@article{2025:davis:the_mor,
title = {“The morass is just getting ... deeper and deeper and deeper”: Synthetic media and news integrity},
year = {2025},
note = {With the arrival of generative AI (genAI) in 2022, waves of hype and
handwringing struck the news industry. These initial responses have
proved overblown, if not without foundation. The challenges and
opportunities of synthetic media for news are real, if more humdrum
than the hype would suggest. In this paper, we draw from a two-phase
qualitative study to explore how these challenges and opportunities
have manifested in Australian newsrooms. We focus on: 1) How are
newsrooms implementing genAI in the production of synthetic media? 2)
How do newsrooms perceive the potential impacts of synthetic media on
news integrity? 3) How are perceived impacts on news integrity
mediating the implementation of genAI, particularly for synthetic
media? Industry surveys have shown that uptake of genAI in Australian
newsrooms is low relative to comparable markets. In phase 1, we found
almost no use of genAI to produce synthetic media for publication.
This reflected apprehension over the limitations of genAI and acute
consciousness of threats to trust and news integrity. Phase 2 found
some moderation of concern as low-risk opportunities had emerged,
though applications in audience-facing content were still limited.
Participants continued to express strong concerns about news integrity
and audience trust. We apply both a technological process lens and a
normative lens focused on the concept of news integrity to interpret
participant insights. We conclude that the limited uptake of gen­AI
in Australian newsrooms is driven by concerns about news integrity in
a broad sense, going beyond journalistic standards to encompass the
sociopolitical functions of journalism as well as concerns about
continued platformisation of the media economy and an increasingly
degraded information environment.},
journal = {SCM Studies in Communication and Media},
pages = {517--549},
author = {Davis, Michael and Attard, Monica},
volume = {14},
number = {4}
}