Bringing Ethics to the Table: Presenting a Deliberation Tool for Data and AI in Media Organizations

With AI reshaping the production, distribution, and consumption of media content, media organizations are seeking theoretically grounded, practical guidance for using AI responsibly. This article presents an AI ethics instrument tailored to the media sector, co-created in collaboration with a large media conglomerate, that offers practical support for value elicitation, structured deliberative dialogue, and critical reflection in early phases of data and AI projects. Building on earlier digital ethics work in the public sector, “Data Ethics Decision Aid for Media” (D4M) helps media organizations build relevant documentation and foster critical AI literacy. D4M adopts a socio-technical perspective on AI, prompting reflection beyond technical performance and foregrounding social and organizational aspects of AI. The article details its triangulated design and development approach and traces successive prototypes of the instrument and the iterative processes with evaluative focus groups through which content and design were refined. It also explores efforts to ‘land and expand’ the tool within the organization: being in the room, winning over crowds and brokers. It concludes with reflections on the collaborative action research trajectory as a whole and considers the future of the instrument.