The epistemologies of digital news production
News journalism is one of the most influential knowledge-producing institutions in society, and yet it is also one that is undergoing great transformation. The proposed project acknowledges that journalism is increasingly dependent on digital technology. Much research has focused on such changes, but so far none has focused on the particular implications of digital technology for the epistemologies of journalism--that is, how journalists know what they know, and how knowledge claims are articulated and justified. This project will address that void.
The project examines journalistic epistemologies through two key developments. The first is data journalism, a specialized form that conveys news through the analysis and visualization of numerical data. The second is participatory journalism, or the growing involvement of audiences in shaping news through digital platforms. The overall research question is: How are the epistemological practices of news journalism--presumed to provide factual and reliable public information--shaped by these changes in digital news production? The project will study journalists' concrete judgments and practices in distinct stages of the news production process that ultimately lead to news publishing. The aim of this project is to investigate this overall research question in an empirical study of one newspaper and one broadcaster. A combination of observations, in-depth interviews and analyses of published news will be applied.
The project examines journalistic epistemologies through two key developments. The first is data journalism, a specialized form that conveys news through the analysis and visualization of numerical data. The second is participatory journalism, or the growing involvement of audiences in shaping news through digital platforms. The overall research question is: How are the epistemological practices of news journalism--presumed to provide factual and reliable public information--shaped by these changes in digital news production? The project will study journalists' concrete judgments and practices in distinct stages of the news production process that ultimately lead to news publishing. The aim of this project is to investigate this overall research question in an empirical study of one newspaper and one broadcaster. A combination of observations, in-depth interviews and analyses of published news will be applied.
Final report
Purpose and development of the project
News journalism is one of the most influential knowledge-producing institutions in society and is distinguished by high truth claims yet undergoing extensive changes with considerable implications for how information is processed and published. This project has focused on the epistemologies of journalism, i.e. how journalists know what they know, what knowledge claims are expressed, and how news is justified as reliable enough to be published. The overall question of the project is: How is news journalism's knowledge claims, norms and practices for assessing and checking facts affected by emerging change processes in digital news production? The project implementation is here described as three phases.
Phase 1: Research orientation (2017-2022)
The project began in the autumn of 2017 by in-depth study of the development of the research field. We acted as guest editors for special issues in two international journals, with themes that are directly linked to the project. We conducted an online workshop on epistemology, with open invitation and more than twenty participants, several whom later contributed to the special issue in New Media & Society. We also organized a panel on epistemology at the ICA conference in Prague. We also co-authored two journal articles on journalism, epistemology, participatory journalism, and platforms.
Through these activities we positioned the project in the field. We were invited to contribute to key publications. We co-authored on epistemology in the field encyclopedia of journalism research (Oxford University Press), as well as on news production in the field's handbook of journalism (Routledge). The project leader co-authored with an internationally renowned American researcher in data journalism, social media and participation (Oxford University Press). We also did a systematic review and discussion of research in newsrooms, with a focus on method. Through the course of the project, we have actively contributed to developing the research frontier related to what we call the epistemologies of digital news production (Ekström, Lewis & Westlund, 2020), through empirical studies of more specific journalistic practices (Ekström, Ramsälv & Westlund, 2021; 2022a, 2022b).
Phase 2: MittMedia study (2018-2019)
In 2018 we carried out fieldwork at MittMedia, and one of their local editorial offices. We applied the project's ethnographic method approach through observations and interviews. We also gained access to specific communications via email and Slack, as well as journalists' work drafts and editors' editing materials, we recorded internal meetings, etc., and assessed published articles and videos. Through the openness of the news organization and extensive ethnographic work by three researchers, a unique and multifaceted data material was obtained about the complex news production inside and beyond the newsroom. More specifically, we followed the more intensive work at the online desk, which acts quickly to identify events, verify information, and publish online news. We also studied their more complex coordination of live TV broadcasts, in which the journalists created a participatory presence on the site of events. The fieldwork yields knowledge about how the editorial staff worked concretely with different types of news journalism, both text-based and audiovisual, and what role data and participation have in these epistemic practices.
Phase 3: SVT study (2020-2021)
SVT is a public service organization with roots in broadcast media, unlike commercial MittMedia with its roots as a newspaper company. This gives the project heterogeneity among its case studies. Most importantly, SVT has made major investments in data journalism and has a leading position in Sweden. During the spring and summer of 2020, we conducted repeated interviews with representatives from the SVT management group, providing context for organizing of digital journalism, and strategic investment in data journalism. During the autumn of 2020 and spring 2021 we interviewed members of the data journalism team. Due to the pandemic, these were carried out digitally. During some interviews the interviewees shared a screen and showed their work step by step, giving knowledge of their practice. We also made qualitative analyses of the data journalism that SVT had published.
