The Role of Generative AI in Enhancing Audience Participation in Journalism: A Scoping Review

Abstract

The emergence of generative AI has led to significant transformations, reshaping media organizations’ workflows and facilitating new forms of participation in the news. This scoping review aims to map the existing literature on the role of generative AI in enhancing audience participation and engagement in journalism. It investigates the theories and methods employed in relevant studies, emerging areas of focus and AI applications used by media organizations to foster audience involvement with the news. The data collection was conducted using online sources (Scopus, EBSCO, ProQuest, and Google Scholar) and a total of 30 studies, published between 2022 and 2024, were selected based on the following criteria: English-language, peer-reviewed, and (hybrid) open-access publications relevant to the research objectives and aligned to the search keywords. The results reveal different theoretical and empirical approaches to studying generative AI in journalism, emphasizing emerging focus areas regarding the adoption of relevant tools and the legal and ethical challenges associated with the credibility of news content. Additionally, generative AI applications in journalism primarily serve to facilitate participation and engagement through personalization, accessibility and interactive storytelling. Lastly, this study highlights the potential of generative AI to enhance audience participation in the news, underscoring the ethical and practical challenges it poses as well as existing research gaps, setting the stage for further research.