Citizen perception of artificial intelligence: impact and applications in journalism

Abstract

The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into journalism has significantly reshaped the news industry, enabling automation in news production, data analysis, and content personalization (Ufarte-Ruiz, Murcia-Verdú, & Túñez-López, 2023; Newman et al., 2024). Media organizations are increasingly relying on AI-driven tools to generate financial reports, sports summaries, and other data-driven content, with some platforms fully automating certain news categories. While AI is often seen as a means to enhance efficiency and optimize newsroom workflows, its growing presence raises fundamental questions about trust, credibility, and the evolving role of journalists (Sonni et al., 2024). One of the key debates in AI-generated journalism concerns its impact on audience trust. Some studies suggest that AI-authored articles can be perceived as equally credible as human-written content, particularly when the AI’s role is disclosed (Hofeditz et al., 2022). However, other research points to significant concerns regarding transparency, accuracy, and potential biases in automated news production (Forja-Pena et al., 2024). AI-generated journalism operates within existing corporate and media structures, which means that its neutrality cannot be assumed (Bender et al., 2021). Scholars have argued that algorithmic content creation may still reflect biases from the data it is trained on, the interests of its developers, or the influence of the prompts used by human journalists (Mehrabi et al., 2021). These factors make the perception of AI as an objective news source highly contested, particularly among audiences with a deeper understanding of AI technologies.