Three key results
There has been a transformative shift regarding news content and participation in the relationship between journalistic institutions and platform companies. Participatory journalism concerns how news media enable participation in journalistic processes through their own platforms, and platforms they do not control (Westlund & Ekström, 2018). There are challenges related to the dissemination of news with unclear truth claims, sources in social media, as well as the difficulties for audiences to value credibility (Ekström & Westlund, 2019a). The project's empirical studies have focused on the importance of data and participation in the various forms of journalism, such as live reporting, breaking news, and longer reports. These forms of journalism differ significantly in terms of expressed knowledge and truth claims, how journalists know what they claim to know, and how claims are justified.
A first result is about a diversification of the epistemologies of digital journalism through data and participation. News media, on the one hand, can work from a data-driven news production process in which the audience participates through digital- footprints and engagement that influence priorities and processes. Data guides initial prioritization of news to work with, and in what ways. Once material is published, active participation is created through the dissemination of news material on social media, followed up with analytics. News media, on the other hand, can work with data journalism by collecting data from publicly available datasets, and publishing data visualizations enabling active participation. We have studied a form of data journalism relatively independent of traditional news values, carried out by an autonomous, resourceful, and specialized project team. The study shows that such data journalism produces a distinct form of 'public knowledge' and verification standards.
A second result focuses on knowledge claims of digital journalism. Data-driven news work is characterized by journalists balancing claims in their articles in relation to more sensationalist formulations that attract reading. Informed by data-driven practices, priority is also given to allowing sources to be heard in live broadcasts and having reporters visually show a development of events on site. Data-driven news work is characterized by a strong focus on packaging news, partly at the expense of research and more qualified fact-checking.
Data journalism is communicated with high knowledge claims suggesting the data shows what reality looks like, both in general and in details, but also communicated with journalistic disclaimers referring to the limitations of the data. The knowledge claim of journalism is closely connected with a third result that touches on the issue of the application of norms, standards and methods. The norms and standards of news journalism are characterized by the selection of credible authoritative sources. Journalists use interview methods to gather information and allow sources to be heard. For data journalism, access to data is crucial, and using data from public databases is a recurring standard. Such datasets are considered credible in themselves, and methods are primarily used to process data into data visualizations, as well as be transparent by providing context and explanations for the data.
Potential new research questions
Research questions about standards, norms, methods and knowledge claims in digital journalism remain important. More specifically, we call for further research, in different organizations and contexts, which standards/norms are used in the processing of data in data journalism. We also call for research into concrete practices and truth claims in audiovisual content associated with journalism, such as podcasts and videos on social media platforms.
Scientific communication
The project has resulted in ten OA publications, seven of which are articles in international peer review journals (Q, JCR SSCI 2021). We have presented project research at ten international conferences, including invitations as keynote speakers at online conferences. We have organized an online conference and an ICA panel. We have integrated project research into our teaching for our students at the University of Gothenburg and Oslo Metropolitan University, an several other universities. We have communicated the implications of the project's research to our colleagues for further development of educational initiatives. For example, we have organized a data journalism seminar for JMG's seminar series that bridges research, teaching and practice. During the project, we have established collaboration with several actors as well as created spinoffs. This includes a project for the development of climate-friendly online conferences, as well as a Nordic collaborative project on disinformation and fact-checking that has resulted in a Nordic consortium funded by the EU.
News journalism is one of the most influential knowledge-producing institutions in society and is distinguished by high truth claims yet undergoing extensive changes with considerable implications for how information is processed and published. This project has focused on the epistemologies of journalism, i.e. how journalists know what they know, what knowledge claims are expressed, and how news is justified as reliable enough to be published. The overall question of the project is: How is news journalism's knowledge claims, norms and practices for assessing and checking facts affected by emerging change processes in digital news production? The project implementation is here described as three phases.
Phase 1: Research orientation (2017-2022)
The project began in the autumn of 2017 by in-depth study of the development of the research field. We acted as guest editors for special issues in two international journals, with themes that are directly linked to the project. We conducted an online workshop on epistemology, with open invitation and more than twenty participants, several whom later contributed to the special issue in New Media & Society. We also organized a panel on epistemology at the ICA conference in Prague. We also co-authored two journal articles on journalism, epistemology, participatory journalism, and platforms.
Through these activities we positioned the project in the field. We were invited to contribute to key publications. We co-authored on epistemology in the field encyclopedia of journalism research (Oxford University Press), as well as on news production in the field's handbook of journalism (Routledge). The project leader co-authored with an internationally renowned American researcher in data journalism, social media and participation (Oxford University Press). We also did a systematic review and discussion of research in newsrooms, with a focus on method. Through the course of the project, we have actively contributed to developing the research frontier related to what we call the epistemologies of digital news production (Ekström, Lewis & Westlund, 2020), through empirical studies of more specific journalistic practices (Ekström, Ramsälv & Westlund, 2021; 2022a, 2022b).
