We conducted an online experiment to study people’s perception of automated computer-written news. Using a 2 × 2 × 2 design, we varied the article topic (sports, finance; within-subjects) and both ...the articles’ actual and declared source (human-written, computer-written; between-subjects). Nine hundred eighty-six subjects rated two articles on credibility, readability, and journalistic expertise. Varying the declared source had small but consistent effects: subjects rated articles declared as human written always more favorably, regardless of the actual source. Varying the actual source had larger effects: subjects rated computer-written articles as more credible and higher in journalistic expertise but less readable. Across topics, subjects’ perceptions did not differ. The results provide conservative estimates for the favorability of computer-written news, which will further increase over time and endorse prior calls for establishing ethics of computer-written news.
The growing use of difficult-to-parse algorithmic systems in the production of news, from algorithmic curation to automated writing and news bots, problematizes the normative turn toward transparency ...as a key tenet of journalism ethics. Pragmatic guidelines that facilitate algorithmic transparency are needed. This research presents a focus group study that engaged 50 participants across the news media and academia to discuss case studies of algorithms in news production and elucidate factors that are amenable to disclosure. Results indicate numerous opportunities to disclose information about an algorithmic system across layers such as the data, model, inference, and interface. Findings underscore the deeply entwined roles of human actors in such systems as well as challenges to adoption of algorithmic transparency including the dearth of incentives for organizations and the concern for overwhelming end-users with a surfeit of transparency information.
News Bots Lokot, Tetyana; Diakopoulos, Nicholas
Digital journalism,
8/17/2016, 2016-08-17, Letnik:
4, Številka:
6
Journal Article
Recenzirano
So-called "robot" journalism represents a shift towards the automation of journalistic tasks related to news reporting, writing, curation, and even data analysis. In this paper, we consider the ...extension of robot journalism to the domain of social platforms and study the use of "news bots"-automated accounts that participate in news and information dissemination on social networks. Such bots present an intriguing development opportunity for news organizations and journalists. In particular, we analyze a sample of existing news bot accounts on Twitter to understand how news bots are currently being used and to examine how using automation and algorithms may change the modern media environment. Based on our analysis, we propose a typology of news bots in the form of a design and editorial decision space that can guide designers in defining the intent, utility, and functionality of future bots. The proposed design space highlights the limits of news bots (e.g., automated commentary and opinion, algorithmic transparency and accountability) and areas where news bots may enable innovation, such as niche and local news.
With software automatically producing texts in natural language from structured data, the evolution of natural language generation (NLG) is changing traditional news production. The paper first ...addresses the question whether NLG is able to perform the functions of professional journalism on a technical level. A technological potential analysis therefore uncovers the technological limitations and possibilities of NLG, accompanied by an institutional classification following Weischenberg, Malik, and Scholl. Overall, NLG is explained within the framework of algorithmic selection and along its technological functionality. The second part of the paper focuses on the economic potential of NLG in journalism as well as indicating its institutionalization on an organizational level. Thirteen semi-structured interviews with representatives of the most relevant service providers detail the current market situation. Following Heuss, the development of the NLG market is classified into phases. In summary, although the market for NLG in journalism is still at an early stage of market expansion, with only a few providers and journalistic products available, NLG is able to perform tasks of professional journalism at a technical level. The analysis therefore sets the basis to analyze upcoming challenges for journalism research at the intersection of technology and big data.
Algorithmic journalism (AJ) has become widely popular, emerging in mainstream trends. Despite this surging popularity, little is known about the ways through which readers understand and actualize ...the potential for trust or affordances in AJ. The goal of the study is to highlight principles of algorithmic process in AJ and the processes these principles are perceived, appreciated and acted upon by AJ users. The idea of algorithmic trust is proposed as a new form of digital affordance in algorithm-driven news services. It identifies key issues of AJ and conceptualizes such issues in reference to algorithmic trust by analyzing how they influence reader satisfaction and adoption of AJ. A multi-mixed mixed method integrating interpretive methods and empirical survey was used for Korean users. Algorithmic affordances offer a useful standpoint on the conceptualization of algorithmic trust. Cognitive processes and heuristic mechanisms provide better foundations for algorithm design and development and a stronger basis for design of sensemaking AJ. Based on the study, a theoretical model is proposed to define algorithmic trust in the context of AJ.
