Artificial Intelligence and the teaching of Journalism

the case of the State University of Piauí

Abstract

The results of the case study and experiments in the Bachelor's degree in Journalism at UESPI – Universidade Estadual do Piauí (a public higher education institution located in Piauí, Northeast Brazil) stand out, involving the debate and use of Artificial Intelligence to train professionals in the field of information mediation. The objective is to reflect, demonstrate, understand, and highlight these processes, adopting a timeframe of a year and a half of activities (between the two academic semesters of 2024 and the first academic semester of 2025), primarily involving students who entered university during the COVID-19 pandemic. The challenges of the paradox of having increasingly more means and possibilities for training and information, yet feeling increasingly less informed and prepared, given the sheer volume of surrounding content, increasingly fueled by perspectives of artificial intelligence or by information and technological systems that permeate this field, are addressed. It is emphasized that moderation between the understanding of these systems, mainly to understand them as tools of mediation and not of finalization of processes, can be one of the paths to higher education in the Bachelor's Degree in Journalism (not only at the institution studied, but also at others in Brazil) providing clues for the application of Artificial Intelligence content to areas that are not purely technological, but that, due to the theme being internalized in contemporary generations, attending Higher Education institutions, it should not be discarded or excluded from debates and experiments.