Abstract
Technological hype—such as that surrounding AI at the moment—can seem like just a fad, yet it powerfully organizes attention, resources, and meaning in and around journalism. We argue for taking hype more seriously as an object of inquiry because it represents something more than mere ephemeral excitement or superficial puffery: It offers a lens through which to explore the social, cultural, and institutional dynamics at work during crucial moments of technological change and anxiety. We introduce a two-by-two matrix that explores the nature of hype’s effects (symbolic vs. material) with their site (internal to journalism vs. external to wider publics). This framework yields five functions of technological hype for journalism: attentional (how strategic capital is gained by adopting or resisting hype), orientational (how organizations set priorities and allocate scarce resources), signaling (how news media frame technologies and present themselves as innovative), mobilizing (how hype galvanizes partnerships, policies, and collective action beyond the newsroom), and reflexive (how journalists reconsider roles, values, and identities in relation to hype). Taken together, these functions clarify how hype channels power, legitimizes investments, shapes public narratives, and provokes professional self-reflection amid the present fascination with AI as “the next big thing.”
Rodrigo Zamith
Associate Professor
My research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of journalism and technology, with a focus on understanding the social implications of emerging technologies for how news is produced, distributed, and consumed―as well as the broader consequences of those shifts to public life.