Artificial intelligence strategies in European public broadcasters: Uses, forecasts and future challenges

Abstract

As artificial intelligence (AI) gains space in the media, public broadcasters are testing and experimenting with these technologies to raise their services to the new standards of the audiovisual ecosystem. From algorithms that help recommend the most suitable content for users, to others that detect news and automate some of the tasks of journalists, these tools are increasingly present in public audiovisual corporations. The data were obtained from semi-structured in-depth interviews with a convenience sample of 15 corporations from 12 countries. The results reflect a heterogeneous application of artificial intelligence in corporations, oriented towards the automatic creation of content from structured data, the improvement of audience interaction through chatbots, and personalisation or verification. The implementation of these technologies also poses major challenges. Firstly, the economic cost of adapting these systems to each corporation and the difficulties in hiring experts to develop AI solutions prevent a complete deployment of these tools in public broadcasters. As main conclusions, we have understood that AI as a “culture” is believed to be vital for the public audiovisual services of the future, although its application is still far from being a standard and generally does not occupy a relevant strategic position in the innovation departments of corporations.

A Methodological Proposal to Evaluate Journalism Texts Created for Depopulated Areas Using AI

“…In the field of public service media (PSM), the demands of quality and compliance with the ethical principles of journalism reach the highest level due to their relevance, need for trust and social function. In this field, Fieiras-Ceide et al (2023) have studied the use of AI in the recommender systems of 14 European public broadcasters. In a more general scope, Zaragoza and García Avilés (2022) and Direito-Rebollal and Donders ( 2023) have focused on analysing how PSMs are adapting to the new communicative context where technological innovation plays an essential role, with special emphasis on quality and content adaptation.…”

Retos y oportunidades de la IA en la formación de profesionales en Comunicación

“…Con lo expuesto, es claro que el futuro del área de la comunicación y el periodismo se perfila como una profesión que combina el aporte de la máquina y del comunicador (Calvo-Rubio & Ufarte-Ruiz, 2020). De acuerdo con el News Report de la Unión Europea de Radiodifusión (UER) (2019) es inevitable una mayor alfabetización tecnológica para los comunicadores, ya que, algunas tareas como las notas deportivas, los informes económicos o del clima pueden ser automatizadas por la IA (Fieiras-Ceide et al, 2022), y así el profesional de la comunicación puede dedicarse a indagar en contenidos de investigación, profundizar en los géneros periodísticos de interpretación u opinión y la generación de estrategias para atraer al público objetivo (Túñez López, 2021). Sin embargo, es claro entender que, si bien la IA mediante los algoritmos puede generar contenidos a partir de datos o esquemas, siempre ejecutará acciones en función de las decisiones de la persona, de ahí que, el éxito o el fracaso de la construcción de los contenidos depende directamente del ser humano (Rydenfelt, 2022), por tanto, la intervención humana sigue teniendo protagonismo (Bazán-Gil et al, 2021).…”

“…De acuerdo con el Informe de la Organización para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Económico, casi la mitad de las profesiones cambiarán o desaparecerán en 15 o 20 años debido a la inclusión de la IA (Fieiras-Ceide et al, 2022). De hecho, países como Francia y Alemania están orientando la formación profesional en IA mediante nuevas cátedras a nivel de grado, master y doctorado (Ruiz et al, 2020).…”

Impact of Artificial Intelligence on RTVE: Verification of fake videos and Deep fakes, content generation, and new professional profiles

“…Numerous publications have examined the impact of these technologies on public service, law, education, human resources, and institutional governance (Matas, 2018;Monteiro Pessoa, 2019;Xavier, 2022;Villón, 2022;Gutiérrez, 2023). Some studies have also appeared on the use of artificial intelligence in communication companies for the automatic translation of texts and the generation of content (Canavilhas, 2022), the moderation of such content, audience analysis, or the verification of information (Fieiras et al, 2022).…”