Frames of AI & Robotics in Explanatory Journalism

Project Lead

Emerging Researcher(s)

Charlotte Crawford, Lauren Dwyer, Hayden Godfrey, Leah Honiball, Sofia Rodriguez-Garzon

This project investigates how the COVID-19 health crisis has impacted media representations and dominant media frames of technology, AI, and robotics. Public opinion plays an important role in the initial design and development of emerging technologies, as well as their general uptake among society and its institutions. The way we imagine, observe, and engage with these technologies is steeped in conventional narratives that reflect our broader hopes, anxieties, and (mis)conceptions about robots, AI-powered technology, and the populations around us. Ideas about security, control, data privacy, and job losses due to automation, to name a few, often permeate the way we think about and discuss robotics and AI.

The current pandemic has additionally introduced a multitude of problems in urgent need of solutions: creating effective contact tracing tools; improving remote work and learning; and of course, developing a vaccine and planning for its eventual distribution. As Big Tech and related industries attempt to address these new facets of daily life, it is crucial to investigate the ways in which technological development and application are directly shaped by dominant narratives, hegemonic ideas, and existing social relations and realities.

This project aims to discover how COVID-19 has impacted dominant media portrayals of AI-powered technology, technological developments, and the implications of these shifts. Dr. Zeller’s team has developed a framing analysis tool designed to identify and analyze the most salient frames being used to discuss robots and AI in the context of COVID-19. Taking a quantitative approach, this study draws on media frame analysis and technology communication perspectives to examine a large corpus of articles from The Conversation’s English-language platforms (Canada, Australia, UK, South Africa and the U.S.). This research draws on critical discourse analysis to further investigate how news media frames can work to uphold or challenge hegemonic narratives, with a focus on how these narratives impact marginalized communities.