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Navigating risks and rewards: How South African journalists use AI in the newsroom

Karen Allen, Herman Wasserman, Nande Mbekela

Johannesburg; Stellenbosch: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS), Media Programme Sub-Saharan Africa; Centre for Information Integrity in Africa (CINIA) (2026), 33 pp.

"This study demonstrates impressively how widely AI is already used in South African newsrooms – often, however, without systematic training, without editorial guidelines, and without tools adapted to African languages and contexts. The interviews make it clear that journalists stand between curio ... more

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Critiquing Generative AI in Africa's Media Ecosystems

Lungile A. Tshuma, Trust Matsilele

London; New York: Routledge (2026), 215 pp.

"The book argues that as technology is a social construct reflecting existing power dynamics, those in the Global South, and in Africa in particular, are bound to be marginalised and have their knowledge, systems overlooked as the Global North dominates technological developments. The birth of AI ha ... more

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AI is here. Are we ready?

Eva-Maria Verfürth et al.

D+C: Development and Cooperation, issue 4 (2026), pp. 31-58

"AI is already having a profound impact on our daily lives. The key question is who controls the technology. It is not only in conflicts that AI accelerates the spread of deceptively realistic fakes and makes it harder to distinguish reliable information from manipulation. At the same time, it opens ... more

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Cosmopolitan Communication Studies: Toward Deep Internationalization

Carola Richter, Melanie Radue, Christine Horz-Ishak, Anna Litvinenko, Hanan Badr, Anke Fiedler (eds.)

Bielefeld: transcript Verlag (2025), 318 pp.

"This book aims to contribute to a “deep internationalization” of media and communication studies by offering insights and guidance on how to integrate a cosmopolitan perspective in our discipline. Building onthe debates on de-Westernization and cosmopolitanism in the decades since the 2000s, th ... more

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Where publishers are seeing AI’s real value – so far

Frankfurt am Main: WAN-IFRA (2025), ?? pp.

"Based on a Q2 2025 survey of more than 100 media leaders and 10 detailed case studies, the report explores how publishers are applying AI to workflows, products and audience engagement – and where its value is proving hardest to measure. Our findings show that AI’s impact is strongest behind th ... e scenes. While only 9 percent of publishers can point to direct revenue gains, 75 percent report efficiency improvements, 64 percent better content production, 55 percent faster publishing times, and 44 percent improved resource allocation. In other words, AI is already changing how news is produced and delivered, even if the financial payoffs are still emerging. “Revenue generation gets all the attention, but it’s often the wrong metric for AI in media. Cost reduction, quality improvements, speed gains, and better resource allocation deliver value faster and more measurably,” noted Ezra Eeman, Director of Strategy & Innovation at NPO, and Strategic Advisor for WAN-IFRA’s AI Initiatives. Here is a summary of the case studies in the report: The Hindu, India, Hard ROI: AI-driven recommendations for content, push notifications, and newsletters boosted CTRs, session durations, ad impressions and subscriptions. Schibsted, Norway, Hard ROI: A machine learning model for real-time personalisation lifted front-page subscription sales by 75 percent, while scaling across multiple newsrooms. United Daily News, Taiwan, Hard ROI: AI optimisation of ads, curation, and recommendations, drove 200 percent growth in ad performance, subscription conversions, and engagement. Financial Times, UK, Soft ROI: FT’s Storyfinding team applies AI to surface patterns in large datasets, streamlining investigative workflows and supporting scalable newsroom tools. NTM, Sweden, Hard and Soft ROI: Toppnyheter, an AI-powered audio news service, delivers real-time summaries while extending editorial oversight and audience reach. La Nación, Argentina, Soft ROI: A custom AI pipeline analysed President Javier Milei’s speeches, structuring 739,961 words to track rhetorical patterns. Legit.ng, Nigeria, Hard and Soft ROI: AI halved translation times, expanded Hausa-language coverage, boosted output, and improved fact-checking and distribution. “For us, AI is not about replacing journalists – it’s about giving them more time to do real journalism,” noted Rahaman Abiola, Editor-in-Chief. Gannett, USA, Hard and Soft ROI: Gannett, the parent company of USA Today, is transforming its 200-plus publications into an AI-ready organisation by embedding the technology across workflows, training and tools. “The real risk isn’t AI replacing you. It’s someone using AI replacing you,” remarked Jessica Davis, Vice President of News Automation and AI Product at Gannett. AsiaOne, Singapore, Hard ROI: An AI classification model improved ad targeting, boosted revenue by 20 percent, cut sales staff by 40 percent, and freed resources for higher-level strategy, while also providing shared insights across editorial, analytics and business teams. South China Morning Post, Hong Kong, Hard ROI: AI summarisation, editing, translation, and investigative tools save 300+ hours monthly while enhancing accuracy and reach." (https://wan-ifra.org) more

