L17: Algoritmer og robotter (guest: Van Dalen)

Question 1

Technology in journalism

Answer 1

Technology is only one aspect that affects journalism and how journalists work - economics and politics are other spheres of influence that will affect media institutions.

Question 2

Pavlik, J. (2000): technology shapes journalism

Answer 2

1. How journalists do their work
2. The content of news (more clickbait, for example)
3. The structure and organization of the newsroom
4. The relationships between or among news organizations, journalists and their many publics.

Question 3

Technological determinism

Answer 3

• Technological determinism views the development and diffusion of technology as developing independently of society but producing societal effects.
• The sequence of invention and application of communication technology influences the direction and pace of social change
• Communication revolutions lead to social revolutions.
• The birth control pill is an example of technological determinism - it contributed to the creation of the sexual revolution.

Weak (soft) technological determinism: technology as a facilitating factor leading to opportunities (technology in journalism - it contributes to change but it is not the sole explanation behind the developments in journalism - “its implementation changes and amplifies new ways of doing the work)

Question 4

From pink slip to pink slime (Cohen)

Answer 4

Holistic to prescriptive technology - from rudimentary to automation (outsourcing, for example). In the holistic, the one journalist has complete control over the product whereas the prescriptive technological workstyle you as a worker can be very easily replaced, and you don’t have particularly much control over the product that you’re producing. Cohen says in a lot of areas in journalism we are moving from holistic to prescriptive - from the individual journalist o the automated assembly line process (nyhedsmotor)

Transforming media labor in the digital age:
1. Separation of conception and execution of labor
2. Increased differentiation of the labor process
3. Use of technology to increase productivity
4. De-skilling of labor - we can teach them to do a small part and replace workers easily.

While we can create the nyhedsmotor with technological advances (splitting up the work) and have many small jobs come together to produce the final product, the journalists say that their professional pride of their journalistic products have decreased (undersøgelse hos DR fra SDU). The journalist loses autonomy - when the media organization becomes a collective, the individual control over and pride of stories is lost. This changes the Deuze’s definition of journalism. There might still be positive effects of it - like becoming at a team. Marxist approach? Dang capitalist media organizations. They can save money however - produce more content, smaller news organizations can stay alive. Journalists typically dislike the trend - e.g. lack of photo journalists at media organizations.

Question 5

Professional pride and the News engine (at DR)

Answer 5

Before the engine:
- creativity and creation
- ownership and individual recognition
- cultivation of own ideas
- pride
- the final product
- one journalist with one story

With the news engine:
- assembly line
- team/teamwork
- amputation
- alienation
- fabrication, cookie-cutting
- production machine

Question 6

Robot journalism (van Dalen)

Answer 6

Statssheet - danish medias have started using robot journalists (artikelrobotten at JF).

Man versus machine:

Strengths of automated content creation:
- Breadth of coverage
- Speed - articles can be published immediately
- Zero marginal costs (the specific cost for writing the article - food, transport. Fixed cost would be regarding the building the journalist works in. For robot journalists there are no extra costs, no matter the amount of articles you produce)

Strengths of human journalists:
- creativity
- Flexibility (cannot adapt story - robot journalists are created for simply one purpose)
- Analytical skills
- Subjectivity
- Nuance
- Ethical sense

Asked journalists: How will content automation change journalism?

“making journalists more human”: development is seen as opportunity rather than threat. It will free journalists from the routine and the mundane and drive them to dig deeper, over what has been missed, reach new audiences and involve more people in reporting.

Opportunities of content automation:
- More time for research and in-depth reporting
- Pushes human journalists to do a better job
- Cover stories which now go uncovered

Threats:
- May put journalists doing routine tasks out of work
- New ethical questions “who’s writing the stories?”: e.g. le monde algorithm “you might also like” - will just base related articles on key words. or Altinget-robot that made Pou Schlüter to prime minister in 2020 (mistakes made by robot journalists).

Question 7

ChatGPT

Answer 7

Weaknesses: where does the information come from? Sources? Where does it go? Information up to 2021. New personalized writing style.

Strengths: quicker to garner information. Can combine previous works to produce new ones. Can reduce the work time of journalists if used as a supplementary tool.