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Can Generative AI Replace Human Communication Professionals? A qualitative study comparing social media content generated by Artificial Intelligence and humans

Fredriksson, Deline LU and Eriksson, Matilda LU (2023) SKDK11 20231
Department of Strategic Communication
Abstract
Generative AI is a novel phenomenon, now within the hands of the public. The utilisation of AI has already started replacing human employees in many industries and previous research shows that generative AI have great abilities in creative and communicative contexts. The purpose of this study was to unveil how generative AI may compete with brands' traditional methods of social media content creation, investigating whether generative AI has the potential to replace the work of human communication professionals in regard to creating content on social media. This qualitative study employed a coding frame derived from social media theory to conduct a comprehensive content analysis of human-generated content and AI-generated content. Two types... (More)
Generative AI is a novel phenomenon, now within the hands of the public. The utilisation of AI has already started replacing human employees in many industries and previous research shows that generative AI have great abilities in creative and communicative contexts. The purpose of this study was to unveil how generative AI may compete with brands' traditional methods of social media content creation, investigating whether generative AI has the potential to replace the work of human communication professionals in regard to creating content on social media. This qualitative study employed a coding frame derived from social media theory to conduct a comprehensive content analysis of human-generated content and AI-generated content. Two types of AI-generated content were sampled, one of which leveraged prompt engineering techniques and theories concerning effective brand communication on social media platforms. The human-generated content was sampled from already existing content on social media from three different brands. All posts were analysed, to seek patterns, contributing to insights in answering three research questions all of which contributed to an in-depth exploration of the phenomenon. The findings of the study indicated that although generative AI can be used to improve efficiency, it can not replace human communication professionals in creating content for social media due to three critical aspects; AI’s inability to tag accounts in captions, lacking quality in generated images & Societal unacceptance of AI-generated content. (Less)
Abstract (Swedish)
Generativ AI är ett nytt fenomen som nu finns i allmänhetens händer. Användningen av AI har redan börjat ersätta mänskliga anställda i många branscher och tidigare forskning visar att generativ AI har stora förmågor i kreativa och kommunikativa sammanhang. Syftet med denna studie var att avslöja hur generativ AI kan konkurrera med varumärkens traditionella metoder för att skapa innehåll på sociala medier och undersöka om generativ AI har potential att ersätta det arbete som utförs av mänskliga kommunikatörer när det gäller att skapa innehåll på sociala medier. Denna kvalitativa studie använde en kodningsram som bygger på sociala medie-teori för att genomföra en omfattande innehållsanalys av mänskligt genererat innehåll och AI-genererat... (More)
Generativ AI är ett nytt fenomen som nu finns i allmänhetens händer. Användningen av AI har redan börjat ersätta mänskliga anställda i många branscher och tidigare forskning visar att generativ AI har stora förmågor i kreativa och kommunikativa sammanhang. Syftet med denna studie var att avslöja hur generativ AI kan konkurrera med varumärkens traditionella metoder för att skapa innehåll på sociala medier och undersöka om generativ AI har potential att ersätta det arbete som utförs av mänskliga kommunikatörer när det gäller att skapa innehåll på sociala medier. Denna kvalitativa studie använde en kodningsram som bygger på sociala medie-teori för att genomföra en omfattande innehållsanalys av mänskligt genererat innehåll och AI-genererat innehåll. Två typer av AI-genererat innehåll samlades in, varav en tillämpade prompt engineering-tekniker och teorier om effektiv varumärkeskommunikation på sociala medieplattformar. Det mänskligt genererade innehållet samlades in från redan befintligt innehåll på sociala medier från tre olika varumärken. Alla inlägg analyserades för att hitta mönster, vilket bidrog till att besvara tre forskningsfrågor som alla bidrog till en djupgående undersökning av fenomenet. Resultaten av studien visade att även om generativ AI kan användas för att förbättra effektiviteten, kan den inte ersätta mänskliga kommunikatörer när de skapar innehåll för sociala medier på grund av tre kritiska aspekter: AI:s oförmåga att tagga konton, bristande kvalitet i genererade bilder och samhällets oacceptans av AI-genererat innehåll. (Less)
Popular Abstract
Generative AI is a novel phenomenon, now within the hands of the public. The utilisation of AI has already started replacing human employees in many industries and previous research shows that generative AI have great abilities in creative and communicative contexts. The purpose of this study was to unveil how generative AI may compete with brands' traditional methods of social media content creation, investigating whether generative AI has the potential to replace the work of human communication professionals in regard to creating content on social media. This qualitative study employed a coding frame derived from social media theory to conduct a comprehensive content analysis of human-generated content and AI-generated content. Two types... (More)
Generative AI is a novel phenomenon, now within the hands of the public. The utilisation of AI has already started replacing human employees in many industries and previous research shows that generative AI have great abilities in creative and communicative contexts. The purpose of this study was to unveil how generative AI may compete with brands' traditional methods of social media content creation, investigating whether generative AI has the potential to replace the work of human communication professionals in regard to creating content on social media. This qualitative study employed a coding frame derived from social media theory to conduct a comprehensive content analysis of human-generated content and AI-generated content. Two types of AI-generated content were sampled, one of which leveraged prompt engineering techniques and theories concerning effective brand communication on social media platforms. The human-generated content was sampled from already existing content on social media from three different brands. All posts were analysed, to seek patterns, contributing to insights in answering three research questions all of which contributed to an in-depth exploration of the phenomenon. The findings of the study indicated that although generative AI can be used to improve efficiency, it can not replace human communication professionals in creating content for social media due to three critical aspects; AI’s inability to tag accounts in captions, lacking quality in generated images & Societal unacceptance of AI-generated content. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Fredriksson, Deline LU and Eriksson, Matilda LU
supervisor
organization
course
SKDK11 20231
year
type
M2 - Bachelor Degree
subject
keywords
Generative AI, AI visualisation tools, Artificial Intelligence, ChatGPT, DALL·E, Social Media, Content Creation, Digital Marketing, AI-generated content
language
English
id
9118367
date added to LUP
2023-06-08 11:59:16
date last changed
2023-06-08 11:59:16
@misc{9118367,
  abstract     = {{Generative AI is a novel phenomenon, now within the hands of the public. The utilisation of AI has already started replacing human employees in many industries and previous research shows that generative AI have great abilities in creative and communicative contexts. The purpose of this study was to unveil how generative AI may compete with brands' traditional methods of social media content creation, investigating whether generative AI has the potential to replace the work of human communication professionals in regard to creating content on social media. This qualitative study employed a coding frame derived from social media theory to conduct a comprehensive content analysis of human-generated content and AI-generated content. Two types of AI-generated content were sampled, one of which leveraged prompt engineering techniques and theories concerning effective brand communication on social media platforms. The human-generated content was sampled from already existing content on social media from three different brands. All posts were analysed, to seek patterns, contributing to insights in answering three research questions all of which contributed to an in-depth exploration of the phenomenon. The findings of the study indicated that although generative AI can be used to improve efficiency, it can not replace human communication professionals in creating content for social media due to three critical aspects; AI’s inability to tag accounts in captions, lacking quality in generated images & Societal unacceptance of AI-generated content.}},
  author       = {{Fredriksson, Deline and Eriksson, Matilda}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Can Generative AI Replace Human Communication Professionals? A qualitative study comparing social media content generated by Artificial Intelligence and humans}},
  year         = {{2023}},
}