Classifying Data Journalism

The review of theoretical and empirical studies in data journalism has uncovered different conceptualisations of data journalistic artefacts. This quantitative content analysis of data-driven stories published by European quality news websites Zeit Online, Spiegel Online, The Guardian and Neue Zürcher Zeitung aims to outline universal characteristics of daily data-driven stories and to compare these findings with previous analyses of data stories and acclaimed data journalism projects. Results suggest that daily data journalism stories generally feature two visualisations that are likely to be bar charts. The majority of these visualisations are not interactive whereas maps turn out to be the most interactive type of visualisation. Data journalists rely predominantly on pre-processed data drawn from domestic governmental bodies. For the most part, data-driven stories are reports on political topics paralleling traditional news reporting. The sparsity of collaborative efforts and investigative approaches distinguishes daily data journalism from previous analyses of eclectic and elaborate data-driven projects.     

3Ws of Data Journalism Education

This paper explores data journalism education, with a particular focus on formal training in the higher education sector globally. The study draws on data from: (1) the 2017 Global Data Journalism Survey, to study the state of data journalism education and the requirements in terms of training and (2) a dataset of 219 unique modules or programmes on data journalism or related fields that were curated and examined in order to understand the nature of data journalism education in universities across the world. The results show that while journalists interested in data are highly educated in journalism or closely related fields, they do not have a strong level of education in the more technical areas of data journalism, such as data analysis, coding and data visualisation. The study further reveals that a high proportion of data journalism courses are concentrated in the United States, with a growing number of courses developing across the world, and particularly in Europe. Despite this, education in the field does not have a strong academic underpinning, and while many courses are emerging in this area, there are not enough academically trained instructors to lead and/or teach such interdisciplinary programmes in the higher education sector.     

Unravelling Data Journalism

The centrality of data in modern society has prompted a need to examine the increasingly powerful role of data brokers and their efforts to quantify the world. Practices and methods such as surveillance, biometrics, automation, data creeping, or profiling consumer behaviour, all offer opportunities and challenges to news reporting. Nonetheless, as most professional journalists display a degree of hesitancy towards numbers and computational literacy, there are only limited means to investigate the power dynamics underpinning data. This article discusses the extent to which current data journalism practices in the United Kingdom employ databases and algorithms as a means of holding data organisations accountable. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with data journalists, data editors, and news managers working for British mainstream media, the study looks at how data journalism operates within the news cycle of professional newsrooms in the United Kingdom. Additionally, it examines the innovations data journalism brings to storytelling, newsgathering, and the dissemination of news.     

新冠肺炎疫情报道中数据新闻的“工具化”衍变

在抗击新型冠状病毒疫情的众多新闻报道之中,数据新闻作品及数据可视化产品表现抢眼,效果独特,影响广泛,充分体现出数据新闻在新闻事件统计、分析、研判上的独特优势。大数据工具的介入,更让数据新闻从之前的"可视化"阶段衍变进入"工具化"阶段,成为此次公共卫生报道中值得研究的新形态。     

Government Statistical Data

Abstract

Access and services for government numeric data and statistical information has changed dramatically in recent years. By making it easier to identify, acquire, and use, patron demand for government data continues to grow. These changes have affected the role and responsibilities of all librarians. This article examines how access to government data has changed and what that means for librarians. It focuses on the role of the government documents librarian in responding to these changes.     

THE BLOGGING BBC

Blogging has shifted from an activity largely taking place outside established media to a practice appropriated by professional journalists. This study explores how BBC News has incorporated blogging in its journalism, looking at the internal debates that led to the adoption of blogs and charting how they became a core part of the corporation's news output. Using a case study approach, it examines the impact of blogging on BBC editorial values and considers how journalists have sought to maintain their authority in a digital media environment by integrating a new form of journalism within existing norms and practices. The BBC offers a unique case study as its long-standing editorial values of accuracy, impartiality and fairness appear at odds with the notion of blogs as immediate, uncensored and unmediated. The research reveals that blogs emerged initially as an activity peripheral to the main newsgathering functions of the organisation and were rapidly transformed into key mechanisms for communicating analysis and commentary to the public. It contends that, for now, blogging has had a greater impact on the style, rather than substance, of BBC journalism. While the systems whereby journalists deliver information have evolved, the attitudes and approaches have, so far, remained relatively static.     

THE THIRST TO BE FIRST

This article explores the growth and character of breaking news on two 24-hour news channels in the United Kingdom, Sky News and BBC News 24. Our purpose is to examine, in detail, the nature and role of breaking news and, more generally, its impact on the quality of television news journalism. We draw upon a series of content analyses of news programming conducted in 2004, 2005/6 and 2007, and compare the elements of a breaking news item with more conventional forms of news. Our findings indicate that “breaking news” has become an increasingly important part of the 24-hour news culture. This growth means that the typical breaking news item is becoming increasingly predictable and routine. Moreover, by most measures, breaking news items are less well informed and feature less independent reporting than conventional news items. As a consequence, we argue, the decision to cover more breaking news stories impoverishes the quality of journalism.     

