journalism and Freedom Index of Journalists

journalism is under increasing threat. Unnecessary surveillance can cause

1.10 Journalism, Freedom of Press and Democracy

“the journalistic production and distribution are too often blocked by

Journalism acts as a source of information or facts in a deliberative model

“Journalism does not exist in isolation but is part of a complex matrix

In order to serve the public interest, journalism includes gathering, analyz-

1.11 Mainstream Journalism vs. Alternative Journalism

“Its critique emphasizes alternatives to, inter alia, conventions of news

1.12 Rural Journalism: A Neglected Area

financial health, the circumstances its practitioners’ self-understandings, its

archetypal of content-sharing. Therefore, both the journalists and the plat-

Harcup, T. (2020). Alternative journalism, alternative ethics? In A. Gulyas & D.

2.1 Characteristics of Natural Intelligence

as well as mimicking the behavior of others and/or superiors. For example,

2.2 Origin of Artificial Intelligence

2.3 General Applications of Artificial Intelligence

(Zenrobotics, n. d.). Winnow Solutions in the UK identifies the type of food

Discussing the role of technologies in the domain of journalism navigates

3.3 Revisiting Communication Revolution

3.4 Role of Technologies in Print, Electronic and Digital Journalism

3.4.1 Print Media and Journalism

Communication revolution started in the field of newspaper with the devel-

“Journalism has always been shaped by technology. Since Julius Caesar

technological advances. Gutenberg’s printing press not only made pos-

3.4.2 Electronic Media and Journalism

3.4.3 Digital Media and Journalism

1.3 Nature and Forms of Journalism

1.4 Origin and Development of Journalism

1.5 Socio-economic and Cultural Dimensions of Journalism

1.6 Journalism and Ethical Standards

1.7 Journalism, Yellow Journalism and Fake News

1.8 Artificial Intelligence, Audience and Media Analytics

1.9 Journalism and Freedom Index of Journalists

1.10 Journalism, Freedom of Press and Democracy

1.11 Mainstream Journalism vs. Alternative Journalism

1.12 Rural Journalism: A Neglected Area

2.1 Characteristics of Natural Intelligence

2.2 Origin of Artificial Intelligence

2.3 General Applications of Artificial Intelligence

3.3 Revisiting Communication Revolution

3.4 Role of Technologies in Print, Electronic and Digital Journalism

3.4.1 Print Media and Journalism

3.4.2 Electronic Media and Journalism

3.4.3 Digital Media and Journalism

3.4.3.3 Podcast and Journalism

3.4.3.4.1 AUGMENTED REALITY AND JOURNALISM

3.4.3.4.2 VIRTUAL REALITY AND JOURNALISM

3.4.3.5 Social Media Journalism

3.4.3.6 Artificial Intelligence, ChatGPT and Journalism

3.4.3.7 5G and Journalism

3.4.3.8 Blockchain and Journalism

3.4.3.9 Metaverse and Journalism

3.5 Contesting for An Appropriate Technology in Journalism

4.2 Theories in Journalism in the Prism of Artificial Intelligence

4.2.4 Political Economy Theory