Danzon-Chambaud, Samuel ORCID: 0000-0002-5123-9682 (2023) Automated news in practice: changing the journalistic doxa during COVID-19, at the BBC and across media organisations. PhD thesis, Dublin City University.
Abstract
This PhD thesis explores the deployment of automated text generation for journalistic
purposes - also known as automated news or automated journalism -within
newsrooms. To evaluate its perceived impacts on the work of media practitioners, I
rely on Bourdieu's Field theory ǡ but also make use of Actor-network theory to detail
its adoption at a more descriptive level. This study is based on various case studies
and on a mixed-methods framework that is essentially made of 30 semi-structured
interviews conducted with media practitioners, technologists and executives working
at 23 news organisations in Europe, North America and Australia; it also involves
elements of a netnography as online material and screenshots were analysed as part
of this process.
My empirical work starts with a descriptive account that includes three case studies:
one on the use of automated news to cover COVID-19, another one on BBC's
experiments with the technology and a last one that shows a cross-national
comparison between three media types (i.e., public service media, news agencies and
newspapers). I then move on to a more interpretative part where I examine media
practitioners ǯ reactions to automated news, analysing the challenges of having to rely
on external datasets, the importance of acquiring a computational thinking mindset
and tensions within and outside the field of journalism for this.
My research shows that the use of automated news implies structural changes to
journalism practice and cannot be seen as a mere "tool of the trade." For practitioners,
the most challenging part lies with being able to master both the uniqueness of
journalistic work and a type of abstract reasoning close to computer programming.
However, this could leave some being unable to adapt to this new computational
spirit, which seems to be gradually taking root within newsrooms. As for future
development of automated news systems, it remains to be seen if media organisations
or platforms will have the upper hand in remaining at the centre of it.
Metadata
Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) |
---|---|
Date of Award: | March 2023 |
Refereed: | No |
Supervisor(s): | Cornia, Alessio, Rafter, Kevin and Robbins, David |
Uncontrolled Keywords: | Automated News; Automated Journalism |
Subjects: | Social Sciences > Communication Social Sciences > Journalism |
DCU Faculties and Centres: | DCU Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Science > School of Communications |
Use License: | This item is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. View License |
ID Code: | 28004 |
Deposited On: | 31 Mar 2023 10:52 by Alessio Cornia . Last Modified 07 Feb 2024 09:48 |
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