Artificial Intelligence Techniques In Media…Reality And Future Developments :

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Assistant Professor, Department of Journalism, Akhbar Al Youm Academy

Abstract

    The study aims to identify the trends of communicators with media outlets towards adopting and using Artificial Intelligence techniques, and their effect on the reality of their media practices. It also aims to extrapolate the future of the use of artificial intelligence tools in the field of media by applying to an available sample of (451) individuals from communicators divided into a sample of (265) individuals belonging to the Egyptian media and (186) individuals belonging to the Arab media in various departments and sections, especially those with relevance to the digital environment. This was done by employing The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). The study reached several results, including:

The respondents follow the news of artificial intelligence techniques at a high rate, and this comes in the context that artificial intelligence has become present in which we live amid an ongoing debate about its perceived benefits, potential risks, and constantly evolving capabilities.
The respondents indicated the ability of artificial intelligence techniques to mimic human behaviour in carrying out many media tasks. This result confirms the importance of these technologies and the need to gain, invest and make use of the positives they achieve, but under the supervision and close follow-up of the human element.
The most commonly used fields of artificial intelligence techniques, according to the respondents’ opinions, are orderly as follows: (the marketing field), then (the media field), and finally (the technical and administrative field). The most important artificial intelligence techniques from the point of view of the study’s sample were (data journalism, such as converting texts to data in various forms), (machine translation techniques for other languages), (the use of robots in editing or providing news from the studio or in the field), (the use of BOTS to respond to public inquiries and comments).
From the point of view of all study respondents, the topics most employing artificial intelligence techniques were as follows: Service Journalism including knowing weather conditions, currency and gold prices, and many others, and Business Journalism. The largest proportion of the respondents also answered that these technologies will greatly lead to developments in professional performance. The expected performance may lead to finding a behavioural intention to use these applications and then actually employing them in media in its various professional, marketing, administrative and technical dimensions, which results in enhancing and improving the quality of performance, achieving an added value, and increasing production at work in a more professional manner.
The respondents’ answers came according to the position of their media institutions on the use of artificial intelligence techniques in the coming years, that (they will make some changes and reforms to adopt these technologies), then (the current situation will continue without seeking to acquire and use these technologies) and finally (they will make radical and deep transformations to adopt and exploit these technologies). This depends on the facilitating conditions available to each media organization.
According to the respondents’ perceptions of themselves and their colleagues in the institution and their direct superiors, the largest percentage tended to support the use of these techniques, and thus the results of the study tended to accept those in the lower or middle departments to use and adopt artificial intelligence techniques at work compared to those in the upper management of various media institutions.

 

Keywords