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Generative AI & Journalism: Content, Journalistic Perceptions, and Audience Experiences

T. J. Thomson, Ryan J. Thomas, Michelle Riedlinger, Phoebe Matich

Melbourne: RMIT University (2025), 39 pp.

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Inteligencia Artificial: Guía de uso para informativos en radio comunitaria
Key Guides

Tito Ballesteros López

Red de Emisoras Comunitarias del Magdalena Medio (AREDMAG) (2025), 24 pp.

"La guía que aquí presentamos propone caminos prácticos para incorporar la IA en los noticieros radiales, desde la redacción automatizada hasta la interacción con los oyentes en tiempo real, pasando por la generación de contenidos sonoros, el monitoreo de fuentes y el análisis de impacto. Cad ... more

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Investigating AI datasets: A journalist's guide

Kathleen Siminyu, Christo Buschek

Bonn: Deutsche Welle DW Akademie (2025)

"Algorithms today are more complex than ever. With the rise of large language models (LLMs), they have become increasingly unexplainable and non-deterministic. Even experts often fail to understand why an algorithm yields a particular outcome. It is through the datasets used to train those algorithm ... more

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Generative AI in African News Media: Opportunities and Challenges

Trust Matsilele, Lungile A. Tshuma

Routledge (2025), xix, 190 pp.

"Featuring diverse case studies from South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Eswatini, the collection explores how African newsrooms are adopting generative AI. Contributors analyse the use of AI presenters, audience perceptions of AI-generated content, gamification strategies in newsroo ... more

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Journalism in the AI era: Opportunities and challenges in the Global South and emerging economies
Deep Insights

Damian Radcliffe

Thomson Reuters Foundation (2025), 66 pp.

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Desafíos éticos de la prensa en Ecuador

Saudia Levoyer (ed.)

Quito: Editorial El Conejo; Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar Ecuador (2025), 208 pp.

"Los desafíos para el trabajo periodístico en Ecuador se han vuelto más complejos en los últimos años. La violencia criminal, la precarización laboral, las amenazas y asesinatos a periodistas, la inundación de la esfera pública con contenidos polarizantes que siembran desinformación, ademá ... more

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Challenges and Developments in Public Service Journalism

Alessandro D'Arma, Maria Michalis, Gregory Ferrell Lowe, Michael-Bernhard Zita (eds.)

London: University of Westminster (2025), xi, 297 pp.

"Challenges and Developments in Public Service Journalism, the 11th RIPE Reader, examines the role of public service journalism, as well as the opportunities and challenges of delivering it in today's increasingly complex and competitive digital media environment. The volume is organised in three pa ... more

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AI Literacy & Communication

Center for News, Technology & Innovation (CNTI), AI and Journalism Working Group (2025), 25 pp.

"This briefing focuses broadly on journalistic communication about AI. We first summarize research and frameworks that address the following questions about societal AI literacy: What does the public currently know about AI, and what does the public need to know about AI? We then move on to a synthe ... more

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From Crisis to Renewal: Addressing AI’s Impact on Our Information Ecosystem

Lena Maria Böswald, Roa Powell, Tyreese Calnan

Berlin: Interface – Tech Analysis and Policy Ideas for Europe (2025), 18 pp.

