Rationalisation of the news: How AI reshapes and retools the gatekeeping processes of news organisations in the United Kingdom, United States and Germany

Abstract

This article analyses how the use of artificial intelligence shapes the way news gets produced and distributed, based on 143 interviews with news workers at 34 leading publishers in the United States, United Kingdom and Germany. Drawing on gatekeeping theory and the concept of rationalisation, it describes and explains the use and effects of the technology in the news. Artificial intelligence (AI) is used in all parts of the gatekeeping process to drive efficiency gains, optimise processes and bring about greater effectiveness, with these effects being real but task-dependent and hard to quantify. Overall, AI reshapes and retools the production and distribution of news by providing publishers with new means in the service of achieving existing ends, rationalising the work of news organisations in the process, and pushing it more strongly towards logics of efficiency, predictability and calculability. I discuss these findings with respect to their impact on the public arena and the reconfiguration of power and control within the information ecosystem.