Datafication, Institutionalization, or Both: The Many Paths of Data Journalism

• In Event: The Datafication of Journalism

Abstract

Most accounts of the history of "data journalism” are stories of individuals and technology. In these histories, digitization and the rise of computers are identified as the reasons why data journalism is possible. Neither of these explanations are wrong per se. Nevertheless, digital technologies are embedded in journalistic culture and Meyer's work was only made possible through the existence of a variety of institutions, none of which were necessarily interested in data journalism. This paper outlines 5 reasons "why data journalism exists" in its present day form: (1) the work of Foundations and Universities in promoting the "social sciences in the media" initiative in the early 1960s; (2) a vision of computers and databases that allowed them to be integrated into journalistic work; (3) new notions of what was meant by "investigative reporting" in the 1970s; (4) academic developments in journalism schools; and (5) a long-term crisis in notions of journalistic objectivity in the 1960s.

Author

• C.W. Anderson, University of Leeds