Finding the Data Unicorn

Abstract

Understanding how data and computational journalism are affecting news norms, practices and organizations is essential for journalists and researchers. We explore the development of data journalism in Canada through interviews with 17 data journalists and freelancers at six of the country’s largest legacy news organizations. Our central question is how these journalistic identities are both shaping intra- and inter-organizational and professional boundaries and being shaped by them. We draw from systems thinking approach to understanding media hybridity across time and place as well as the traditional sociology of news to assess technological adaptation and agency in this emerging domain. Findings suggest that encounters between emergent and legacy logics have created a hierarchy of hybrid cultures. Two organizations—the public broadcaster and a legacy print organization—showed early stage evidence of blended techno cultures similar to some in the United States. In others there were tensions with professional labeling, resourcing, protective economic strategies and labor policies, limiting options to mobilize power and experiment with technological adaptation in more generative ways. These shifts were occurring within a context of increased cooperation within, across and beyond traditional organizations, pointing to a new degree of networked collaboration in Canadian journalism.