THE UTILISATION OF THE TECHNICAL CAPABILITIES OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TOOLS IN WRING MEDIA RESEARCH: A FIELD STUDY ON ADVANTAGES, USES, CHALLENGES AND THE ETHICAL STANDARDS

Abstract

This study aims to identify the benefit from using of artificial intelligence tools and applications in writing media research from the perspective of media students as a selected sample for the study, as well as to explore the advantages and challenges associated with this use, particularly in terms of adherence to academic and ethical standards. The study is based on the technological determinism theory to understand the impact of artificial intelligence tools on the performance of students. An electronic survey questionnaire was used by the researcher to collect data from a purposive sample of 150 media students from various academic disciplines in five Arab universities. The results have revealed that 69.3% of the sample regularly use artificial intelligence tools in their research and tools such as ChatGPT and Gemini being the most commonly used. The findings also have indicated that 77.3% of participants believe that artificial intelligence has a positive impact on the quality of media research. However, the majority of participants face challenges regarding adherence to academic and ethical standards, with 63.3% citing these challenges. Based on these results, the study recommends providing training programs for media students, organizing workshops on the ethical standards and academic regulations for employing artificial intelligence in writing research and encouraging students to think critically, analyse and innovate independently.