I know but I Imagine… Algorithmic Stories on the Borderline of Journalism

Abstract

Research on algorithmic knowledge has primarily focused on professional users or so-called ordinary people. This segmentation highlights a gap in studying those who fall in between. To fill this gap, we conducted research among journalism students pursuing higher education in journalism who found themselves on the “borderline”: they are no longer “ordinary” users, but are not yet professional specialists. Drawing from latest research we have formulated a theoretical concept of “algorithmic stories on the borderline of journalism”. Through 41 semi-structured interviews with journalism students recruited through snowball sampling, we found that journalism students’ knowledge of AI consisted of imaginaries: ranging from those closely related to the realities of journalism to conspiracy theories. Students perceive knowledge of how social media works as something natural, almost intuitive, coming from many years of experience. On the other hand, journalism studies play a key role in learning the mechanisms of news sites. Among the sources of knowledge, scientific sources are almost absent. In conclusions, we formulate recommendations for efforts to provide future journalists with reliable knowledge about Artificial Intelligence in journalism.