Epistemologies of Digital News Production

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

Journalism and verified and fact-based news are important yet challenged phenomena in contemporary society. Digital and social media have made it increasingly easy to produce, publish and distribute non-verified news, even deliberate misinformation. Much attention is currently being directed towards “fake news”—its producers and truth claims, its impact on public debate and knowledge, and how citizens relate to it. In extension of this, research on how knowledge is being produced in (digital) journalism becomes increasingly relevant to gather, yet relatively few have scholars have focused on such issues. This panel will therefore explore, describe and explain issues relating to the general question of how the epistemologies of journalism—knowledge claims, norms, and practices—are shaped by the changes and challenges in digital news production. How do journalists know what they know, and how are their knowledge claims articulated and justified? To understand the destabilization of the epistemic status of journalism articulated in current debates, the panel will discuss empirical studies, historical explanations, and theoretical developments. The panel will unpack the epistemology of different forms of journalism, knowledge-oriented norms, values, and practices applied when publishing and distributing news, accordingly to varying socio-cultural, political, organizational, and technological contexts. It will look into the shifting networks of sources on which journalists and other information professionals rely. The four panelists have been carefully selected because of their expertise and their ongoing research in the field. In the first presentation, Yigal Godler, Zvi Reich and Boaz Miller posit a theoretical framework building on social epistemology that focuses on journalistic knowledge generation. Thereafter follows three theoretically informed empirical studies. Donald Matheson and Karin Wahl-Jorgensen will present findings and a typology focusing on the epistemology of live blogging. Lucas Graves and C. W. Anderson’s presentation will focus on structured journalism and the interrelationship of algorithmic logic and the knowledge and practice of journalism. In the last presentation, Nikki Usher will analyze the role of maps when it comes to authority and knowledge management in journalism. Acting as respondent, Matt Carlson critically assesses all the presentations, discussing how these feed into the research frontier on epistemology in journalism.

Sub Unit

• Journalism Studies

Chairs

• Oscar Westlund, Department of Journalism and Media Studies, Oslo Metropolitan University

• Mats Ekstrom, U of Gothenburg

Individual Presentations

• Social Epistemology as a New Paradigm for Journalism (and Journalism Studies) - Yigal Godler, Journalism Studies and Media / U of Groningen; zvi reich, Ben Gurion U of the Negev; Boaz Miller, Hebrew U

• The epistemology of live blogging - Donald Matheson, University of Canterbury; Karin Wahl-Jorgensen, Cardciff U

• Sharing the Facts: How a “Structured Journalism” Project Mediates Algorithmic Gatekeeping and Institutional Authority in a New Professional Field - Lucas Graves, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism; C.W. Anderson, University of Leeds

• Epistemologies of Mapping (Data) Journalism in a Post-Fact Society - Nikki Usher, George Washington U

Respondent

• Matt Carlson, Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communnication, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities