Data Journalism Practices Research Articles

Exploring the Awareness and Implementation of Data Journalism in Malaysian Online Newsrooms

This article is a study about the importance and significance of data journalism in the digital media. As the era of digital advancement takes over almost all industries, it could be seen that data is proliferating in the ways many jobs work. However, study shows that industries that heavily rely upon data, such as the online newsrooms, pay insufficient attention to data journalism. This research is aimed at studying and evaluating the surfeit awareness and practice of data journalism in online newsrooms in Malaysia. This paper employed convenience sampling, selecting five editors-in-chief from different online newsrooms in Malaysia for in-depth interviews. This method was carefully selected based on the accessibility of these individuals, given their high-ranking positions in their respective news organisations. Data was analysed using thematic analysis, identifying patterns from the interview transcripts to understand how data journalism is understood and implemented. The findings of this this study show that some of these newsrooms see any story involving data as data journalism, while some perceive data journalism as more towards investigative journalism involving overhauling projects. This shows that even though these newsrooms recognize the existence of data journalism, their depth of understanding the principalities of data journalism varies. If anything, this this study would potentially be a practical guide to implement data journalism in the Malaysian online newsrooms.

Data Journalism Practices in Turkey During COVID-19: Methods, Narratives, News Production, and Future Directions

ABSTRACT This research investigates data journalism practices in Turkey during the COVID-19 pandemic, exploring their current usage, development, and prospects. The research focuses on data journalism methods, narrative structures, and journalists’ approaches to news production processes, including the use of big data and access to open data. The semi-structured interviews with 15 journalists were coded and analyzed using an interactive and cyclical method within a phenomenological research design. The findings indicate that journalists maintain pre-pandemic habits and that the COVID-19 big data did not significantly alter news production practices. Journalists are interested in data’s potential, processing skills, and analysis. They receive encouragement, technological opportunities, and training. However, journalists face challenges such as the need for an open data culture, innovative perspectives, revenue models, pressure for breaking news, loss of reader loyalty, reader habits, and news literacy levels. The findings reveal the experiences of journalists by comparing a critical period such as the pandemic with its predecessors and explain the critical factors influencing the development of data journalism. It also highlights implications for the future of data journalism in Turkey and suggests ways to encourage innovation in news production processes.

The Datafication of Newsrooms: A Study on Data Journalism Practices in a British Newspaper

This study investigates the function of data journalism in a UK newsroom using Bourdieu’s field theory. The collection of study data was conducted through in-depth interviews, utilising a qualitative research methodology. The data obtained revealed that data journalism, a sub-field of journalism, continues to develop in an interdisciplinary structure and creates a new type of habitus (data habitus) within the field of journalism. This study also shows that the data journalism team in the newspaper has moved from being niche to being established as one of the most active and effective main sections of the newsroom, and that data-driven journalism has the potential to influence other teams. Lastly, this study suggested that the newsroom is undergoing a process of datafication by indicating the newspaper’s intention to develop data skills beyond the data journalism team.

Data Journalism: A Systematic Literature Review

ABSTRACT This study aimed to examine the conceptual, theoretical, and methodological trends and gaps in data journalism research by conducting a systematic literature review of 102 articles published in English in SSCI-indexed communication journals. The review revealed that the majority of the literature focused on empirical investigations of data journalism practice, with weak conceptual and theoretical foundations and limited methodological diversity. Additionally, the authors and topics examined were predominantly from the Global North, which makes it challenging to generalize the findings to different contexts and scales. However, recent larger-scale studies incorporating the Global South offer hope for deepening the data journalism discussion.

The Data Journalism Practices in the Production of Investigative News Videos by Narasi TV

The digital and open data era has given rise to the development of methods in data journalism to create an in-depth or investigative news report. The widespread use of social media, dominated by the Y and Z generations, has also encouraged journalists to present the story in attractive formats. As one of the digital media in Indonesia, Narasi TV has data-based long-form stories called Buka Mata, presented in video forms and published through various social media. This research aims to answer the question, “How does Narasi TV produce the data journalism videos in Buka Mata?” to describe Narasi TV’s data journalism practices. This study uses a constructivist paradigm, a qualitative approach, and the case study method; and refers to the data journalism concept from The Data Journalism Handbook in 2012 to solve the research question. The findings show that Narasi TV has implemented data journalism practices such as gathering, verifying, analyzing, and visualizing data in producing Buka Mata. Furthermore, Narasi TV also uses an open-source intelligence (OSINT) method to create its investigative news videos.

