Ethical Principles for Employing Artificial Intelligence in Media Coverage of the 2023–2024 Al-Aqsa Flood Operation

This study aims to investigate the ethical principles governing the use of artificial intelligence in media coverage, using the 2023-2024 Gaza war as a case study to identify these principles. The study drew on Political Marketing Theory and Gatekeeping Theory. Several research tools were employed, including Content analysis of Al Arabiya’s website (alarabiya. net) over a three-month period documentary analysis of four AI guides and a review of the relevant literature, previous research and studies. The study revealed several results, the most important of which is the great convergence between the ethical principles of media coverage--namely responsibility, freedom, independence, credibility and accuracy, impartiality, and respect for the rights of others--and the ethical principles governing artificial intelligence technologies, including integrity and fairness, privacy and security, human-centredness, reliability and credibility, transparency and interpretability, accountability and responsibility. The study also found that Al-Arabiya relied on AI tools in producing content related to its media coverage of the 2023-2024 Al-Aqsa Flood, with AI-generated text accounting for (68.6%), followed by images and texts at (10.0%), and video at (3.3%). The findings also revealed violations of the principles of impartiality and integrity and fairness in 53.3% of the news items included in the study sample. . They also identified violations of the principles of credibility and responsibility in (48.3%) of the sampled news reports.