AI, news, & the dynamics of control in the media ecosystem

Some reading recommendations

2 min readApr 7, 2024

Here some readings I found useful on this topic. To make it easier to navigate these, I have grouped them by topic.

Beniger, J. R. (1986). The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society. Harvard University Press.

House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee: Large language models and generative AI (1st Report of Session 2023–24; House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee). (2024). House of Lords. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld5804/ldselect/ldcomm/54/54.pdf
Wolfram, S. (2023, February 14). What Is ChatGPT Doing … and Why Does It Work? Stephen Wolfram. https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2023/02/what-is-chatgpt-doing-and-why-does-it-work/

Metz, C., Kang, C., Frenkel, S., Thompson, S. A., & Grant, N. (2024, April 6). How tech giants cut corners to harvest data for A.I. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/06/technology/tech-giants-harvest-data-artificial-intelligence.html
Vipra, J., & Myers West, S. (2023). Computational Power and AI (p. 32). AI Now Institute. https://ainowinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/AI-Now_Computational-Power-an-AI.pdf
Ahmed, N., Wahed, M., & Thompson, N. C. (2023). The growing influence of industry in AI research. Science, 379(6635), 884–886. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.ade2420

Simon, F. M. (2022). Uneasy Bedfellows: AI in the News, Platform Companies and the Issue of Journalistic Autonomy. Digital Journalism, 10(10), 1823–1854. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2022.2063150
Simon, F. M. (2023). Escape Me If You Can: How AI Reshapes News Organisations’ Dependency on Platform Companies. Digital Journalism, 12(2), 149–170. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2023.2287464
Papa, V., & Kouros, T. (2023). Do Facebook and Google Care about Journalism? Mapping the Relationship between Affordances of GNI and FJP Tools and Journalistic Norms. Digital Journalism, 0(0), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2023.2211626
Nielsen, R. K., & Ganter, S. A. (2022). The Power of Platforms: Shaping Media and Society. Oxford University Press.
Simon, F. M. (2024). AI Search and Implications for Publishers https://felixsimon.medium.com/ai-search-implications-for-publishers-and-the-public-sphere-db931b6c8274

Simon, F. M. (2024). Artificial Intelligence in the News. How AI Retools, Rationalizes, and Reshapes Journalism and the Public Arena (p. 46). Tow Center for Digital Journalism, Columbia University. https://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/artificial-intelligence-in-the-news.php
Jungherr, A., & Schroeder, R. (2023). Artificial intelligence and the public arena. Communication Theory, 33(2–3), 164–173. https://doi.org/10.1093/ct/qtad006