DATA JOURNALISM IN HEALTH REPORTING IN BANGLADESH: PATTERN OF PRACTICES, IMPEDIMENTS AND PREPARATIONS FOR JOURNALISTS

Data journalism, with its ability to provide macro and micro-scale perspectives on health care, redefined health reporting during the global COVID-19 pandemic. Under these circumstances, health has taken the place of high significance. Consequently, the curiosity to see how data journalism is exercised while covering health issues in Bangladesh led to the idea of this study. This investigation aimed to shed light on how data journalism was applied while reporting on health in Bangladeshi media. The study was conducted following a mixed-method approach; quantitative data through content analysis and qualitative data through key informant interviews. The news published in August and September of 2022 in online editions of The Business Standard, the Prothom Alo, the Daily Star and the Ittefaq; was taken for content analysis. Additionally, four key informant interviews with academicians, journalism trainers and media development experts were conducted. The study concluded that data journalism practices in Bangladesh are not up to the standard. The scenario is also severely poor in terms of the number of published data stories; only 24 reports among 736 health-related news were data-driven stories. The Business Standard published 19 health-related data stories, which is the highest among the four news outlets. On the other hand, the Prothom Alo and the Ittefaq did not publish any health-related data story. Even the data-driven stories published in these four news outlets focused only on urban areas. Additionally, the data-driven stories were mainly reported based on government sources. Besides, among 25 data visuals, 84% were pictographs. However, the interviewees identified not having an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) tool for the Bengali language as a significant impediment to the flourishment of data journalism in Bangladesh. They also marked that, journalists in our newsrooms often do not possess the technical skills to carry out the data-driven story. Nevertheless, they proposed that, to improve the scenario of data journalism in Bangladesh, news industry and the universities should work together. Media development organizations should advocate the concept of data journalism in the newsrooms. Furthermore, they have to introduce workshops and training programs on data journalism.

Assessing the growth of data journalism start-ups as alternative media and their roles in “flawed democracies”

Data journalism start-ups have emerged as viable forces in the news industry in recent years, with their creation of strong data stories that have won global data journalism awards. Such start-ups may be seen to play particularly important roles to safeguard democracy in societies where mainstream media is strictly controlled, taking on the role of alternative media to challenge the status quo. This study examines such start-ups in Asia, a fast-growing region with high Internet penetration rates but declining democracy and press freedom in international indices. This study focuses on India, Thailand and Singapore, listed as “flawed democracies” in the Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index, to discover the dimensions and roles of alternative media exhibited by selected data journalism start-ups there, particularly in their organizational structure, form, processes, content, and motive. Results show these organizations as focused not primarily on profits but on creating social change, offering to audiences more critical content and community voices, and playing the roles of interpreter, populist mobilizer, and even adversary. That said, politics and government do not tend to be common topics they cover – rather, systemic faults are revealed through investigations into social issues instead, revealing similarities with broader data journalism practice in the region.

The Dilemma of Adopting Innovation in Media : Study Case of Data Journalism Practice in KOMPAS

The Dilemma of Adopting Innovation in Media : Study Case of Data Journalism Practice in KOMPAS

Exploring data journalism practices in Africa: data politics, media ecosystems and newsroom infrastructures

Extant research on data journalism in Africa has focused on newsroom factors and the predilections of individual journalists as determinants of the uptake of data journalism on the continent. This article diverts from this literature by examining the slow uptake of data journalism in sub- Saharan Africa through the prisms of non-newsroom factors. Drawing on in-depth interviews with prominent investigative journalists sampled from several African countries, we argue that to understand the slow uptake of data journalism on the continent; there is a need to critique the role of data politics, which encompasses state, market and existing media ecosystems across the continent. Therefore, it is necessary to move beyond newsroom-centric factors that have dominated the contemporary understanding of data journalism practices. A broader, non-newsroom conceptualisation beyond individual journalistic predilections and newsroom resources provides productive clarity on data journalism’s slow uptake on the continent. These arguments are made through the conceptual prisms of materiality, performativity and reflexivity.

Data journalism in Spain and Austria: features, organizational structure, limitations, and future perspectives

This paper makes an important contribution to comparative research by examining data journalism in Spain and Austria. This paper examines the practice of data journalism from a triple perspective: (a) the common features of day-to-day work, (b) the organizational structure and the role of the teams in newsrooms, and (c) the obstacles to and the future of data-driven reporting. Results from content analysis of data-driven news stories in El país and Der standard (N = 136) show differences and similarities in the covered topics, sources, narrative style, visualizations, interactive functions, and levels of transparency. Interestingly, only 36.8% of the analyzed news stories correspond to the normative expectations of transparency by incorporating both sources and methodological details. While the Spanish newspaper shows significantly higher levels of transparency compared with the Austrian newspaper, both newspapers perform very similarly when it comes to providing access to raw data, which was the case in only every fifth news story analyzed. Findings from focused interviews with the heads of data journalism teams deliver interesting insights into specific challenges that each news outlet is facing when creating day-to-day data-driven news stories. This research confirms the relevance that data journalism has achieved in countries such as Spain and demonstrates the effort of journalists in countries without access to information and transparency laws to create data-driven stories.

