Egyptian Conference Debates How Journalism Education Can Include Artificial Intelligence
Journalism lecturers and other experts discussed the challenges artificial intelligence (AI) has brought to journalism education at a conference at the American University in Cairo on June 20.
Artificial intelligence has become a part of daily journalistic work, automating some newswriting, providing powerful tools for analysing data, and assisting in developing content that matches audience preferences, among other uses. The panel discussion at AUC, called “AI in Communication and Journalism Education in the Arab Region: Prospects and Concerns”, took up what that means for educators.
The panel moderator, Sarah El-Shaarawi, managing editor of the journal Arab Media & Society, asked the participants how students could be taught to have a critical mind-set regarding the use of AI.
Tarek Abbadi, a Microsoft programme manager in the United States, said one answer was that lecturers must have confidence in their students. “Trust in your students. Let them make mistakes and then quickly correct them. We need this in every educational system.”
Abbadi said that to interact with artificial intelligence, curricula should have three elements: 1. a critical mind-set so students ask the right questions, “starting always with ‘why?’”; 2. a creative sense to enable students to outperform the machine, though he wondered: “How can we do that when we were born into an environment that dictates everything to us?”; and 3. enhanced intercommunication skills so students could keep ahead of artificial intelligence.
Catching Up with AI in the Marketplace
Ahmed El-Gody, a senior lecturer of media and communication studies at Sweden’s Örebro University, agreed that teachers must trust students’ ability to develop a critical mind. “The idea is not for students to achieve right or wrong conclusions, but rather to express their opinion,” he said. “… Learning about AI tools must be one of the basics of journalism education.”
“In the past, teachers used to set the agenda. Today, the market is applying pressure on them to meet its growing demands and the growing audience following the news.”
Ahmed El-Gody, a senior lecturer of media and communication studies at Örebro University
Reviewing attempts to catch up with AI developments in the labour market, El-Gody said universities were facing a turning point similar to that experienced 30 years ago with the internet. “Whether we like it or not, AI has become an integral part of our daily lives, from targeted emails to predicting epidemics to digital banking services, and more.”
This new reality has created unprecedented pressures on journalism education in universities, El-Gody said. “In the past, teachers used to set the agenda … Today, the market is applying pressure on them to meet its growing demands, and the growing audience following the news.”
The media industry no longer relies solely on graduates of journalism programmes, he added, “but rather employs social media experts to participate in this global network of information flows, and to interact with the public, the so-called ‘click and share’ journalism.”
Incorporating AI into Media Programmes
The demand for journalism graduates is dwindling, and so is the number of students enrolling in programmes, El-Gody said. In response, journalism schools around the world are including new technologies like artificial intelligence in their curricula.
He thinks Scandinavia will be a leader in this field because many AI companies are already providing solutions to media companies in Sweden, Finland, and Norway.
El-Gody said the arrival of artificial intelligence in journalism meant universities should be considering whether they needed new people on their teaching staff and whether the teaching of journalism and computer science should be integrated.
He suggested that there could be a one- or two-year master’s degree for media professionals to keep them up to date.
Middle Eastern universities’ reaction to the arrival of artificial intelligence us “in the embryonic stage”, El-Gody said, but he thinks Qatar University’s programme is outstanding because of the close links between journalism education at the university, Aljazeera Media Institute, and the university’s Center for Computing Research.
“I think that teaching AI will encounter violent cultural resistance since we are providing people with the tools that will eventually replace them, and asking them to use them.”
Ahmed Esmat, a media technology and digital transformation consultant
He also discussed the concerns over artificial intelligence’s effects on privacy, accountability, and potential bias, especially if AI databases were fed untrue narratives, and the burden on journalism students, who must now be taught computers, programming, data cleaning, and classification. “This is arduous and quite difficult for them,” he said. “Journalism is a field of humanities, yet today, we demand that its students excel in other disciplines.”
Jobs that Will Be Lost to AI
Ahmed Esmat, a media technology and digital transformation consultant, talked about the jobs that may be lost to artificial intelligence such as translation, photography, and media production.
“I think that teaching AI will encounter violent cultural resistance,” Esmat said, “since we are providing people with the tools that will eventually replace them, and asking them to use them.”
Related Reading
- An Egyptian Educator Reflects on Teaching Journalism and Media Job Prospects
- As Technology Reshapes the Media Industry, Arab Universities Keep Curricula Up to Date
- Teaching Media in Arab Universities: Challenges of 2023 and Beyond
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