The Ethical Dimensions of News Algorithms

The final speaker in this ECREA 2014 session is Katharina Hollnbuchner, whose focus is on the ethical dimension of algorithms. Such ethics sit at the intersection between media ethics and cyberethics, and a wide range of ethical issues are now being studied at this intersection. An interesting question in this is how algorithms should be understood: are they agents, or are they tools?

Which issues are raised concerning algorithmic selection and journalism, then? This is a question of design: what is the algorithm designed to do, and how clear is its intended mission?

Algorithms designed as tools for journalistic investigation may overpersonalise news content and lead to confirmation biases and filter bubbles, for example; algorithms influencing the style and choice of content may be biassed towards simple popularity or the manipulation of readers; algorithms as producers of content (e.g. in sports or economic writing) may engage in 'intelligent' filtering of content and ultimately hinder fee speech.

While we have an established ethical rule system for media production, this needs to be updated, then; also, users need to gain a great deal more awareness of the effects of the operation of algorithms.