Abstract
How do elite US news outlets frame AI within accounts of hype, disappointment and tempered expectation? This study finds that rather than fueling hype, coverage tends to adopt a cautious tone – emphasizing everyday uses and current impacts over speculative futures. A content analysis of three high-profile US dailies shows more positive tones when only developers or vendors discuss their own AI tools. The findings underscore journalists’ important role in contextualizing and balancing biased narratives and will be a valuable contribution for academics, journalists and policymakers seeking to understand hype, disappointment and expectation dynamics in technology discourse and their broader social implications.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Global Media and Communication |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 2026 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© The Author(s) 2026. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
Keywords
- artificial intelligence
- disappointment
- framing
- hype
- news media
- sociology of expectations