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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Commun.
Sec. Media Governance and the Public Sphere
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcomm.2025.1539844
This article is part of the Research Topic The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Media, Journalists, and Audiences View all 6 articles
The use and ethical implications of Artificial Intelligence, Collaboration, and Participation in Local Ibero-American Newsrooms
Provisionally accepted
Elvira Garcia De Torres 1*
Giovanni Ramos 2 Lyudmyla Yezers´ka 3 Mayra Gonzales 4 Liza Higuera 3 Claudia Herrera 5- 1 Universidad CEU Cardenal Herrera, Valencia, Spain
- 2 University of Beira Interior, Covilhã, Castelo Branco, Portugal
- 3 Universidad de Piura, Lima, Peru
- 4 Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja, Loja, Loja, Ecuador
- 5 National Autonomous University of Mexico, México City, México, Mexico
This study examined the use and ethical implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI), collaboration, and participation in 12 local Ibero-American news outlets across Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Spain, Mexico, Peru, and Portugal. Based on data from 138 questionnaires, the findings highlighted limited knowledge and technical expertise, along with serious ethical concerns. While journalists expressed positive attitudes toward collaboration with other newsrooms and audience participation, their practical implementation remained low. Regarding AI, there was broad consensus against its use in content production, even though adoption levels mirrored those of collaboration and participation. Ethical concerns surrounding AI were widespread, whereas collaboration was more frequently associated with enhancing journalistic quality. The analysis of country-level consistency revealed significant variations in innovation adoption. The findings emphasized the urgency of targeted training programs and specific ethical guidelines, as well as the need to advance research on hybridization in journalism to help local news media navigate the evolving media landscape.
Keywords: Journalism, artificial intelligence, Collaborative journalism, Participation, Ethics, innovation, Ibero-America
Received: 04 Dec 2024; Accepted: 12 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Garcia De Torres, Ramos, Yezers´ka, Gonzales, Higuera and Herrera. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Elvira Garcia De Torres, Universidad CEU Cardenal Herrera, Valencia, Spain
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