Becoming Tech-savvy: Egyptian Journalists’ Perceptions Towards the Acceptance of Automated Journalism

The global news media landscape is undergoing an unprecedented transformation in the ever-evolving digital age. Central to this change is the development and the adoption of automated journalistic tools in the media and journalism industry. The existing studies, mostly from the Western perspectives, suggest journalism industry is in a crucial stage, yet to entirely appreciate and respond to the potentials and possible perils of automation in journalism. Also, both journalism and technology are not merely technical, but rather social, and cultural aspects. Hence, perception about and reaction to them are also socially and culturally contingent. Since a greater number of studies are being carried-out in the Western and economically developed nations, evaluation from developing and lower-scale economic countries are still unheeded. Particularly, there is a lack of scholarly research about the attitudes of Middle Eastern journalists to a new kind of news environment driven by automation. Drawing on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), thus this study aims to explore the Egyptian journalists’ perceptions towards the acceptance of automated journalism. It utilizes in-depth interviews and deductive thematic analysis to gauge if automation is accepted by the Egyptian journalists to carry-out their routine work.