The effects of cultural dimensions on algorithmic news: How do cultural value orientations affect how people perceive algorithms?

How do cultural values influence/are influenced by algorithms? A comparative study was conducted between the United States (US) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to investigate how users in the different cultures perceive the features of chatbot-driven news and how they view ethical issues concerning chatbot journalism. Different models of chatbot news perception reveal that the acceptance of chatbots involves a cultural dimension as the algorithms reflect the values and interests of their constituencies. How users perceive chatbot news and how they consume and interact with the chatbots depend on the cultural and social contexts in which the interaction is taking place. Our results suggest the algorithms reflect cultural values and algorithms are implicitly situated in social contexts, mediated by cultural artifacts and activities. The results resonate with ongoing debates on whether and how algorithms reinforce cultural and social values implying the co-evolving nature of algorithms and humans.