The advent of new technologies has always spurred questions about changes in journalism-its content, its means of production, and its consumption. A quite recent development in the realm of digital journalism is software-generated content, i.e. automatically produced content. This paper seeks to investigate how readers perceive software-generated content in relation to similar content written by a journalist. The study utilizes an experimental methodology where respondents were subjected to different news articles that were written either by a journalist or were softwaregenerated. The respondents were then asked to answer questions about how they perceived the article-its overall quality, credibility, objectivity, etc. The paper presents the results from an initial small-scale study with findings suggesting that while the software-generated content is perceived as descriptive and boring, it is also considered to be objective although not necessarily discernible from content written by journalists. The paper discusses the results of the study and its implication for journalism practice.

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PreprintThis is the submitted version of a paper published in Journalism Studies. Citation for the original published paper (version of record):Karlsson, M., Clerwall, C., Nord, L. (2014) You ain´t seen nothing yet.: Transparency' s (lack of ) Effect on Source and Message Credibility. AbstractTransparency has been proposed to both change the way journalism is being produced and increase its credibility. However, little research has been conducted to assess the connection between transparency and credibility. This study utilizes an experimental setting (N=1320) to measure what impact transparency have on source and message credibility from the user perspective. The results reveals an almost absence of any transparency effect on both source and message credibility although some small significant effects could be observed primarily regarding internal hyperlinks, comments and contextual information. Although further research is desperately needed in this area the study suggest that transparency does not affect the credibility of journalism in the eyes of the contemporary audience and thus have limited appeal as a new norm in journalism.

Transparency has emerged as an ethical principle in contemporary journalism and is contended to improve accountability and credibility by journalists and scholars alike. However, to date, few attempts have been made to record the public's views on transparency. This study enriches current knowledge by using data from an experiment, survey and focus groups in Sweden collected between 2013 and 2015. Overall, the results suggest that the respondents are not particularly moved by transparency in any form; it does not produce much effect in the experiments and is not brought up in the focus groups. While that is the key finding of this study, it should also be noted that various forms of user participation are evaluated negatively, while providing hyperlinks, explaining news selection and framing, and correcting errors are viewed positively. Implications for journalism practice and research are discussed.

Journalism's appeal to the public is in decline and the causes and remedies for this are debated in society and academia. One dimension that has garnered attention is that of journalistic norms and how they are performed; it has been proposed that a journalism based on a different, more transparent, normative base can better connect with citizens, compared with the current prevailing norm of journalistic objectivity. However, the opinions of citizens themselves have been remarkably absent and, in order to inform the debate, this study inductively investigates how citizens view and relate to the notion of good journalism. Drawing upon a theoretical framework of Bourdieu's concept of doxa, journalistic role performance, and social contract theory, this study is based on the results of 13 focus groups. The findings suggest that the respondents' views about good journalism are quite in accordance with the traditional norms of the journalistic field; however, there is more emphasis on stylistic and linguistic qualities. Few calls are made for transparency. The results suggest that a remedy to the decreasing trust in news may not lay in the changing of norms, but rather in how already established norms and values of the journalistic field are performed.