Perceptions of AI Integration in Iranian State Media: A ‎Sociotechnical Qualitative Case Study of IRIB

This qualitative case study examines how artificial intelligence (AI) is perceived, negotiated, ‎and organizationally integrated in the news production and dissemination practices of the ‎Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) News Agency. While AI journalism research ‎has largely concentrated on Western commercial newsrooms, less is known about public-‎service and state media organizations in non-Western contexts, where technological change is ‎shaped by bureaucratic structures, public mandates, cultural expectations, language limitations, ‎and governance constraints. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with ۶۰ participants, ‎including ۴۰ IRIB journalists, editors, managers, archivists, and technical staff, together with ‎‎۲۰ external media and technology experts, the study applies thematic analysis and archival ‎triangulation to identify the main opportunities and challenges of AI adoption. Findings show ‎that AI can accelerate routine production, support data analysis, improve archive retrieval, and ‎shift journalists toward supervisory and analytical roles. However, adoption is constrained by ‎inadequate infrastructure, fragmented governance, Persian-language limitations, professional ‎resistance, accountability ambiguity, and ethical concerns related to bias, misinformation, and ‎verification. The study contributes a Socio-Institutional AI Integration Framework (SIAIF) ‎and proposes an Asymmetrical Implementation Framework for AI in Public Service Media ‎‎(AIF-PSM), emphasizing localized infrastructure, human oversight, governance, and ‎continuous evaluation‎

کلیدواژه ها:

Artificial Intelligence ، Public Service Media ، News Production ، Human-AI Collaboration ، ‎IRIB