Chinese Automated Journalism: A Comparison Between Expectations and Perceived Quality

Abstract

To explore the emerging practice of automated journalism in China, this study examined readers’ expectations and actual perceptions of Chinese automated news through two experiments. Results showed that readers’ actual perceptions of human-written news did not meet their expectations, but readers’ actual perceptions of automated news exceeded expectations. When participants read both human-written and automated news, perceptions of human-written news were significantly higher for readability and expertise. When participants read either human-written or automated news, significant differences only existed for expertise. In both experiments, participants had similar expectations and perceptions of credibility between human-written and automated news. These results bear implications to the field in that the difference in credibility between automated and human-written news was indiscernible.