Gathering evidence of evidence: News aggregation as an epistemological practice

Abstract

News aggregation is often presented in opposition to reporting, though the two practices have much in common as journalistic evidence-gathering techniques largely built around quickly pulling together scraps of information from a variety of other accounts and validating it as knowledge for the public. This study uses participant observation and interviews with aggregators to explore aggregation as an epistemological practice, examining the ways aggregators weigh evidence, evaluate sources, and verify information and particularly examining the points of convergence and distinction between aggregation and reporting. It finds that aggregation is scaffolded on top of reporting’s epistemological principles and methods, but defined and distinguished by its additional distance from the evidence on which it relies.