Algorithms in the newsroom? News readers’ perceived credibility and selection of automated journalism

Bibliographic Data

ID7477352
AuthorsAnja Wölker (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, corresponding author), Thomas E Powell (0000-0001-7917-5644, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Year2018
Volume22
Issue1
Pages86-103
Publication date2018-02-18
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournalism (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1464-8849 • E-ISSN: 1741-3001
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1464884918757072
OpenAlexW2788585320
LanguageEN
Citations received121
References cited41

Automated journalism, the autonomous production of journalistic content through computer algorithms, is increasingly prominent in newsrooms. This enables the production of numerous articles, both rapidly and cheaply. Yet, how news readers perceive journalistic automation is pivotal to the industry, as, like any product, it is dependent on audience approval. As audiences cannot verify all events themselves, they need to trust journalists’ accounts, which make credibility a vital quality ascription to journalism. In turn, credibility judgments might influence audiences’ selection of automated content for their media diet. Research in this area is scarce, with existing studies focusing on national samples and with no previous research on ‘combined’ journalism – a relatively novel development where automated content is supplemented by human journalists. We use an experiment to investigate how European news readers ( N = 300) perceive different forms of automated journalism in regard to message and source credibility, and how this affects their selection behavior. Findings show that, in large part, credibility perceptions of human, automated, and combined content and source(s) may be assumed equal. Only for sports articles was automated content perceived significantly more credible than human messages. Furthermore, credibility does not mediate the likelihood of news readers to either select or avoid articles for news consumption. Findings are, among other things, explained by topic-specific factors and suggest that effects of algorithms on journalistic quality are largely indiscernible to European news readers

Advertising · Business · Citizen journalism · Credibility · Journalism · News media · Political science · Public relations · Quality (philosophy · Selection (genetic algorithm · Source credibility · Technical Journalism · World Wide Web · Computer Science · Media Influence and Health · Misinformation and Its Impacts · Social Media and Politics · Artificial Intelligence