A significant portion of designing a text on future scenarios in the media industry involves a retrospective process — not as an exercise in intellectual nostalgia, but as a way to contextualize the relationship between technologies, media, and societies to identify emerging paradigms.

As a journalist, communications professor, and digital media consultant, I’ve strived to balance my spaces of research and academic production with my engagement in the communication and journalism industry for 20 years. I always believed this dual professional role was a good way to keep pace with both worlds (which undoubtedly should collaborate more closely) and leverage concepts, methodologies, and experiences.

In the epilogue of a year that will be remembered as the era of generative intelligent machines, I allow myself to explore some trends for 2024 by establishing possible connections from academia to the journalism industry.

In a scenario where change is the only constant, a revisit of classical communication theories provides an appropriate conceptual framework for analyzing the emergence of technological phenomena like generative AI — not to seek definitive answers, but to pose the right questions.

Which processes will generative AI modify in newsrooms? What ethical challenges will these processes face? How will algorithmic mediation alter the modes of information production, consumption, and distribution? Which theoretical frameworks assist us in reflecting on this transformation in the media ecosystem?

Algorithms, environments, and media as human extensions

In 1964, Marshall McLuhan published Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, a book in which he introduced his famous phrase “The medium is the message.” This innovative and provocative idea proposed that not only the content of media but also the form and the medium through which it is presented significantly influence the perception and understanding of the message. McLuhan argued that the medium itself was an integral part of the message, and its impact extended beyond the specific content being conveyed.

McLuhan’s work not only shook media theory but also anticipated the rise of the digital age and the globalization of communication. His focus on the “extensions of man” as a result of media foreshadowed the increasing integration of technology into everyday life and the perception of reality. The notion that media not only delivers information but also shapes the human experience remains a crucial point of reflection in the study of communication and technology.

In Understanding Media, McLuhan included a series of analogies and concepts that can be updated synthetically, helping us recognize trends in the media industry for the year 2024.

The medium is the message: In the era of artificial intelligence, the algorithm is the message. The way algorithms select, generate, and present content will have a profound effect on the perception and understanding of information.

The intersection between the medium and the message will intensify with the growing influence of algorithms, whose omnipresent power will shape our preferences, beliefs, and digital experiences. The subtlety with which algorithms adjust content presentation based on our interactions creates an environment where personalization becomes a determining factor in constructing our media reality and the emergence of new hybrid media, with points of contact between the human and the artificial.

The fish in the water: McLuhan used the analogy of a fish in the water to illustrate our relationship with media. The ubiquity of media allows it to be an intrinsic part of our cultural environment, and its impact often goes unnoticed.

The fish is unaware it’s in the water until taken out of it, a parallel to our relationship with media — when the internet is cut off, Twitter crashes, or our mobile phones run out of battery, we become like that fish out of water McLuhan spoke of.

In this new scenario, AI also creates atmospheres, albeit synthetic ones. It has become, and will increasingly become, an invisible yet omnipresent component in our interaction with information and media.

From personalized notifications to the continuous delivery of relevant content and the creation of new information interfaces with the advancement of the Internet of Things, the ubiquity of news will become an integral part of our daily interaction with media and electronic devices, taking information to a new level of integration into our everyday lives.

The global village: McLuhan spoke of a “global village,” one of his most popular concepts, where communication technology bridged distances and connected people worldwide. With generative AI, this global village will expand even further. The technology enables instant translation, multilingual content generation, and real-time distribution to a global audience, empowering many existing digital products in the news media to reach new scales.

Beyond the viral video of Lionel Messi speaking perfect English in a press conference, it’s intriguing to gauge these technological advances for real-time translation of podcasts or multi-format journalistic content and its reach to new audiences on a web transitioning from visual and tactile (screen interaction) to auditory (interaction with virtual sound assistants).

The extensions of the human body: McLuhan conceived of media as an extension of the body, with TV as an extension of human sight and radio as an extension of hearing. He didn’t limit this concept to communication media alone, asserting that shoes were extensions of the foot and roads extensions of both shoes and feet.

Generative AI will become an extension of the human intellect. Such technologies will enhance our cognitive and creative capabilities, enabling the creation of content and new decision-making processes. A few textual exchanges with ChatGPT are enough to experience the Turing Test firsthand and in real-time.

In the near future, the integration of this technology will transform a significant portion of production processes within newsrooms. AI, especially generative AI, will function as a tool amplifying journalists’ cognitive abilities and processing capacity, expanding their creative boundaries.

These extensions will not only involve the automation of routine tasks but will also open new spaces for exploring and analyzing information. Currently, journalists can use AI tools to process vast amounts of data, identify patterns, and generate ideas, allowing for a more strategic and creative approach to story search and narration. Properly integrated, AI will become a crucial ally for newsrooms, expanding the capabilities of their journalists and bringing about a significant shift in information production and distribution methods.

Conclusion

Every new technology has compelled us to relinquish some human capacity. With the advent of the printing press, for instance, the ability to copy manuscripts by hand and manually create books diminished, making way for mechanical printing.

AI has renewed discussions on ethical issues and personal data privacy. It has also heightened conversations about the proliferation of fake news, the blurred line between the plausible and the real, and the influence of algorithms on the relationship between content and audiences, and has deepened debates on job loss in newsrooms due to automation.

The speed and efficiency with which these systems generate content may lead to the loss of certain aspects of journalism, such as the ability for ethical discernment, the subjective interpretation of events, and the inherently human empathy in storytelling. While generative AI may offer unprecedented levels of personalization and productivity, it will be crucial to balance efficiency with the quality and integrity of journalism. Paradoxically, the future might involve a high degree of automation to achieve a more authentically human journalism.