Uses of generative AI and related information interactions in journalistic story creation process

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47989/ir31263111

Keywords:

generative AI, task-based information interaction, journalists, work tasks

Abstract

Introduction. Generative AI is changing journalists’ information environment, potentially affecting their interactions with information. The aim of this study is to examine the uses of generative AI and related information interactions in journalistic story creation process.

Method. A task-based information interaction evaluation model informed the research design. Research data were collected April to June 2025 using a qualitative reconstruction interview method. Fourteen journalists were interviewed about their journalistic story creation processes, uses of generative AI, and information interactions.

Analysis. The interview data were analysed qualitatively. The uses of generative AI in journalistic story creation process were identified from the interview data and then further examined to identify related information interactions. 

Results. Four categories of uses of generative AI were identified: uses in task planning and reflective assessment (testing-and-learning use, support in story ideation); uses in searching and selecting information (exploratory oriented, topic-oriented, document content-oriented use); uses in working with information (preparing for and transcribing interviews, support in analysing data); and uses in synthesising and reporting (support in drafting and editing).

Conclusion. This study increases understanding of journalists’ generative AI use and information interactions, which is key to designing generative AI tools that support real-life story creation processes.

References

Ai, Q., Zhan, J., & Liu, Y. (2025). Foundations of generative information retrieval. In R. W. White & C. Shah (Eds.), Information access in the era of generative AI (The Information Retrieval Series, 51; pp. 15-45). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-73147-1

Attfield, S., & Dowell, J. (2003). Information seeking and use by newspaper journalists. Journal of Documentation, 59(2), 187-204. https://doi.org/10.1108/00220410310463860

Bird-Meyer, M., Erdelez, S. & Bossaller, J. (2019). The role of serendipity in the story ideation process of print media journalists. Journal of Documentation, 75(5), 995-1012. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-11-2018-0186

Brüggemann, M. (2013). Transnational trigger constellations: Reconstructing the story behind the story. Journalism, 14(3), 401-418. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884912453284

Byström, K. & Hansen, P. (2005). Conceptual framework for tasks in information studies. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 56(10), 1050-1061. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.20197

Cools, H., & Diakopoulos, N. (2026). Uses of generative AI in the newsroom: mapping journalists’ perceptions of perils and possibilities. Journalism Practice, 20(3), 878–896. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2024.2394558

De Cooker, J., Arets, D., Brugman, M., Wernaart, B., Van Vliet, M., & Van Leeuwerden, T. (2026). Lost in translation? How structural, individual, and professional factors hinder AI adoption in investigative journalism. Journalism Studies, 27(4), 503–519. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2025.2595290

de Haan, Y., van den Berg, E., Goutier, N., Kruikemeier, S., & Lecheler, S. (2022). Invisible friend or foe? How journalists use and perceive algorithmic-driven tools in their research process. Digital Journalism, 10(10), 1775-1793. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2022.2027798

D’haeseleer, S., Van Damme, K., Cools, H., Van Leuven, S., & Evens, T. (2025). AI divides in newsrooms? How journalists in the low countries use and perceive generative AI. Journalism Practice, 1-28. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2025.2538120

Fidel, R. (2012). Human information interaction: an ecological approach to information behavior. MIT Press.

Finnish National Board on Research Integrity. (2019). The ethical principles of research with human participants and ethical review in the human sciences in Finland. https://tenk.fi/sites/default/files/2021-01/Ethical_review_in_human_sciences_2020.pdf (Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20260302143255/https:/tenk.fi/sites/default/files/2021-01/Ethical_review_in_human_sciences_2020.pdf)

Firdaus, A., Aksar, I. A., Gong, J., Zaiamri Zainal Abidin, M., ur Rasheed Baloch, H., & Gomez, E. (2025). Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) for journalism studies: Making sense of journalists’ sense-making of digital disruptions. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 24, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069241309274

Flanagan, J. C. (1954). The critical incident technique. Psychological Bulletin, 51(4), 327–358.

Flavell, J. H. (1979). Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: a new area of cognitive-developmental inquiry. American Psychologist, 34(10), 906–911. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0003-066X.34.10.906

Gilbert, S., White, P. B. & Tallman, K. (2022). Information seeking behaviors of environmental journalists. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 54(3), 427-440. https://doi.org/10.1177/09610006211020081

Guenther, L., Kunert, J., & Goodwin, B. (2025). My new colleague, ChatGPT? How German science journalists perceive and use (generative) artificial intelligence. Journalism Practice, 19(10), 2285-2302. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2025.2502794

Gutierrez Lopez, M., Makri, S., MacFarlane, A., Porlezza, C., Cooper, G., & Missaoui, S. (2022). Making newsworthy news: the integral role of creativity and verification in the human information behavior that drives news story creation. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 73(10), 1445–1460. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24647

Hertzum, M. (2022). How do journalists seek information from sources? A systematic review. Information Processing & Management, 59(6), Article 103087. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ipm.2022.103087

Jaakkola, M. (2018). Journalistic writing and style. In Oxford research encyclopedia of communication. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.884

Järvelin, K., Vakkari, P., Arvola, P., Baskaya, F., Järvelin, A., Kekäläinen, J., Keskustalo, H., Kumpulainen, S., Saastamoinen, M., Savolainen, R., & Sormunen, E. (2015). Task-based information interaction evaluation: The viewpoint of program theory. ACM Transactions on Information Systems (TOIS), 33(1), Article 3. https://doi.org/10.1145/2699660

Keane, E. (2022). Critical analytic memoing. In C. Vanover, P. Mihas, & J. Saldaña (Eds.), Analyzing and interpreting qualitative research: After the interview. Sage.

