Václav Moravec – Communication Today

DIGITAL DILEMMAS: EVALUATING THE ETHICS AND EFFICACY OF PERSONALISED POLITICAL ADVERTISING IN MODERN DEMOCRACIES

Václav Moravec — Sun, 24 Nov 2024 17:07:09 +0000

ABSTRACT:

This study explores the realm of personalised political advertising, examining societal perspectives on clear regulation, enhanced transparency, and empowerment in the digital media sphere. Analysing existing international literature and responses from our own unique survey of 1,213 participants in the Czech Republic, it provides a detailed picture of public perceptions towards the customisation of political messages and control over online content. Findings indicate a significant demand for transparency in the adaptation of political messages, coupled with apprehension towards personalised content, highlighting privacy and manipulation concerns. The research shows divided opinions on the necessity of stringent regulations for targeted political ads, yet there is broad agreement on the importance of disclosing advertising sources and labelling ads clearly to enhance awareness. The study also reveals that most respondents feel they have limited control over the content they encounter online, though a minority report feeling more in control than the content providers. Furthermore, by employing multinomial regression analysis, the paper finds age, gender, and education as key predictors influencing perceptions of potential risks related to personalised political advertising. This investigation sheds light on the complexities of digital personalisation in political communication, offering insights for future policy and regulation.

KEY WORDS:
advertisement regulation, digital media literacy, multinominal regression analysis, personalised political advertising, political transparency in political communication and messaging

03_MORAVEC-et-al._CT-2-2024 Download

DOI: https://doi.org/10.34135/communicationtoday.2024.Vol.15.No.2.3

The Robotic Reporter in The Czech News Agency: Automated Journalism and Augmentation in the Newsroom

Václav Moravec — Sun, 19 Apr 2020 13:24:25 +0000

ABSTRACT:
The use of automated journalism, also known as robotic journalism or artiﬁcial intelligence journalism, became an established practice in English-speaking countries less than ten years ago. Narrative Science and Automated Insights developed creative software that automatically generates reports. Several media outlets, including The Associated Press (AP), have started to publish their reports. Media landscape barriers based on Slavic languages, such as Czech, have caused some delays in the introduction of automated journalism, or artiﬁcial intelligence journalism, in Central and Eastern Europe. This article is a case study of the application of algorithms that transform large data ﬁles into news texts in The Czech News Agency (ČTK). A research team led by Charles University provided algorithms generating reports on trading results on the Prague Stock Exchange without human intervention to The Czech News Agency in 2019. The study deals with the production of algorithms and compares the rate of generation of messages generated by humans against algorithms and examines their quality. In our research we also used observations and questionnaire surveys of selected journalists and editors who work with reports from the Prague Stock Exchange. The article also provides the opinions of journalists of The Czech News Agency on the application of automated journalism and artiﬁcial intelligence journalism in their newsrooms.

KEY WORDS:
algorithmic journalism, automated journalism, big data, Czech News Agency, journalistic ethics, natural language generation, natural language processing, news forms, Prague Stock Exchange, robotic journalism

03. MORAVEC et al. – CT 1-2020 Download

Homogenous, or Heterogenous? A Comparative Analysis of Three Czech Journalists Generations

Václav Moravec — Fri, 06 Nov 2015 10:21:29 +0000

ABSTRACT:
The goal of this article is to explore the degree of homogeneity among three generations of Czech journalists working (or intending to work) in the Czech media. We have defined three generations as follows: pretransitive, transitive and post-transitive. Using a secondary analysis of data from two independent studies, which focused on describing professional attitudes of Czech journalists and journalism students, we are trying to ascertain the existence of the so-called “generational effect”. Quantitative analysis including cluster analysis indicates no major attitudinal differences between all compared generations, in spite of radical socio-political and media system changes after 1989. In general, the comparison of the selected attributes shows striking homogeneity in all three journalistic generations that especially share their professional and political values. The key to a weak differentiation between the generations in question is their distinctive similarity in their acceptance of liberal right-wing ideology and high socio-economic capital, which interconnects all hypothetically constructed professional groups. There are also some partial differences, especially the low level acceptance of the predominance of market logic by the youngest post-transitional generation in the news media.

KEY WORDS:
comparative research, journalistic generations, generation effect, professional role, values

03_Volek_Moravec_Urbaníková_CT-2-2015 Download