[Commlist] CFP Essachess / 2025/Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and Public Relations

ESSACHESS – Journal for Communication Studies is excited to announce
the launch of the Call for Papers for its December issue 2025  (vol. 18, 
n° 2(36)/ 2025) on Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and Public 
Relations
The complete call is available here: 
https://www.essachess.com/index.php/jcs/announcement/view/42 
<https://www.essachess.com/index.php/jcs/announcement/view/42>
Guest editors: Mónika ANDOK, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, 
HUNGARY, e-mail: (andok.monika /at/ btk.ppke.hu) 
<mailto:(andok.monika /at/ btk.ppke.hu)> / András RADETZKY, Pázmány Péter 
Catholic University, HUNGARY, e-mail: (radetzky.andras /at/ btk.ppke.hu) 
<mailto:(radetzky.andras /at/ btk.ppke.hu)>
Important Deadlines

November 1^st , 2024: submission of the proposal in the form of an 
extended abstract of maximum 2 pages. The proposal must include a list 
of recent references and 5 keywords.

December 15, 2024: acceptance of the proposal.

March 5, 2025: full paper submission.

June 15, 2025: reviewer’s comments to be communicated to authors.

July 25, 2025: submission of paper with final revisions (after revisions).

December 2025: journal publication.


Full papers should be between 6,000-8,000 words in length. Papers may be 
submitted in English or French. The abstracts should be in English or 
French as well (150-200 words) followed by 5 keywords. Please provide 
the full names, affiliations, and e-mail addresses of all authors, 
indicating the contact author.

Papers, and any queries, should be sent to: (essachess /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(essachess /at/ gmail.com)>

No payment from the authors will be required.

CALL FOR PAPERS

In the development of journalism and mass communication, the dominant 
communication technologies of the given era always had a decisive role, 
which later became institutionalized and brought a new period in the 
history of the press. Starting from the 19th century professionalization 
of the printing industry and its efficiency-enhancing innovations to the 
transformation of news gathering, from the telegraph to satellite 
networks (Briggs – Burke 2009, Barbier & Lavenier 2000). In the last 
third of the 19th century, the changes in the publishing of newspapers 
and the electronic textualization of press texts show many analogies 
with the processes associated with artificial intelligence today. While 
at that time a distinction was made between "electronic insider / 
outsider" in terms of existing or lacking journalistic skills in the 
field of creating media texts, today specialists talk about Artificial 
Intelligence literacy (Marvin 1988: 15-17).

The efficient use of computer networks and data played an increasingly 
important role in the tools of journalists, and from the beginning of 
the 2000s, the so-called data journalism also appeared. For the 
high-quality cultivation of data journalism, on the one hand, finding 
and filtering data, and on the other hand, new types of storytelling and 
visualization belong to the basic journalistic skills (Gray, Chambers & 
Bounegru 2012). The next stage is the smart journalism which includes 
using drones or 360 footages as well as the use of artificial 
intelligence (Marconi 2020, Calvo-Rubio 2021, Diakopoulos 2019, 
Broussard, et al 2019).

Although the release of Chat GPT in the fall of 2022 really turned 
public interest in the direction of artificial intelligence, the 
possibilities and dangers of its operationalization have long been 
addressed in scientific literature, in many segments of society and in 
institutional systems (Ribeiro et al. 2021, Jiang et al. 2017, Yang et 
al. 2021). Within the field of Artificial Intelligence, we want to focus 
on generative AI. Generative artificial intelligence (generative AI) is 
a type of AI that can create new content and ideas, including 
conversations, stories, images, videos, The communication and media 
organizations can use generative AI for various purposes, like chatbots, 
media creation, and product development and design. Technically, this 
type of AI learns patterns from training data and generates new, unique 
outputs with the same statistical properties. Generative AI models use 
prompts to guide content generation and use transfer learning to become 
more proficient.

With the advent of Artificial Intelligence, several changes related to 
journalism can be detected. These include (1) the changes in the global 
media landscape, (2) the transformation of the media industry, (3) the 
changes taking place in the arenas of content production and sharing, 
and (4) the changing perceptions of the role of journalists.

  (1) In terms of the global media scene, the literature expects 
basically positive effects, starting from the fact that artificial 
intelligence makes the operation of the global media system easier and 
more efficient. According to a March 2023 report by Goldman Sachs, “… 
the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence could increase labour 
productivity and increase global GDP by 7% per year over a 10-year 
period.” (Briggs & Kodnani, 2023) However, the growth is not expected to 
be the same, the lag of the global south in news production, 
distribution, and the entire media industry will increase. North America 
dominated the artificial intelligence market in media and entertainment 
with a 39.0% share in 2021, and this proportion will increase (AI in 
Media & Entertainment Market Industry Outlook 2022-2032). Along with 
this, artificial intelligence-related education must also be provided on 
a global level, so that media users can effectively use the application 
possibilities of AI and understand the media environment operating with 
AI assistance.

  (2) We can summarize the expected changes at the industry level, at 
the level of media enterprises, as follows. According to Sahota's 2023 
analysis, significant industry expansion is expected, with a compound 
annual growth rate (CAGR) of 31.89%, and the market value of artificial 
intelligence in the media and entertainment industry is forecast to 
reach $124.48 billion by 2028 (Sahota 2023). New business models appear 
in the media industry, such as more effective paywall applications such 
as Piano or Sophi. At the same time, the New York Times filed a lawsuit 
against OpenAI in 2023 for alleged copyright infringement. The publisher 
of the New York Times claims that millions of its articles were used 
without their permission to train ChatGPT (Grynbaum & Mac 2023). 
Meanwhile another large media conglomerate, Axel Springer, agreed with 
OpenAI. A recent landmark deal between the two companies will bring in 
tens of millions of euros a year for Axel Springer by allowing Open AI 
to pull content from Bild, Politico and Business Insider. According to 
some, this solution could also serve as a possible model for the wider 
industry (Axel Springer and Open AI 2023). Open AI has entered into a 
similar agreement with the AP news agency, based on which AP provides 
access to both its historical archives and new content (Newman 2024:15). 
But it is not only copyrights that are expected to change. The broader 
regulatory environment of the media industry is also changing, a process 
that has already begun with the adoption of the Digital Service Act in 
the European Union. All of this leads to the fact that in the field of 
journalism and the media, it becomes necessary to rethink the issues of 
normativity, control and review the ethical aspects (Soto-Sanfiel 2022, 
Gallagher 2020, Meese 2021, Mellado 2019, 2020, Nielsen & Ganter 2022, 
Boczkowski 2005, Gallagher 2020, Floridi 2023). Artificial intelligence 
also brings industrial change in the direction of content consumers, as 
it enables producers of media content to use more personalized offers 
(without language constraints).

  (3) The third major direction of changes can be predicted at the 
level of media content production. After all, artificial intelligence 
applications can help in many aspects of journalistic work. They can be 
used for trend monitoring, forecasting, news gathering, and data 
verification. Here we can mention applications such as Pinpoint AI, 
Tabula AI or Open Refine. The most striking and well-known applications 
for ordinary users are related to the creation of content. This includes 
translation, description (audio-text), and text/image generation. 
Narrativa AI, Radar AI, Amazon Polly, Trint, Chat GPT, DALL-E and Sora 
can be mentioned here. Journalistic work can also be assisted by 
artificial intelligence during editing, whether it is content 
summarisation, extracting or even rewriting. Such are the Agolo AI or 
ETX studio applications. Archive AI helps in archiving, Membrace AI and 
Toloka AI in moderation, while Crux AI helps in optimizing sharing and 
recommendation (Pavlik 2023, Dodds et al 2023, Moran, R.E., & Shaikh 
2022, Bastian et al, 2021, Túñez-López et al 2021).

(4) Finally, the changes related to artificial intelligence are also 
appearing at the level of journalists and media workers. Their attitudes 
regarding artificial intelligence are changing, based on the research so 
far, they see it more as a tool that helps develop creativity and 
increases efficiency. And only a small half of journalists think that 
their work could be completely replaced by artificial intelligence. The 
ethical aspects of use appear particularly strongly in relation to the 
application of artificial intelligence in the journalistic profession, 
this is the question that, based on the research so far, concerns the 
representatives of the profession the most. How will AI be authentic, 
how can it be accounted for and verified? How can transparency be 
ensured, and who bears what responsibility during its application? 
(Walters 2022, Sun et al 2022, Hanitzsch. 2017 Hanusch 2017, Tandoc et 
al 2013)

The sharing of experiences and good practices related to the use of 
GenAI questions of credibility and responsibility, ethical 
considerations[1]and the issue of development and further training play 
a significant role in journalistic professional considerations (Deuze, & 
Beckett 2022, Leiser 2022)

The special issue wants to present the ways and consequences of using 
artificial intelligence not only in the field of journalism, but also in 
other communication professions. Focusing on the field of Public 
Relations: how AI can be used there in crisis communication, reputation 
management, press analysis, predictive analytics or social media 
management (Swiatek, L., & Galloway 2022).

Suggested topics for the special issue:

  Presentation of empirical research and case studies on the use of AI 
(gen AI) in media content production, journalistic and editorial work

Presentation of empirical research and case studies on the application 
of artificial intelligence and gen AI in public relations agencies.

Comprehensive analyzesof content generation in relation to communication 
professions.

Emergence of new business models related to Artificial Intelligence 
applications

Ethical questions regarding the use of artificial intelligence in 
journalism.

Ethical questions regarding the use of artificial intelligence in Public 
Relations.

New journalistic role perceptions and attitudes regarding artificial 
intelligence

New role perceptions and attitudes regarding artificial intelligence in 
PR professions.

Analytical presentation of educational programs for the use of 
artificial intelligence in the field of journalism.

Analytical presentation of educational programs for the use of 
artificial intelligence in the field of PR professions.


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