Phase 2: MittMedia study (2018-2019)
In 2018 we carried out fieldwork at MittMedia, and one of their local editorial offices. We applied the project's ethnographic method approach through observations and interviews. We also gained access to specific communications via email and Slack, as well as journalists' work drafts and editors' editing materials, we recorded internal meetings, etc., and assessed published articles and videos. Through the openness of the news organization and extensive ethnographic work by three researchers, a unique and multifaceted data material was obtained about the complex news production inside and beyond the newsroom. More specifically, we followed the more intensive work at the online desk, which acts quickly to identify events, verify information, and publish online news. We also studied their more complex coordination of live TV broadcasts, in which the journalists created a participatory presence on the site of events. The fieldwork yields knowledge about how the editorial staff worked concretely with different types of news journalism, both text-based and audiovisual, and what role data and participation have in these epistemic practices.
Phase 3: SVT study (2020-2021)
SVT is a public service organization with roots in broadcast media, unlike commercial MittMedia with its roots as a newspaper company. This gives the project heterogeneity among its case studies. Most importantly, SVT has made major investments in data journalism and has a leading position in Sweden. During the spring and summer of 2020, we conducted repeated interviews with representatives from the SVT management group, providing context for organizing of digital journalism, and strategic investment in data journalism. During the autumn of 2020 and spring 2021 we interviewed members of the data journalism team. Due to the pandemic, these were carried out digitally. During some interviews the interviewees shared a screen and showed their work step by step, giving knowledge of their practice. We also made qualitative analyses of the data journalism that SVT had published.
Three key results
There has been a transformative shift regarding news content and participation in the relationship between journalistic institutions and platform companies. Participatory journalism concerns how news media enable participation in journalistic processes through their own platforms, and platforms they do not control (Westlund & Ekström, 2018). There are challenges related to the dissemination of news with unclear truth claims, sources in social media, as well as the difficulties for audiences to value credibility (Ekström & Westlund, 2019a). The project's empirical studies have focused on the importance of data and participation in the various forms of journalism, such as live reporting, breaking news, and longer reports. These forms of journalism differ significantly in terms of expressed knowledge and truth claims, how journalists know what they claim to know, and how claims are justified.
A first result is about a diversification of the epistemologies of digital journalism through data and participation. News media, on the one hand, can work from a data-driven news production process in which the audience participates through digital- footprints and engagement that influence priorities and processes. Data guides initial prioritization of news to work with, and in what ways. Once material is published, active participation is created through the dissemination of news material on social media, followed up with analytics. News media, on the other hand, can work with data journalism by collecting data from publicly available datasets, and publishing data visualizations enabling active participation. We have studied a form of data journalism relatively independent of traditional news values, carried out by an autonomous, resourceful, and specialized project team. The study shows that such data journalism produces a distinct form of 'public knowledge' and verification standards.
A second result focuses on knowledge claims of digital journalism. Data-driven news work is characterized by journalists balancing claims in their articles in relation to more sensationalist formulations that attract reading. Informed by data-driven practices, priority is also given to allowing sources to be heard in live broadcasts and having reporters visually show a development of events on site. Data-driven news work is characterized by a strong focus on packaging news, partly at the expense of research and more qualified fact-checking.
Data journalism is communicated with high knowledge claims suggesting the data shows what reality looks like, both in general and in details, but also communicated with journalistic disclaimers referring to the limitations of the data. The knowledge claim of journalism is closely connected with a third result that touches on the issue of the application of norms, standards and methods. The norms and standards of news journalism are characterized by the selection of credible authoritative sources. Journalists use interview methods to gather information and allow sources to be heard. For data journalism, access to data is crucial, and using data from public databases is a recurring standard. Such datasets are considered credible in themselves, and methods are primarily used to process data into data visualizations, as well as be transparent by providing context and explanations for the data.
Potential new research questions
Research questions about standards, norms, methods and knowledge claims in digital journalism remain important. More specifically, we call for further research, in different organizations and contexts, which standards/norms are used in the processing of data in data journalism. We also call for research into concrete practices and truth claims in audiovisual content associated with journalism, such as podcasts and videos on social media platforms.
Scientific communication
The project has resulted in ten OA publications, seven of which are articles in international peer review journals (Q, JCR SSCI 2021). We have presented project research at ten international conferences, including invitations as keynote speakers at online conferences. We have organized an online conference and an ICA panel. We have integrated project research into our teaching for our students at the University of Gothenburg and Oslo Metropolitan University, an several other universities. We have communicated the implications of the project's research to our colleagues for further development of educational initiatives. For example, we have organized a data journalism seminar for JMG's seminar series that bridges research, teaching and practice. During the project, we have established collaboration with several actors as well as created spinoffs. This includes a project for the development of climate-friendly online conferences, as well as a Nordic collaborative project on disinformation and fact-checking that has resulted in a Nordic consortium funded by the EU.