Artificial intelligence is reshaping the media landscape, but what place should it have in journalism education? A new study by Maarit Jaakkola and Jenny Wiik provides the first comprehensive overview of how Nordic journalism educators are approaching the matter, and how prepared they feel to teach AI.
Jaakkola’s & Wiik’s article, ”No-panic Pragmatism: Nordic Journalism Educators’ Preparedness to Teach Artificial Intelligence (AI) in 2024”, published in Journalistica, draws on a survey of 118 educators across Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.
The results indicate that in 2024, over half of the respondents had already incorporated AI into their teaching, either by using tools such as ChatGPT or by addressing issues like plagiarism and ethics.
AI was most often linked to journalism ethics, fact-checking, and information validation. Practical applications, including subtitling and data visualisation, were also noted.
Educators voiced both concern and optimism about artificial intelligence, with feelings of being ”troubled” and ”inspired” receiving the highest ratings. While many saw AI as inevitable, they emphasised that “the journalistic core values and understandings of the world need to remain the same”.
A respondent captured the prevailing “no-panic” attitude, noting: “Just as social media became an integral part of journalism, AI will similarly be integrated in the coming years. So, there’s no need to panic – we just need to incorporate AI into the workflow”.
Institutional support was uneven. Most Nordic universities had guidelines for academic use of AI, but fewer addressed its role in practical journalism courses. Many educators reported relying on self-study and peer networks to stay up to date, sometimes with frustration: “It feels like we, as teachers, now have to re-skill ourselves in our free time just to keep up with the basics. It seems that our institutions are not prepared for this revolution”.
You can read the full article here.