Local Journalism and the Information Needs of Local Communities

This paper presents a three-level conceptual and methodological framework for assessing local journalism and the extent to which it meets community information needs. This research grows from frequent calls from policymakers, foundations, and advocacy groups for methods and measures to facilitate comparative analyses of the state of local journalism in different communities. Further, the goal here is to develop a methodological approach that can be realistically scaled to large numbers of communities in order to facilitate analysis of both the factors that affect the state of local journalism and the ways local journalism may affect the state of local communities. The methodological approach presented here focuses on infrastructure (the availability of journalistic sources), output (the quantity of journalistic output from these sources), and performance (the extent to which this output is original, is about the local community, and addresses critical information needs). An exploratory application of this methodological approach is then presented for three communities. The results indicate substantial differences in the journalism infrastructure, output, and performance across these communities and suggest possible points of focus for future research.     

Journalism,Moral Panic and the Public Interest

The public interest is commonly presumed to be fundamental to the practice of journalism. Journalists and the media organizations for which they work routinely assume that they are able to identify what is in the public interest, and act accordingly. This article explores notions of the public interest in the context of a particular case study, that of Sharleen Spiteri, an HIV-positive sex worker who appeared on the Australian national current affairs television programme 60 Minutes in 1989 and admitted that she sometimes had unprotected sex with clients. As a consequence of the ensuing wave of moral panic, she was forcibly detained in a locked AIDS ward and a mental asylum. After she was released she was kept under 24-hour surveillance for the remaining 15 years of her life. In 2010, the authors of this article produced a radio documentary for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation about Sharleen Spiteri's case. The authors argue that her story raises some important and difficult questions for the ethical practice of journalism. They analyse the role of journalists and politicians involved in Sharleen's case, and show that their belief that they were acting in the public interest played into well-established historical narratives linking sex workers with disease and dissolution, with disastrous consequences for Sharleen herself. The authors argue that a more reflexive and responsible conception of the public interest for journalists requires them to pay more careful attention to the voices and perspectives of people who are excluded from participation in the public sphere.     

Who are We?

This article scrutinises the usage of the words “we”, “us” and “our” by BBC radio journalists when reporting and discussing news and current affairs. By analysing reports and discussions on the “flagship” Radio 4 Today, a daily news programme whose centrality to political and public debate is widely recognised, the article raises substantive questions about clarity, accuracy and impartiality in senior broadcast journalists’ choice of language. In exploring the assumptions which may underlie the invocation, via such language choices, of an implied community, and against the backdrop of the BBC's commitment to impartiality in its Editorial Guidelines, the article identifies numerous recent examples where the choice of words and identifiers can be seen as undermining the BBC's impartiality and which show several of its senior journalists adopting the first-person plural “we” when reporting on matters of public policy. The findings therefore indicate a general need to codify norms which are seen to integrate the need for accuracy as well as impartiality, and for these norms to take into account issues which might at first glance seem to be inconsequential, micro-level features of the journalists’ language. The evidence suggests that more fine-grained guidelines on permissible circumstances for BBC journalists’ usage of “we” and “our” need revising and disseminating in the light of these findings.     

Journalism as institution and work in Europe,circa 1860

This article presents a comparative historical analysis of the relationship between journalism as institution (i.e., a particular set of organizations in society) and journalism as work (i.e., an activity practiced by individuals) in four European countries: Britain, Sweden, Germany, and Estonia. The analysis compares the institutional context of journalistic work in these four countries around 1860, focusing in particular on the organization of journalistic labor at the national newspaper of record. The historical comparison reveals how exceptional the British case is. The study finds that British journalism circa 1860 exhibited a high division of labor, high labor specialization, and was increasingly focused on news gathering and production. Swedish and German journalism exhibited an emerging division of labor and labor specialization, and was focused on political debate (rather than news gathering and production). Estonian journalism exhibited hardly any division of labor or labor specialization, and was focused on raising national awareness.     