Diving into Data: Pitfalls and Promises of Data Journalism in Semi-Authoritarian Contexts

This paper calls for greater scrutiny of data journalism as a practice in the semi-authoritarian context of Zimbabwe. Based on in-depth interviews with practising journalists in Zimbabwe, this paper answers two main questions: In what ways is data journalism practised in the Zimbabwean context? To what extent are newsrooms in Zimbabwe “tooled” and capacitated for data journalism practices? We note that data journalism is widely understood by individual journalists in this country but paradoxically less practised due to many challenges. By answering these two questions, we sustain an argument that data journalism appropriation in semi-authoritarian contexts can be instrumental in promoting monitorial democracy and reversing media decadence. In such a political context, which suffers from a democratic deficit, data journalism can cushion journalists from state-sanctioned harassment by “presenting facts to authorities” and reinvigorating “persecutory” practices like investigative journalism.

Data-Driven or Data Illusion: A Critical Inquiry of Data Journalism Practitioners, Practices and Problems in China

Data-Driven or Data Illusion: A Critical Inquiry of Data Journalism Practitioners, Practices and Problems in China

Scrape, Request, Collect, Repeat: How Data Journalists Around the World Transcend Obstacles to Public Data

ABSTRACT This study applies a typology of public data transparency infrastructure and the contextualism framework for analysing journalism practice to examine patterns in data journalism production. The goal was to identify differences in approaches to acquiring and reporting on data around the world based on comparisons of public data transparency infrastructure. Data journalists from 34 countries were interviewed to understand challenges in data access, strategies used to overcome obstacles, innovation in collaboration, and attitudes about open-data advocacy. Analysis reveals themes of different approaches to journalistic interventionism by overcoming structural obstacles and inventive techniques journalists use to acquire and build their own data sets even in the most restrictive government contexts. Data journalists are increasingly connected with colleagues, third parties, and the public in using data, eschewing notions of competition for collaboration, and using crowdsourcing to address gaps in data. Patterns of direct and indirect activism are highlighted. Results contribute to a better understanding of global data journalism practice by revealing the influence of public data transparency infrastructure as a major factor that constrains or creates opportunities for data journalism practice as a subfield. Findings also broaden the cross-national base of empirical evidence on the developing practices and attitudes of data journalists.

An Asian version of data journalism?: Uncovering “Asian values” in data stories produced across Asia

Data journalism in Western-centric research has been lauded for its investigative qualities, capable of bringing to light previously concealed information and enabling the press to play its watchdog function. That said, journalism outside the liberal West may operate within vastly different contexts, shaped by different historical experiences, political cultures, and philosophical traditions, thereby creating a different brand of data journalism. This paper examines data journalism practice in Asia specifically, a region known to be home to collaborative press systems that adhere to a set of “Asian values” pertaining to collectivism, social harmony, norm conformity and deference to authority. By examining 210 data stories produced by news outlets in six Asian countries, this study finds that Asian values are displayed in a vast majority of data stories produced in the region, most of which are news stories pertaining to the home country of these news outlets. Continued reliance on government sources for information and a lack of stories that reveal previously hidden information or scrutinize a powerful entity also suggest no strong push to leverage on the investigative qualities of data journalism to produce more “watchdog” journalism; focus is instead placed on the “civic” role of informing the public.

Data journalists’ perception and practice of transparency and interactivity in Indian newsrooms

Data journalism research recorded exponential growth during the last decade. However, the extant literature lacks comparative perspectives from the Asian region as it has been focused on select geographies (mainly Europe and the US). In this backdrop, the present study examined data journalism practices in the Indian media industry by conducting intensive interviews with 11 data journalists to investigate their perception of transparency and interactivity which are two of the core aspects of data journalism practice. Further, a content analysis of data stories published by two Indian news organizations for two years was conducted to assess the status of transparency and interactivity options in these stories. The findings showed that Indian data journalists acknowledge the importance of transparency and interactivity, but exhibit a cautious approach in using them. There is general apathy in practicing transparency among journalists in legacy organizations, drawing a stark contrast with their counterparts in digitally-native organizations.

