Changing or Reinforcing the “Rules of the Game”: A Field Theory Perspective on the Impacts of Automated Journalism on Media Practitioners

Abstract

In recent years, a growing number of media outlets such as The Associated Press, The Washington Post and the BBC have adopted “automated journalism,” a solution understood as the generation of journalistic text with software and algorithms, with no human intervention except for the initial programming. However, to discern common patterns across news organisations, a comprehensive empirical investigation looking into the impacts of automated news on media practitioners is needed. To lay the ground for such an empirical work, this paper raises the necessary questions to be taken into consideration, while reflecting on the potential implications for journalism practice. To do so, we relied on key concepts developed in Bourdieu’s Field theory to assess whether automated journalism is likely to change or reinforce the prevailing journalistic doxa, or the “rules of the game” within the journalistic field. This led us to conceive an analytical framework that builds on these concepts, first to come up with our own reflections on the modifications and reinforcements of the journalistic doxa, then to contribute a table of essential dimensions to consider for an empirical investigation that looks into the impacts of automated journalism on media practitioners.