基于数据信息的公共图书馆发展分析与展望

以《公共图书馆服务规范》和新版《公共图书馆评估标准》为主要分析对象,论述公共图书馆数据发展的10个转变和发展趋势,包括从规模数据到效益数据、从硬件数据到软件数据、从常规数据到新颖数据、从主体数据到客体数据、从内在数据到外在数据、从静态数据到动态数据、从单一数据到综合数据、从样本数据到全本数据、从发展数据到绿色数据、从现实数据到目标数据,并据以对公共图书馆的发展进行分析和展望。     

No public value without a valued public

This study aims to enlighten the controversial discussion about the term public value in an innovative way. Instead of normative pronouncements and paternalistic posits, this study combines a theoretical, literature-based conception with an empirical quantitative approach. For this, the key term, public value, is split into its constituent parts of customer value and citizen value and is transformed into measurable attributes. By means of a choice-based conjoint analysis on panel data for Germany and the United Kingdom, we explore which performance attributes of public service broadcasters are the most important. Based on the results, we create a conception of public value from the perspective of the license fee payers as the main stakeholder of public service broadcasters. Our findings may unlock existing potential to increase our understanding of what is meant by the term public value.     

When Critical Voices Should Speak Up

Routine journalistic coverage relies heavily on official sources, which are least likely to raise critical questions about the causes and consequences of disasters such as the 2010 BP oil spill. It is possible, though, that disasters—precisely because they are unexpected—at least temporarily dislodge journalistic routines that sideline independent, more critical voices. This study uses Gulf Coast newspaper coverage of the BP oil spill to examine whether there are two discernible stages of crisis reporting, the first marked by the more frequent use of unofficial sources (and thus, a more critical tone to the coverage), followed by a narrowing of those perspectives seen as being legitimate as the official interpretation of the crisis emerges, and journalists index their coverage to match that interpretation.     

国外公共图书馆开放数据服务实践分析及对我国的启示

[目的/意义]如何利用开放数据资源开拓新型公共服务,促使公共图书馆融入城市发展,加强图书馆与社会的链接,扩大图书馆对社会的影响是公共图书馆发展过程中应深入思考的问题。[方法/过程]通过对国外公共图书馆开放数据服务实践进行分析,发现其服务具备以下特点：提供更丰富的数据资源,利用开放数据提高服务效能,开发新型数据服务产品,多方协作,构建开放数据利用生态环境,提升公众数据素养。[结果/结论]我国公共图书馆应加强开放数据资源建设,树立创新服务意识,提供贴合公众需求的服务,加强与其他机构的合作,加强数据素养教育等,从而提高开放数据服务水平。     

大数据时代学习平台的数据统计分析功能研究--以Canvas和Sakai系统为例

随着大数据时代的到来,数据挖掘分析已经渐渐应用到了各行各业。大数据分析能够获得隐藏在庞大数据中的关系,趋势信息等等。通过数据挖掘的方式对互联网信息进行深层次解读将会得到更重要的信息而为之后的工作服务。目前教育者们已经重视到数据分析在教育中的应用,尤其在教学平台中如何设计数据分析功能已经是当今教学平台发展的一个重要环节。本文通过对Sakai和Canvas两个世界知名的学习管理系统的数据统计分析功能的比较分析,从平台数据分类方式,展示方式,数据内容,以及特点四个方面的研究,期望能使网络教育者对于平台数据统计分析功能的开发有所启示,促进学习分析在学习平台的应用,为学习平台实现自适应教学做铺垫。     

数据管理计划在图书馆科学数据管理服务中的应用

[目的/意义] 针对当前数据管理计划在图书馆用户研究和科学数据管理服务中的应用,归纳总结科学数据管理计划的应用价值,引导图书馆更好地利用数据管理计划来提升其科学数据管理服务。[方法/过程] 梳理有关数据管理计划的现有研究成果,总结数据管理计划对图书馆推进科学数据管理服务的3种应用价值,以新加坡南洋理工大学科学数据管理计划的内容分析实践为例,进一步验证所提出的3种应用价值及应用注意事项。[结果/结论] 数据管理计划对图书馆推进科学数据管理服务的价值,主要体现在3个方面,即作为一种信息资源,帮助深入了解所在机构科研人员的数据管理实践与行为特征;作为一种反馈渠道,为图书馆当下服务的改进、潜在服务的开发提供启发;作为一个根植于实践的培训平台,帮助馆员有效提升数据服务能力并构建利益相关者合作网络。但是分析数据管理计划存在一些固有的局限性,应该与其他方法相结合,以更好地指导机构实施和改善科学数据管理服务。尽管如此,数据管理计划的重要性仍无可置疑,国内相关机构应尽快将提出数据管理计划要求提上日程。     

政府开放数据与智慧城市建设的战略整合初探

以大数据和智慧城市为焦点的信息化建设为背景,回顾政府开放数据理念及实践的历史与发展,考察国外政府数据开放的典型实践及其意义,提出基于政府数据开放的智慧城市概念框架。通过问卷调查和专家访谈,验证政府数据开放对智慧城市建设的重要性,探讨基于政府数据开放的智慧城市公共信息平台的构成和作用。最后,以"智慧坪山"规划项目为例,展示该项目中数据开放平台的结构、建设内容和策略。