# Employing a Chatbot for News Dissemination during Crisis: Design, Implementation and Evaluation
## 2 Literature Review
### Chatbots in the News Media: Uses and Affordances
This model seeks to produce computer applications that are reliable, safe and trustworthy (the three RST goals). Achieving these goals, especially for complex poorly understood problems, can support, among others, mastery, creativity and responsibility; as [PERSON] (2020) [19] argues, well-designed automation preserves human control where appropriate, thereby increasing performance and enabling creative improvements (p.495). In addition, the design of \"shared-control systems\", where a virtual human model assists the human in a control task--by simultaneously co-controlling, a system could add value for chatbots' users [20]. It is known that if the assisting virtual human model does not accurately characterize human control, this may lead to increased workload for the human operator, instead of improved performance ([PERSON] and [PERSON], 2005). In recent years, chatbots have been connected to \"sensor journalism\", the use of sensors embedded in the real world as a source of data driving the composition and distribution of automated news items. Examples of this \"sensor-journalism\" or \"sensor-telling\" have covered topics such as pollution and animal welfare [17; 21]. Several studies in this area are mainly evidential in (a) exploring whether and why news consumers think automated personalization is a better way to receive news than selection by journalists and editors [17]; (b) questioning received wisdom on the existence of filter bubbles [22]; and (c) even asking whether recommendation engines might promote, rather than limit, diverse news exposure [23]. However, recent developments regarding the use of news chatbots have brought significant implications for individuals, society and communication, resulting in the formation of Human-Machine Communication (HMC) as an area of research [24; 25], as did previous changes in technology that were followed by corresponding shifts in communication research. While the underlying theoretical assumption in the majority of communication research is that it is humans who are communicators and machines that function as mediators, within HMC, this assumption is challenged by asking what happens when a machine steps into this formerly human role. [PERSON] et al. (2019) [26] argue that HMC has to be re-envisaged as a way of approaching the study of technology based on its function as communicator (message source), rather than merely as mediator (message channel). Moreover, the way(s) news chatbots are used can raise issues regarding data ownership and privacy. In their study regarding the news chatbot created by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), [PERSON] and [PERSON] (2019) [11] argue that the way the ABC operated its news chatbot could have consequences for Public Service Media (PSM) accountability principles, since the ABC was dependent on the private infrastructure of Facebook and ChatFuel. They state that such matters will only become more relevant as news is delivered increasingly via smart speakers and controlled by the few global corporations with the expertise, data and resources necessary for leading such developments.