Dr. WANG Dan, AngelaAngelaDr. WANG DanGuo, Steve ZhongshiSteve ZhongshiGuoXiong, ZhiqiangZhiqiangXiong2026-09-112026-09-112026Wang, D., Guo, Z. S., & Xiong, Z. (2026 Jun 29). Identity destruction and reconstruction of news practitioners in the age of generative AI: The case of China. 2026 Annual International Association of Communication and Media Research (IAMCR), University of Galway, Ireland.http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11861/29454This ongoing project examines how generative artificial intelligence (AIGC) reshapes professional role conception, occupational values, and identity formation among media practitioners in China. Although a growing body of research has documented how artificial intelligence automates news production, optimizes workflows, and enhances efficiency, far less attention has been paid to how these technological transformations affect journalists’ subjective understandings of their professional worth and social role. Journalism is not only a set of technical tasks but also a normative profession grounded in shared values, expertise claims, and moral commitments. When AI systems begin to perform activities traditionally associated with journalistic labor—such as writing, editing, presenting, and distributing news—the boundaries of the profession itself become unsettled. This issue is especially significant in China, where digital transformation unfolds alongside strong state guidance and institutional restructuring. By investigating how journalists interpret and negotiate the rapid implementation of AIGC in their daily work, this study seeks to understand how professional identities are reconstructed, stratified, or eroded during continuous technological change. <br> Since Xi Jinping assumed leadership, China’s traditional media sector has undergone successive waves of digitally driven reform. These reforms include media convergence (rongmei ti), county-level media integration initiatives, the adoption of “internet thinking,” and, most recently, the nationwide promotion of AIGC. Each stage has generated profound consequences at both organizational and individual levels. Newsrooms have been consolidated, workflows increasingly platformized, and performance metrics oriented toward speed, datafication, and cross-platform dissemination. Journalists have been required to acquire new technical skills and adapt to constantly shifting expectations regarding productivity and political responsibility. For many practitioners, these transitions have been destabilizing: experienced reporters have left the profession because they could not reconcile their training and values with the demands of digital production. Consequently, the transformation of journalistic identity has become an urgent yet underexplored issue. Against the backdrop of the industry-wide rollout of AIGC beginning in 2025, this study asks how Chinese journalists make sense of generative AI and how its adoption reshapes their perceptions of expertise, autonomy, and professional value.<br> The expansion of artificial intelligence presents a fundamental tension with journalism. AI systems are typically designed to automate decision-making, standardize outputs, and maximize efficiency, whereas journalism historically emphasizes interpretation, creativity, and ethical judgment. Nevertheless, AI integration into newsrooms has become increasingly normalized. Research in Western contexts demonstrates that since the 2010s AI has moved beyond assistive functions to perform core journalistic tasks. Automated systems now generate routine reports, algorithms personalize content distribution, and machine learning tools analyze large datasets to identify trending topics. These developments indicate that AI is not merely supporting journalists but increasingly restructuring or substituting their labor, thereby redefining what counts as professional expertise.<br> In China, however, the trajectory of generative AI is shaped by a distinctive political and regulatory environment. At the national level, policy frameworks encourage innovation while imposing requirements related to cybersecurity, algorithmic governance, and ideological alignment. Within the news sector, adoption accelerated in 2025 when central-level broadcasters and Party-affiliated outlets began systematically promoting AIGC tools for writing, editing, and digital avatar production, prompting local organizations to follow. Importantly, AI implementation has been framed not simply as technological modernization but as a political task guided by the principle of “using mainstream values to steer artificial intelligence.” This framing embeds generative AI within broader agendas of state communication and governance, distinguishing China’s AI–journalism relationship from market-driven models of automation elsewhere. The Chinese case therefore provides a critical site for examining how technological rationalization intersects with political authority to shape professional identity.<br> To theorize these dynamics, this study integrates social identity theory with concepts of journalistic professionalism. Social identity theory suggests that individuals construct their self-conception through group membership and develop emotional and evaluative attachments to professional communities. Journalism, as a profession, offers normative standards that legitimize practitioners’ social role. Yet Chinese journalistic professionalism is neither singular nor stable. Prior scholarship describes it as characterized by “multiplicity,” where political loyalty, market logic, technical competence, and public service coexist and sometimes conflict. This plural structure makes professional identity especially susceptible to disruption when new technologies redefine competence and authority. Building on this framework, the study examines how generative AI interacts with these multiple professional logics and how journalists reposition themselves within changing status hierarchies.<br> Empirically, the project employs qualitative, semi-structured interviews with thirty digital media practitioners across China, including reporters, editors, anchors, producers, and technical staff from both central and local organizations. Interviews focus on everyday workflows, perceptions of AI tools, skill acquisition, and reflections on professional meaning. Five interviews have been completed to date, offering preliminary insights into emerging patterns of identity transformation.<br> Early findings reveal uneven and role-specific consequences. For content-producing reporters, generative AI tends to produce what we term identity reconstruction. Many integrate AI into brainstorming, drafting, headline writing, and data analysis. Although they rarely acknowledge AI’s hidden labor, they increasingly view these tools as collaborative partners rather than simple assistants. At the same time, AI proficiency has become a new marker of professional competence, creating internal hierarchies. Journalists skilled in automation and prompt engineering often regard themselves as more adaptable, while less proficient colleagues are stigmatized as outdated. AI thus reshapes newsroom status distinctions and redefines what counts as expertise.<br> By contrast, for anchors and on-screen presenters, AI produces what we describe as identity destruction. Many organizations have introduced AI-generated digital avatars capable of replicatinganchors’ voices and appearances. These avatars can deliver scripted content continuously and at lower cost, leading to the reduction or replacement of human presenters. More importantly, anchors often lack control over how their digital likeness is used, undermining their sense of agency and ownership. Participants describe feelings of marginalization and replaceability, suggesting that AI threatens not only their employment but also the symbolic foundation of their professional identity. <br> Taken together, these findings demonstrate that AI adoption does not have uniform effects but instead generates differentiated processes of reconstruction, stratification, and displacement across the journalistic labor chain. Professional identity becomes a key site where technological, organizational, and political forces converge.<br> This study makes three contributions. First, it provides timely empirical evidence of how AIGC adoption is redefining professional cognition and journalistic professionalism in China. Second, it advances scholarship on journalistic role conception by theorizing AI’s impact through the dual processes of identity reconstruction and identity destruction. Third, by situating these changes within China’s distinctive institutional and political context, it offers a non-Western perspective that enriches global debates on automation, media labor, and the future of journalism. More broadly, the project underscores that the transformation of journalism is not only about what technologies can do, but also about how practitioners understand who they are becoming.enSocial IdentityAIGCProfessionalismNews ProfessionsChinaConference Paper