Negotiating Technological Change: How Media Unions Navigate Artificial Intelligence in Journalism

Abstract

First paragraph: In summer 2023, Hollywood writers and actors attracted international news coverage during a strike over entertainment media’s use of artificial intelligence (AI). One of the striking unions, the Writers Guild of America (WGA), struck for 148 days to secure a Minimum Basic Agreement that provides worker protections for the use of AI in the film, television, and streaming media industries. Yet, the future of media labor and union collective action over the use of AI extends beyond Hollywood. Between April 2015 and June 2021, more than 7,500 journalism workers unionized in the United States at over 200 internet-only, publishing, and broadcast media companies (see my 2023 article in Media, Culture & Society “Happiness in Newsroom Contracts: Communicative Resistance for Digital Work and Life Satisfaction”).