The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Media Convergence and its Societal Impact

Abstract

This dissertation examines the role of artificial intelligence (AI) within the ongoing process of media convergence and assesses its broader societal implications. Media convergence is understood here as a multidimensional process involving the integration of technologies, industries, content formats, and audience behaviours. (Jenkins, 2006) While earlier stages of convergence were driven by digitization and the rise of the internet, the current era is increasingly shaped by generative AI, which can produce written texts, audio, video, and images from simple user prompts. (Feher, 2024; Sichach, 2024) The study addresses several research questions: What risks and opportunities does AI present for new media? How does AI reshape media convergence? What are the societal impacts of fully AI-driven media ecosystems, particularly regarding trust, credibility, democracy, economy, culture, and copyright? Does public trust differ between AI-generated and journalist-led media outlets? The methodology combines a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed academic sources, a review of media industry reports, and qualitative interviews with media professionals. This tripartite approach allows for a more objective assessment by integrating the perspectives of researchers, media organizations, and practitioners. The findings indicate that while AI can significantly improve efficiency in newsrooms through automated transcription, translation, metadata tagging, and content personalization, public trust in AI-generated journalism remains low. Only 12% of respondents across six countries expressed comfort with news produced entirely by AI, compared to 62% who trust human-generated journalism. (Simon et al., 2025) Furthermore, experimental evidence shows that biased AI writing assistants can shift users' attitudes on societal issues without their awareness, raising concerns about manipulation and freedom of thought. (Williams-Ceci et al., 2026) Thus, dissertation compares traditional human-led media with AI-generated media, theoretically examining the emergence of a fully AI-generated television and radio company. The work concludes by proposing a conceptual framework for understanding AI-led media convergence and suggests directions for future research.