AI in the newsroom: a collective case study about newsworker-AI collaboration in the German newspaper industry

ABSTRACT

The adoption of AI in newsrooms can fundamentally change journalistic processes. Nowadays, AI is increasingly able to fulfil journalistic tasks, evolving the roles and interaction of newsworkers and AI. Given its high impact, the question arises how AI and newsworkers can collaborate productively in the newsroom to maintain or even improve journalistic quality. This study analyses newsworker-AI collaboration at four German newspaper publishers through the lens of Human-Machine Communication (HMC). Based on the data, a model for the evaluation of newsworker-AI collaboration is developed and validated. The results show that the interaction intensity between newsworkers and AI as well as the creation of knowledge in the newsroom can be identified as relevant evaluation criteria for newsworker-AI collaboration.

KEYWORDS:

• Artificial intelligence
• newsroom
• collaboration
• human-machine communication
• HMC

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of Prof. Dr. Jens Vogelgesang (University of Hohenheim).

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Meike Grimme

Meike Grimme is a doctoral candidate in media management at the University of Hohenheim and TH Köln – University of Applied Sciences in Cologne. Additionally, she is a research associate at Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University in Stuttgart (DHBW) and teaches empirical research methods, media & communication sciences and marketing. She received a doctoral scholarship from Baden-Wuerttemberg State Graduate Funding (Germany) and studied communication management, marketing and media economics among others at the UC Berkeley (USA) and the University of Padova (Italy). Her research interests include technology adoption in media organisations, journalism AI, marketing strategy and AI-enabled media business fields.

Christian Zabel

Christian Zabel is Full Professor for Innovation and Corporate Management at TH Köln – University of Applied Sciences since 2016. His research focuses on the digital transformation of companies, especially in the media industry, on production and distribution of digital media and on the development of digital markets and ecosystems (including VR, Influencer Marketing and Online Advertising). In his previous post he headed the product management of t-online.de, Germany’s largest online publisher. From 2008 to 2012 he was executive assistant to Deutsche Telekom’s CEO René Obermann, overseeing strategic cooperation with the media industry. Christian Zabel studied journalism in Dortmund and Brussels and political sciences at Sciences-Po Paris (IEP).