Building Boundaries Between Journalism and Social Science in the 1960s

• In Event: Journalism and Sociology: Comparative Epistemologies, Boundaries, and Ways of Knowing the World

Abstract

By most accounts, digitization and the rise of computers are identified as the reasons why data journalism is possible. In more nuanced histories, precision journalism pioneer Phillip Meyer was the individual responsible for "inventing" data journalism and evangelizing for its use in newsrooms. 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. This paper outlines 5 reasons "why data journalism exists" in its present day form: (1) the work of the Russell Sage Foundation 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) changing 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