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Barriers to the Introduction of Artificial Intelligence to Support Communication Experts in Media and the Public Sector to Combat Fake News and Misinformation

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Electronic Participation (ePart 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 14153))

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Abstract

Public trust represents a cornerstone of today’s democracies, their media, and institutions and in the search for consensus among different actors. However, the deliberate and non-deliberate spreading of misinformation and fake news severely damages the cohesion of our societies. This effect is intensified by the ease and speed of information creation and distribution that today’s social media offers. In addition, the current state-of-the-art for artificial intelligence available to everybody at their fingertips to create ultra-realistic fake multimedia news is unprecedented. This situation challenges professionals within the communication sphere, i.e., media professionals and public servants, to counter this flood of misinformation. While these professionals can also use artificial intelligence to combat fake news, introducing this technology into the working environment and work processes often meets a wide variety of resistance. Hence, this paper investigates what barriers but also chances these communication experts identify from their professional point of view. For this purpose, we have conducted a quantitative study with more than 100 participants, including journalists, press officers, experts from different ministries, and scientists. We analyzed the results with a particular focus on the types of fake news and in which capacity they were encountered, the experts’ general attitude towards artificial intelligence, as well as the perceived most pressing barriers concerning its use. The results are then discussed, and propositions are made concerning actions for the most pressing issues with a broad societal impact.

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Acknowledgments

The work described in this paper was funded in the context of the defalsif-AI project (FFG project number 879670, funded by the Austrian security research program KIRAS of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Regions, and Tourism BMLRT).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department for E-Governance and Administration, University for Continuing Education Krems, Dr.-Karl-Dorrek-Str. 30, 3500, Krems an der Donau, Austria

    Walter Seböck, Bettina Biron & Thomas J. Lampoltshammer

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  1. Walter Seböck
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  2. Bettina Biron
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  3. Thomas J. Lampoltshammer
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Correspondence to Thomas J. Lampoltshammer .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Continuing Education Krems, Krems an der Donau, Austria

    Noella Edelmann

  2. Ghent University, Gent, Belgium

    Lieselot Danneels

  3. University of Continuing Education Krems, Krems an der Donau, Austria

    Anna-Sophie Novak

  4. Queen Mary University of London, London, UK

    Panos Panagiotopoulos

  5. Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Iryna Susha

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Seböck, W., Biron, B., Lampoltshammer, T.J. (2023). Barriers to the Introduction of Artificial Intelligence to Support Communication Experts in Media and the Public Sector to Combat Fake News and Misinformation. In: Edelmann, N., Danneels, L., Novak, AS., Panagiotopoulos, P., Susha, I. (eds) Electronic Participation. ePart 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14153. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41617-0_5

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