King, N., Horrocks, C., & Brooks, J. (2019). Interviews in qualitative research (2nd ed.). Sage Publications Ltd.

Korkeamäki, L., & Kumpulainen, S. (2019). Interacting with digital documents: a real life study of historians' task processes, actions and goals. In Proceedings of the 2019 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval (CHIIR '19) (pp. 35–43). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3295750.3298931

Krakowska, M., & Zych, M. (2025). (Un)conventional ways of dialogic information retrieval using prompt engineering and the role of AI literacy. Information Research an International Electronic Journal, 30(CoLIS), 121-140. https://doi.org/10.47989/ir30CoLIS52243

Kuhlthau, C. C. (2004). Seeking meaning: a process approach to library and information services (2nd ed.). Libraries Unlimited.

Kumpulainen, S., & Late, E. (2022). Struggling with digitized historical newspapers: Contextual barriers to information interaction in history research activities. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 73(7), 1012-1024. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24608

Late, E., & Kumpulainen, S. (2022). Interacting with digitised historical newspapers: Understanding the use of digital surrogates as primary sources. Journal of Documentation, 78(7), 106-124. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-04-2021-0078

Lee, H., Sarkar, A., Tankelevitch, L., Drosos, I., Rintel, S., Banks, R., & Wilson, N. (2025). The impact of generative AI on critical thinking: self-reported reductions in cognitive effort and confidence effects from a survey of knowledge workers. In Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '25) (Article 1121, 1–22). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3706598.3713778

Liu, Y. (2025). Culture or Industry: Chinese and American young journalists’ usage and perception of AI and Gen-AI. Journalism Practice, 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2025.2572965

Marchionini, G. (2006). Exploratory search: From finding to understanding. Communications of the ACM, 49(4), 41–46. https://doi.org/10.1145/1121949.1121979

Mast, J. (2020). News as genre. In Oxford research encyclopedia of communication. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.844

Mayerhofer, K., Capra, R., & Elsweiler, D. (2025). Blending queries and conversations: understanding trust, verification, and system choice in search and chat interactions. In Proceedings of the 2025 ACM SIGIR Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval (CHIIR '25) (pp. 168–178). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3698204.3716454

Miles, M. B., Huberman, A. M., & Saldaña, J. (2020). Qualitative data analysis: A methods sourcebook (4th ed.). Sage.

Minotakis, A. (2025). Concerned, unprepared and burdened by the past: Generative AI in Greek newsrooms. Journalism Practice, 1-25. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2025.2553188

Møller, L. A., van Dalen, A., & Skovsgaard, M. (2025). A little of that human touch: How regular journalists redefine their expertise in the face of artificial intelligence. Journalism Studies, 26(1), 84–100. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2024.2412212

Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research & evaluation methods (3rd ed.). Sage Publications.

Pintrich, P. R. (2002). The role of metacognitive knowledge in learning, teaching, and assessing. Theory Into Practice, 41(4), 219-225. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15430421tip4104_3

Reich, Z., & Barnoy, A. (2020). How news become “news” in increasingly complex ecosystems: summarizing almost two decades of newsmaking reconstructions. Journalism Studies, 21(7), 966-983. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2020.1716830

Rose, D. E., & Levinson, D. (2004). Understanding user goals in Web search. In Proceedings of the 13th international conference on World Wide Web (WWW '04) (pp. 13–19). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/988672.988675

Sarısakaloğlu, A. (2025). Artificial intelligence as a game-changer or passing tech fad in journalism? A qualitative study on journalists’ perceptions and technology adoption in a Global South country. Journalism. https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849251390943

Schwinges, A. (2024). Navigating ideals and realities: on using reconstruction interviews to study journalistic roles. Journalism Practice, 18(9), 2224-2239. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2024.2305165

Sundin, O. (2025). Theorising notions of searching, (re)sources and evaluation in the light of generative AI. Information Research an International Electronic Journal, 30(CoLIS), 291–302. https://doi.org/10.47989/ir30CoLIS52258

Thurman, N., Thäsler-Kordonouri, S., & Fletcher, R. (2025). AI adoption by UK journalists and their newsrooms: surveying applications, approaches, and attitudes. The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. https://doi.org/10.60625/risj-ea11-q402

Tuazon, J. P. L., Arcalas, J. E. Y., Soliman, J. M. D., & Opiniano, J. M. (2020). Journalists’ creative process in newswork: A grounded theory study from the Philippines. Journalism. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884920947909

Vainikka, E., Soronen, A., & Kallio, S.-M. (2025). Is prompt engineering the future of screenwriting? Views of professional screenwriters and commissioners about the impact of AI technologies on their profession. Critical Studies in Television: The International Journal of Television Studies, 20(1), 54-72. https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020241269277

Wu, S. (2026). Journalists as individual users of artificial intelligence: examining journalists’ “value-motivated use” of ChatGPT and other AI tools within and without the newsroom. Journalism, 27(2), 388-406. https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849241303047

Zhao, H., Han., Z, Yang., N., & Zhen, Z. (2025). From limitation to possibility: Affordances and tactical evolution in user–GenAI interaction. Journal of Documentation, 81(5-6), 1586-1607. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-07-2025-0183

Published

2026-05-15

How to Cite

Korkeamäki, L. (2026). Uses of generative AI and related information interactions in journalistic story creation process. Information Research an International Electronic Journal, 31(2), 26–46. https://doi.org/10.47989/ir31263111