"AI-driven search-summary features, with Google's AI Overviews (AIOs) being the most promiment example, are rapidly transforming how people access news, with profound implications for our information ecosystem. While AI holds potential to improve access to information, its current deployment risks u ... ndermining the sustainability, diversity, and reliability of news. As AI summaries summarise information directly within search results, they can significantly reduce traffic to news publishers. Evidence suggests users are less likely to click through to original sources when AIOs are present on Google, threatening the financial viability of journalism. These impacts from AI summaries and AIOs in particular are unlikely to be evenly distributed and will play out in different ways across the news sector across Europe, with smaller and ad-funded outlets particularly vulnerable, raising concerns about declining media plurality. At the same time, AI-generated summaries often fail to provide accurate and diverse information. Research shows that AI tools disproportionately rely on a narrow set of sources, marginalising smaller publishers. In addition, persistent issues with accuracy – including misleading or incorrect outputs – risk distorting public understanding and weakening trust in information systems. Current regulatory frameworks in both the EU and UK are struggling to address these challenges effectively. While multiple legal instruments are relevant and already in place – including competition law, platform regulation, copyright, and AI governance – none are fully equipped to respond quickly and comprehensively to the harms of monopolisation and the lack of remuneration for media outlets posed by AI summaries. We argue that competition policy offers the most effective and immediate route to intervention, with digital regulation serving as a secondary lever. The UK’s approach, based on flexible, case-specific competition rules, enables faster action through tailored conduct requirements for dominant firms like Google. In contrast, the EU’s framework is broader but slower, relying more heavily on traditional, time-intensive antitrust investigations and ongoing debates around copyright and remuneration for publishers. Both systems offer complementary strengths, and policymakers should learn from each other’s approaches. We therefore recommend a “competition-first” policy package to ensure fairer outcomes. Key measures include enforcing fair ranking and attribution practices, preventing unauthorised use of publisher content, and potentially requiring platforms to compensate news organisations. However, competition policy alone is not the key. We therefore propose additional long-term interventions, including greater transparency through “nutrition labels” for AI-generated content and increased public or democratic funding for journalism. These measures aim to strengthen the resilience and independence of the news sector, ensuring that trustworthy information remains accessible in an information ecosystem shaped by AI." (Executive summary) more

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SpinozAI: Augmenting Journalism with Innovation and Ethics

Paris: Reporters Without Borders (2025), 15 pp.

"The Spinoza project aims to develop an open-source AI tool that ensures the integrity, traceability, and ownership of its data. It is co-designed with journalists and publishers and its first prototype focuses on climate change issues. The initial concept was launched by Reporters Without Borders ( ... more

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2024-25 Annual Report: Dynamic Coalition on the Sustainability of Journalism and News Media

Waqas Naeem, Daniel O’Maley, Courtney C. Radsch, Aws Al-Saadi, Lei Ma, Nompilo Simanje

Internet Governance Forum; Dynamic Coalition for the Sustainability of Journalism and News Media; Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD) (2025), 50 pp.

"[...] Just as AI technologies are disrupting the business model of the Internet, they will also have a significant impact on the financial sustainability of the news media. The ability of AI tools to generate and aggregate content and produce news-style summaries might altogether bypass the news me ... more

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Intelligence artificielle et robotique autonome: Enjeux et défis contemporains dans l’espace francophone

Etienne Damome, Moustapha Ben Ismïila Diaby (eds.)

Paris: L'Harmattan (2025), 358 pp.

"Cet ouvrage propose une analyse nuancée des transformations induites par l'IA et la robotique autonome dans l'espace francophone. Il insiste sur son potentiel à façonner durablement les sociétés contemporaines. S'appuyant sur des exemples concrets et des études de cas, l'ouvrage fournit un ca ... more

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Lo ancestral funciona: Pasado, presente y futuro de la radio comunitaria

Ernesto Lamas (ed.)

Bogotá: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES), FES Comunicación (2025), 249 pp.

"Este libro es una invitación a viajar por las ondas invisibles de las radios comunitarias de América Latina y el mundo. Desde las montañas del norte argentino hasta los barrios populares de Barranquilla, desde las selvas peruanas hasta las calles de México, miles de comunicadores y comunicadora ... more

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How Artificial Intelligence is Changing Media and Journalism in Central Europe: A study mapping the use of AI by newsrooms in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia

Marius Dragomir (ed.)

Thomson Foundation; Media and Journalism Research Center (MJRC) (2024), 18 pp.

Inteligencia Artificial: Guía de uso para informativos en radio comunitaria Key Guides

Journalism in the AI era: Opportunities and challenges in the Global South and emerging economies Deep Insights

Inteligencia Artificial: Guía de uso para informativos en radio comunitaria
Key Guides

Journalism in the AI era: Opportunities and challenges in the Global South and emerging economies
Deep Insights