The Impact of Public Transparency Infrastructure on Data Journalism: A Comparative Analysis between Information-Rich and Information-Poor Countries

This study surveyed data journalists from 71 countries to compare how public transparency infrastructure influences data journalism practices around the world. Emphasizing cross-national differences in data access, results suggest that technical and economic inequalities that affect the implementation of the open data infrastructures can produce unequal data access and widen the gap in data journalism practices between information-rich and information-poor countries. Further, while journalists operating in open data infrastructure are more likely to exhibit a dependency on pre-processed public data, journalists operating in closed data infrastructures are more likely to use Access to Information legislation. We discuss the implications of our results for understanding the development of data journalism models in cross-national contexts.

Asian Newsrooms in Transition: A Study of Data Journalism Forms and Functions in Singapore’s State-Mediated Press System

ABSTRACT As more newsrooms practice data journalism in this age of “big data”, discussions on the forms and functions of data journalism continue to be Western-centric, focusing on its ability to conduct investigations, enhance democracy and empower the public. This study focuses on newsrooms in Asia transitioning into greater data journalism practice that may have an abundance of data at their disposal but operate within strictly regulated media environments, to uncover if data journalism takes on different forms and plays different normative roles in the region. Focus is placed on Singapore, a global city in Asia, and interviews with local newsworkers and a two-part content analysis of their “nomination-worthy” data stories and actual data stories produced were conducted. Results indicate a view of improving the audience experience as consumer rather than citizen, and a tendency for data stories on politics to be set beyond one’s own borders. A lower data literacy among newsworkers may also have hindered the complexity and variety of data visualizations used and resulted in extensive reference to “official sources”. To be deemed exceptional, data stories need not play a watchdog role either, or feature investigative elements, but may be informative in less adversarial ways.

Local Data Journalism in Germany: Data-driven Reporting Amidst Local Communities and Authorities

ABSTRACT This study explores data journalism within local and regional news organisations in Germany. Findings were drawn from nine semi-structured in-depth interviews with journalists working with local and regional dailies. Weischenberg’s model of contextual layers of journalism provides theoretical underpinnings to capture normative, structural, and functional insights as well as data journalists’ role conceptions. Results show that viable data is scarce at a local level and data journalists actively seek to maintain good relationships with local authorities to be granted access to data. The practice of data journalism at the local level depends on a few data journalism advocates who institutionalise the practice in their local newsrooms and take training on their own initiative. Local data journalists face similar constraints to their colleagues working for national organisations. Data-driven newswork is carried out in addition to regular duties, and collaboration with specialist correspondents who work on-site is widely reported. We find that the combination of traditional shoe-leather epistemologies of on-site reporting with data-driven practices can add to the independence and neutrality of local journalism.

Data Journalism as an innovation in social communication: The case in sports industry

Data analysis has always been an integral part of journalism but combining it with technology was a novelty for newspapers. Journalism’s combination with technology was an innovation because of processing, interpretation, and visualization of large datasets in a journalistic content. In recent years, newspapers have started to adapt data journalism and integrated it to sports for better storytelling and making sports more understandable for readers. This research aims to analyse sports data journalism practices in Spain with a quantitative approach with content analysis of 1068 data journalism articles published by 6 newspapers (Marca, Mundo Deportivo, AS, El Mundo, El Periódico, El Pais) between 2017-2019. Quantitative analysis focuses on how sports data journalism is being adapted in Spain, technical features of articles, and the similarities and differences between sports and national newspapers to identify integration of sports data journalism.

Data Journalism Practice in Sub-Saharan African Media Systems: A Cross-National Survey of Journalists’ Perceptions in Zambia and Tanzania

ABSTRACT This study explores the state of data-driven journalism practices in Sub-Saharan Africa. It aims at examining journalists’ perceptions of data-driven journalism in Zambia and Tanzania as it attempts to redefine and demystify the concept. We base our hypotheses on the notion that most journalists in Zambia and Tanzania perceive data journalism as a field that cannot be defined outside quantitative methods—approaches mostly emphasized by western scholarship. Our cross-national survey findings suggest that journalists from Zambia and Tanzania do not consider themselves as data journalists even when they practice it. This is because of the lack of advanced computer-assisted reporting equipment and the dwindling skills in advanced quantitative methods that are mostly accompanied by statistical software. Findings also suggest that female journalists showed more scepticism of data journalism practice, leading to fewer women with interest in pursuing data journalism in Zambia and Tanzania