Speaker
Description
Aims. This paper aims to examine how narratives about artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and workforce transformation have been constructed, framed, and contested across European specialized press between 2022 and 2025. Specifically, the study seeks to identify the dominant discursive framings of AI-driven change in operations-intensive sectors, to trace their evolution over time, and to map the geographic variation in how different European media and institutional contexts have approached these issues. The broader objective is to contribute to a more grounded understanding of the discursive mechanisms through which technology-related narratives shape managerial decisions, worker expectations, and policy responses.
Methodology. The methodology draws on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), applied to a purposively constructed corpus of over 50 sources. These include institutional reports from Eurofound, the International Labour Organization (ILO), the OECD, and the European Parliament Research Service, as well as major economic and business publications from Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and pan-European outlets. Sources were selected to ensure both thematic relevance to AI and workforce issues in operations management and broad geographic representation. The analytical framework focuses on identifying recurring narrative frames, lexical patterns, and rhetorical strategies used to position AI either as a disruptive threat or as an enabling force for operational efficiency.
Preliminary results. Preliminary results reveal two dominant and competing framings across the corpus: displacement (AI as job eliminator) and augmentation (AI as productivity enhancer and human-work complement). A clear temporal shift is observed: coverage in 2022–2023 was predominantly alarmist, foregrounding fears of technological unemployment and the erosion of human roles. By 2024–2025, augmentation-centred narratives had gained significant traction, reflecting both empirical evidence from early AI deployments and a broader policy turn toward human-centric technology governance. Geographically, Northern European sources emphasize collective bargaining and institutional adaptation, while Southern European outlets focus more on adoption gaps and regulatory uncertainty. These findings have direct implications for operations management practice and align with the emerging frameworks of the EU AI Act and Industry 5.0.
