Content over appearance: what drives Indonesian youth's trust in AI news presenters

Abstract

This study examined the Indonesian youth's perceptions of the trustworthiness of artificial intelligence (AI) news presenters. The theoretical framework employed is cognitive psychology and journalistic ethics, and data were obtained via a questionnaire from 120 high school students. Instead of traditional statistical analysis, this study utilized a proposed interpretable machine learning frameworks that benefit from offering more detailed analysis on perception prediction and AI news presenters parameter setting for specific expected performance. The findings demonstrate that Indonesian youth's impression of credibility toward AI news presenters is driven by content credibility rather than the credibility of the medium showcasing the AI news presenter. Content clarity is the most significant factor influencing this perception, while human-like appearance is the least influential factor in Indonesian youth's perceptions of AI news presenters. Also, it details specific contributing factors for certain expected performance, particularly AI news presenters, in the context of the Global South.