The Image of Artificial Intelligence in Dutch Newspapers

Artificial intelligence is the academic discipline concerning itself with the automation of tasks that require intelligence, often by building computer programs. Since artificial intelligence is a complex, broad, and abstract field, it is hard to give a precise description. At the moment, artificial intelligence is already applied in many common devices and computer programs, such as traffic lights, medical equipment, video games, and Internet search engines, but the application goes largely unnoticed. However, the impact of artificial intelligence on society will most likely increase in the future. This study explores the way newspapers write about artificial intelligence by making a content analysis of newspaper reports. Reports are selected from Dutch national newspapers between 2005 and 2007. 52 reports contain substantive information on artificial intelligence, and are analyzed, based on a framework that was constructed from several issues concerning artificial intelligence and newspaper reports about science in general. The small number of reports discovered, confirm that the subject is unknown and difficult. Also, the reports contain little explanation about artificial intelligence. Explanations found are general, and restricted to specific applications and disciplines.