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The aim of this study has been to investigate how ChatGPT is portrayed in the Swedish newspapers Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter. Previous research shows that Swedes feel that they have relatively little knowledge of what artificial intelligence is. At the same time, news media are predicting that ChatGPT will have far-reaching consequences across society, and concerns are being raised about how the development could potentially lead to the end of humanity. The mass media's reporting on various issues has an influence on how the public perceives the issue, according to theories about the effects of the media. This may justify investigating how the reporting around ChatGPT takes shape. The method that has been applied is a qualitative thematic content analysis. The application of the method has been done by identifying patterns (themes) in the empirical material, based on the study's questions: (1) Which themes frame the depiction of ChatGPT? (2) What opportunities and risks are raised with the use and development of ChatGPT? (3) What potential differences exist between the newspapers' reporting on the issue? The identified themes have then been interpreted and related to previous research and studies of theoretical frameworks, which includes Agenda Theory, Framing, and Priming. In the empirical material, eight themes, which can be found in both papers, have been identified. Prominent themes linked to the first question are Society-changing, Breakthrough in AI development, Competent and Limited. Based on the second question, the themes Helping the individual, Helping society, Threats to human dominance, and Manipulation and misuse have been identified. Even though the same themes have been identified in both newspapers, there are some differences regarding how they take shape and how prominent they are in each newspaper. Moreover, the result gives an indication that a certain shift in news media's portrayal of opportunities and risks linked to AI has occurred, in the sense that news outlets have become more critical in their coverage of AI. |
