Chinese Journalists Perceptions of the Impact of AI on Their Jobs

The next speaker in this ICA 2024 conference session is Yanning Chen, whose interest is in how journalists’ perceptions of AI affect their adoption of such tools. This draws on a survey of some 455 Chinese journalists, which sought to identify the utility value that these journalists perceived for AI tools, as well as their personal preferences related to the utilisation of these tools.

This is also a matter of social projection, where people make judgments about the views about others who are similar to them; Chinese journalists, like journalists elsewhere, form a professional group cohort that is relatively homogenous, and individuals’ personal technology preferences may therefore be influenced by their perception of what the collective attitudes of their profession are.

This might lead to a process where personal evaluations of the utility of AI tools are affected by both personal and group preferences; such evaluations are also moderated by knowledge about AI, and a variety of other contextual factors.

The survey that this study is based on suggests that technology use in newsrooms is a combined outcome of personal preferences and interactions with others; journalists’ intention to use AI tools for news production develops through such processes. Importantly, perceptions of others’ preferences may not align with real preferences, and this could lead to delays and detours in AI adoption. Barriers to value realisation also affect this adoption process, and need to overcome in adoption.