Bots as a news service and its emotional connectivity with the audience. The case of Politibot

• Main Authors: Hada M. Sánchez Gonzales, María Sánchez González
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidad CEU San Pablo 2017-11-01
• Series: Doxa Comunicación
• Subjects: Robot journalism; innovation; audiences; social networks; mobile devices; artificial intelligence.
• Online Access: http://dspace.ceu.es/bitstream/10637/8765/2/Bots_as_HadaSanchez_MariaSanchez_Doxa_2017.pdf
• ISSN: 1696-019X; 2386-3978

It is evident that users are permanently and ubiquitously connected to the network through their mobile devices. As a consequence, they can access to an extraordinary quantity of information. Journalism has tools that, by using artificial intelligence and instant messaging systems, send filtered and personalized information to users. These systems are the so called chat bots or conversational applications. While the big media companies are developing their own applications via Messenger or Telegram, there also exist other companies that provide this type of services. That is the case of Politibot, a service that was launched during the June 2016 election campaign in Spain and which had gained 8,400 subscribers a month later. This paper analyzes this case in order to determine the way audiences perceive and consider bots news. To do so, we apply, among other techniques, observation of Politibots publications via Telegram, survey of users and analysis of social media feedback. We aim to answer questions such as how users differentiate and value bots news, how conversation in these platforms is produced, and how to collect more reliable data from them. Results show that information quality (73.1% of answers) and the emotional connection they establish with the tool (26, 8%) are the main potential of these formulas, which are becoming in an opportunity for journalism.