Automating Science Journalism Tasks: Emerging Opportunities

Abstract

Digital tools have the potential to both semi-automate science journalist tasks including the incorporation of more diverse voices in science journalism. This paper reports new design science research that developed then elicited first feedback on one digital prototype with algorithms that semi-automated selected science journalism tasks. The feedback revealed that almost all of participating science journalists were comfortable with increased automation of at least of some of their tasks, as long as opportunities to control and personalize this automation remained. The feedback also revealed the potential value of automation to discover and incorporate a wider range of expert voices, depending on geographical location. The paper ends with preliminary design implications for future semi-automation that provides digitized support for science journalism tasks, then a discussion of the paper's wider research contributions.