Colin Porlezza

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming the landscape of public communication. However, while AI technologies allow for more participatory and dialogic processes, they can also facilitate destructive communication patterns including hate speech, online harassment, and disinformation or misinformation. Such trends raise concerns about how to regulate the responsible use of AI in public communication. This contribution intends to reflect the challenges AI presents to public communication and examine the governance and accountability frameworks that seek to ensure transparency, fairness, and responsibility. To this end, the authors established a database of 435 national and international codes of ethics and other normative guidelines. These documents were subjected to an inductive thematic analysis to identify key themes and analyze differences and similarities from a comparative perspective. The empirical study reveals significant gaps in most of the documents but also collects suggestions on the way toward a coherent governance framework for AI in public communication.

The article provides a comprehensive overview of journalists in Switzerland based on the most recent wave of the Worlds of Journalism (WoJ) survey conducted in 2023. The study investigates the demographics, working conditions, role perceptions, and safety concerns of Swiss journalists. Building on past survey waves from 2008 and 2015, this study extends the analysis to 1 179 journalists across all three language regions. The findings highlight trends, including an increase in female journalists and higher levels of academic qualifications. Notably, the study also identifies persistent challenges, including gender disparities in management roles and specific journalistic beats, increasing economic pressures, the growth of part-time work, and declining job satisfaction. Additionally, the article addresses the risks journalists face, including workplace bullying and threats, which influence their likelihood of remaining in or endorsing the profession. This research underscores the importance of understanding the evolving professional landscape of journalism, informing both academic discourse and practical measures to support the industry.

This thematic issue examines journalism’s role within complex, hybridized media environments shaped by platforms, algorithms, shifting logics of attention, and various actors. Bringing together empirical, theoretical, methodological, and historical perspectives from across three continents, the contributions reveal both enduring structures and transformative dynamics, offering nuanced insights into journalism’s evolving practices, societal functions, and current—as well as future—challenges.

Arti cial intelligence' s implications for freedom of expression: Di erent institutional approaches to ensure a responsible use of AI in journalism 2 Artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly influences journalism and editorial decision-making processes. The pervasiveness of the technology raises concerns with regard to the responsible use of AI systems in journalism, encompassing new ethical and regulatory questions. However, news media are protected by fundamental rights such as freedom of expression and press freedom. Any attempt to implement a governance framework to ensure a responsible use of AI will, therefore, need to pay attention not to curb fundamental rights. This paper aims to analyse how a responsible use of AI technology in journalism in terms of freedom of expression is tackled by specific governance frameworks of three different institutions: the Council of Europe's committee of experts on increasing resilience of the media and their 'Guidelines on the responsible implementation of artificial intelligence systems in journalism', the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) 'Freedom of the media and artificial intelligence' policy document, and UNESCO's 'Recommendation on the ethics of artificial intelligence'.

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in journalism has sparked complex ethical debates, particularly with the rise of generative AI systems. By now, AI permeates the entire news cycle, from information gathering to news dissemination, raising questions revolving around issues such as transparency, accountability, responsibility, bias, and diversity. Previous research showed that news organizations have slowly approached and adapted to ethical concerns regarding the use of AI, developing critical stances mainly due to rising AI power, growing audience skepticism, and mounting tensions within the industry between news publishers’ strategies and journalists’ anxieties. Consequently, ethical guidelines have started to emerge in news organizations, but their practical application remains challenging and under-studied, not only due to the opacity of AI algorithms, but also due to the difficulties of “embedding” journalistic values into AI systems. In the light of an intensifying discourse about ethical concerns in the news industry and growing efforts by governments and institutions such as the European Union to strengthen AI governance, journalism studies have started to explore the issue as well. However, research on AI ethics is still in its infancy, with significant gaps in understanding the practical enforcement of ethical guidelines within newsrooms, in particular when it comes to the design of AI systems. This essay critically discusses the way journalism (studies) approach ethical issues related to the use and the design of AI systems, given that the responsible use and design of AI systems in journalism is crucial given its integral role for democracy and society.

The United Kingdom is characterized by both a pluralist and, at the same time, polarized media system, with a strong public service media, a broad range of commercial broadcasters, and a lively opinionated press. However, the British media system is undergoing significant transformation processes in particular regarding the economic situation of news organizations. Major drivers of these shifts are not only the newly emerged news ecosystem based on the centrality of digital intermediaries such as social media platforms, a shifting news consumption, and an increasing number of infodemically vulnerable users. These shifts are also due to events such as the economic crisis, Brexit, the pandemic, and the Ukraine war and related inflation. In this context, innovation becomes crucial, and studies such as the Cairncross report suggest that the government should launch a specific new innovation fund for public interest journalism. Following the recommendations of the report, the government implemented a publicly funded Future News Pilot Fund to finance innovative journalism projects, even if limited to a one-off project. Today, innovation is mainly implemented through forms of datafication, relying, for instance, on user metrics or the use of artificial intelligence.