In Platforms We Trust?Unlocking the Black-Box of News Algorithms through Interpretable AI

ABSTRACT

With the rapid increase in the use and implementation of AI in the journalism industry, the ethical issues of algorithmic journalism have grown rapidly and resulted in a large body of research that applied normative principles such as privacy, information disclosure, and data protection. Understanding how users’ information processing leads to information disclosure in platformized news contexts can be important questions to ask. We examine users’ cognitive routes leading to information disclosure by testing the effect of interpretability on privacy in algorithmic journalism. We discuss algorithmic information processing and show how the process can be utilized to improve user privacy and trust.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the the Institute for Social and Economic Research at Zayed University [The Policy Research Incentive Program 2022].

Notes on contributors

Donghee Shin

Donghee Shin (Ph.D./Master Degree. Syracuse University) is a professor at College of Communication and Media Sciences at Zayed University. His research interests include digital journalism, human-computer interaction, and algorithmic media. His recent research in computer/algorithm as media addresses: embodied cognition, the subjective value of information, interaction and interactivity.

Bouziane Zaid

Bouziane Zaid (Ph.D. Master the University of South Florida) is an associate professor at College of Communication at the University of Sharjah. His research interests include media law and policy, media technologies, and corporate communication.

Frank Biocca

Frank Biocca (Ph.D. University of Wisconsin) is a professor at the Department of Informatics at New Jersey Institute of Technology. Dr. Biocca has pioneered virtual and augmented reality systems working on classic systems at NASA, Stanford, and the University of North Carolina.

Azmat Rasul

Azmat Rasul (Ph.D. Florida State University) is an Assistant Professor of Strategic Communication at the Zayed University, Abu Dhabi Campus, UAE. His research interests include uses and effects of political entertainment, gender and media, and uses and effects of digital media.