Australians are more "comfortable" with artificial intelligence putting out sports results and lifestyle stories than publishing political news, a national survey has found.
With tools like ChatGPT increasingly introduced in journalism, Australians are more disapproving of news mainly produced by AI, without much human intervention, than people in other parts of the world.
The University of Canberra's 2024 Digital News Report revealed almost 60 per cent of its survey participants said AI-generated news made them "uncomfortable".
Forty-five per cent said they were "very or somewhat" comfortable if a human journalist was producing news with the help of AI.
Lead author of the report professor Sora Park said the data confirmed honest newsrooms were more likely to be trusted.
"Audiences want news organisations to be transparent about how they produce news and the role that AI plays in this," she said.
However, of the 2002 Australians surveyed, more than half didn't know "a lot" about AI technology, especially participants from regional areas.
The report said there was a strong link between the level of trust and interest in news and awareness of AI. People who were less interested in politics or had low levels of income and education also said they knew very little about it.
The highest awareness of artificial intelligence was among participants who were men or from Generation Z (aged between 12 and 27).
Social media close to replacing TV
One in four Australians surveyed said they get all their news from social media, while three in four said they watched short news videos online.
People said they mostly watched videos about international affairs on news sites and apps followed by Facebook and YouTube.
The report showed TV's dominance was declining as social media, particularly Instagram, was "filling the gap" for almost two-thirds of Gen Z Australians. This was said to be due to young people increasingly looking at ordinary people and content creators as a source of news.
Crystal Andrews, founder and editor of Z Feed, said the idea news was objective, free of perspectives and views was the industry's "most persistent myth".
"On social media audiences get access to a range of informed perspectives, and news with a view that comes from somewhere - something mainstream news publishers don't do very well on their own platforms," she said.
However, Australians using Facebook and Instagram to keep up with current affairs might soon shift to other platforms after Meta moves to reduce the visibility of news.
Additionally, young people and women were found to be looking at news more than once a day in 2024. The survey reported this was because interest in international affairs, such as Israel-Palestine news, was rising.
At the same time, almost half (48 per cent) of Gen Z participants said they had "inadequate access" to local news.
The report highlighted the gap in news interest between Gen Z men and women had widened by 24 percentage points in the past decade.
This was said to be a sign young women were still "underserved by mainstream news".
Women and the wealthy more worried about misinformation
The Digital News Report showed distrust in news had risen this year, especially with women and high-income earners who were worried about misinformation.
It also said users struggled to identify fake news on TikTok and X but found it easier to do this on Google, Facebook and YouTube.
"With the proliferation of social media, concern about misinformation skyrocketed to 75 per cent, up 11 percentage points since 2022," the report said.
The topics in which Australians came across the most misinformation were found to be Israel-Palestine news (39 per cent), climate change (35 per cent), and politics (34 per cent).
Additionally, participants who were men were much more likely to experience misinformation about all of the survey's listed topics including COVID-19, cost of living and the war in Ukraine.
Other noteworthy news trends in Australia
- Podcast listening has increased among Gen Z, women and Baby Boomers.
- More than half (63 per cent) think news should be doing a better job of offering different perspectives on topical issues.
- There's been a sharp increase in participants saying they were worn out by news this year due to major events in 2023 (wars in Ukraine and Gaza, Voice referendum, floods in NSW and Queensland)