The availability of data feeds, the demand for news on digital devices, and advances in algorithms are helping to make automated journalism more prevalent. This article extends the literature on the ...subject by analysing professional journalists' experiences with, and opinions about, the technology. Uniquely, the participants were drawn from a range of news organizations-including the BBC, CNN, and Thomson Reuters-and had first-hand experience working with robo-writing software provided by one of the leading technology suppliers. The results reveal journalists' judgements on the limitations of automation, including the nature of its sources and the sensitivity of its "nose for news". Nonetheless, journalists believe that automated journalism will become more common, increasing the depth, breadth, specificity, and immediacy of information available. While some news organizations and consumers may benefit, such changes raise ethical and societal issues and, counter-intuitively perhaps, may increase the need for skills-news judgement, curiosity, and scepticism-that human journalists embody.
Newsrooms are a social context in which numerous relationships exist and influence news work--be it with other journalists, the audience, and technology. As some of these relations change due to ...technological innovations, new hybrid contexts--technologies that are interwoven with newsroom values, routines, and socio-cultural experiences--can emerge. One key question is how journalists conceptualise and interact with such technologies, and to what degree they retain (creative) agency in the process. Therefore, this study evaluates the intersection of automated journalism and journalistic role conceptions. Using Hanitzsch's and Vos's circular model of journalistic roles (2017) and Deuze's understanding of journalism as an ideology (2005) as a theoretical framework, this study examines some of the discursive aspects of automated journalism by asking: To what extent are journalistic roles (a) challenged or (b) advanced as a result of automated journalism? Our findings more closely align with the latter, pointing to a strong sense of discursive maintenance of journalists' roles and their core skillset and thus suggesting a high degree of ideological continuity in the face of industrial disruption. It concludes with an agenda for future research and stresses that at times when journalism and automation intersect, the field would benefit from incorporating emerging conceptual frameworks such as human--machine communication. Keywords algorithmic journalism; automated journalism; computational journalism; journalism; news; newsroom; technology Issue This article is part of the issue "Algorithms and Journalism: Exploring (Re)Configurations" edited by Rodrigo Zamith (University of Massachusetts--Amherst, USA) and Mario Haim (University of Leipzig, Germany). c 2020 by the authors; licensee Cogitatio (Lisbon, Portugal). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY).
Computational news discovery (CND) is a particular application area within computational journalism related to the use of algorithms to orient editorial attention to potentially newsworthy events or ...information prior to publication. Previous work in this area has been concentrated on prototyping CND tools, which can, for instance, send alerts and leads to journalists about social media events, documents of interest, or salient patterns in streams of data. This article describes a qualitative interview study of journalists as they incorporate CND tools into their practices. Findings provide insights into how CND tools interact with the internal attention economy and sociotechnical gatekeeping processes of the newsroom and how future CND tools might better align with necessary journalistic evaluations of newsworthiness and quality, while ensuring configurability, human agency, and flexible applicability to a wide range of use cases. These findings begin to outline a conceptual framework that can help guide the effective design of future CND tools.
News media organisations are experimenting with a new generation of newsbots that move beyond automated headline delivery to the delivery of news according to a conversational format within the ...context of private messaging services. To build the newsbot, journalists craft statements and answers to users' questions that mimic a natural conversation between a journalist and user. In so doing, journalists are experimenting with styles of communication that reflect very particular journalistic personas. We investigate the persona of the news chatbot created by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), the better to understand how the public broadcaster's forays into social media service delivery and automation are shaping new relationships between public service broadcasters and their audiences. We find that, for a section of the audience that uses it, the friendly newsbot contrasts favourably with their previous experience with news and the journalists who produce it. The public service journalists who operate the bot are, in turn, using the bot to try to reach new audiences by experimenting with a more informal, intimate relationship with citizen users. The supposedly "intelligent" (but in actual fact very much human-crafted) newsbot is the vehicle through which this new relationship is being forged.
Throughout modern history, the introduction of new technologies in journalism has challenged journalistic roles and the normative landscape of journalism, and the emergent use of personalised news ...recommender systems seems no exception given personalisation's inherent democratic risk and commercial nature. However, current literature offers limited insight into how these technologies reconcile with the shared ideological norms and beliefs of journalists. This article identifies recurring tensions between journalism's ideology and increasing commercial pressures in existing literature focusing on illustrative examples of digital technology implementations in journalism, and discusses how personalised news recommendation may recreate or mediate these tensions. The findings suggest that personalised news recommendation can facilitate journalism in service of the public by using value-sensitive algorithmic design that incorporates editorial input and nudges users to view diverse and serendipitous content. The findings additionally emphasise the importance of algorithmic transparency as a constituent element to distinguish nudging that prompts reflective behaviour from manipulation of choice, thus mediating tensions with journalism's ideological aspirations to be fair and objective. Lastly, the paper calls for a higher level of understanding and interaction between journalists and algorithmic designers to mediate the impact on journalistic autonomy and ease the inherent transfer of editorial authority over distribution.
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