Automating Essential Work
News Media and Technology Hype in a Critical Sector 2014–2024
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22010757 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Samantha Shorey (0000-0002-6769-8680, University of Pittsburgh, corresponding author), Estefanía Rodríguez (0000-0003-3892-5247, The University of Texas at Austin) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 304-322 |
| Publication date | 2026-02-07 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Digital Journalism (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2167-0811 • E-ISSN: 2167-082X |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/21670811.2025.2513411 |
| OpenAlex | W4411160537 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 28 |
The Covid-19 pandemic brought renewed attention to how Artificial Intelligence might be used to address the everyday challenges of low-wage work now deemed “essential.” In this paper, we perform an exhaustive analysis of local and national U.S. news reports about automation, robotics, and AI in the recycling sorting industry over the last 10 years (2014–2024). Workers’ efforts to sustain operations of this critical sector during the pandemic occurred within a context of media hype that presented AI as a solution to the public health crisis—in addition to the problems of contamination and labor costs that had concerned the industry for years. Our analysis reveals that the discourses around automation and AI are qualitatively different: moving from claims about efficiency to claims about accuracy with a diminished discussion of technology’s fallibility. Technology company executives only appear as sources when AI is introduced to the industry. Throughout our dataset, the perspective of workers was almost entirely absent, and no recycling sorters were quoted as sources. In response, we advocate for the practice of solidarity journalism in new stories about workplace automation and call for workers inclusion in public dialogues about the impact and future of AI
Data science · Media studies · News media · Political science · Public relations · Sociology · Computer Science · Engineering · Ethics and Social Impacts of AI · Mechanical Engineering
Democracy in an age of corporate colonization
Human-Machine Communication
Covid-19 and digitalization
Artificial Intelligence and Journalism
Framing Artificial Intelligence in American Newspapers
Artificial Intuition in Tech Journalism on AI
AI and Its New Winter
Enchanted Determinism
Substance, discourse, and practice
Evaluating Interpretive Research in HCI
New Economy Narrative
When Empathy is Not Enough
Solidarity Reporting on Marginalization
Life, but not as we know it
What to expect when you’re expecting robots
Manufacturing consent
Machine visions
Situating methods in the magic of Big Data and AI
Talking AI into Being
The uncontroversial 'thingness' of AI
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |