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PP 527
The Potential of Data to Report on Inaccessible Territories: An Exploratory Study on International Data Journalism
O. Hahn
1
, F. Stalph
1
1
University of Passau, Chair of Journalism, Passau, Germany
Certain regions and nations are significantly underrepresented in foreign news reporting. On the one hand, totalitarian regimes sealing themselves off or
governments’ restrictive information policies hinder journalists to adequately cover current affairs. On the other hand, focusing on conflicts, politics, and
elites is characteristic for international reporting, according to Hafez (2002). Hence, there are territories inaccessible for journalistic investigations. Data
journalism applies innovative practices that allow journalists to use data as sources. This method empowers foreign news reporters to publish stories with
complex data acquirable from wherever they are. Data-driven investigation, from data collection to data analysis and presentation, applied to foreign
news stories suggests copious synergetic effects. Based on these premises, we raise the following research questions: To what extent can data-driven
practices make previously marginalised regions accessible for journalistic investigations? What potential has data journalism for international reporting?
Methodologically speaking, this explorative study is based on a qualitative multi-method design: After analysing think-aloud protocols with young jour‑
nalists who employed data-driven techniques to evaluate data-driven workflows (Bradshaw, 2011), we have instructed said journalists to combine foreign
news reporting with data journalism within a newsroom experiment. In order to identify relevant aspects of data-driven investigation, we have analysed
focus group discussions via qualitative content analysis and determined important topics through group-to-group validation. Lastly, we have conducted
qualitative semi-structured in-depth expert interviews with data journalism pioneers based on the preliminary results to gain exclusive insight into da‑
ta-driven investigation: How journalists acquire massive data and transform them into visuals, and how data journalism changes traditional practices.
The following main research conclusions can be highlighted: Indeed, data journalism can help international reporting to overcome some of its traditional
problems. Data allows journalists to cover previously inaccessible regions. In many cases, data can open up nations that previously have been marginalised
in news coverage. Visualisations built upon data can facilitate conveying complex topics by depicting immanent processes bearing an added explanatory
function. By doing so, data-driven stories can increase agenda-setting effects of international news that are considered as already high and, thus, provide
an added value for recipients who lack the so-called corrective of primary experience when consuming international in contrast to domestic news (Hafez,
2002). Additionally, data providers pose new sources resolving the mere reliance of foreign news reporting on news agencies. Nevertheless, the availability
of data does not substantially change topic selection. We can, however, assume a slight shift or expansion of topics since crime, corruption, and general
disclosures of wrongdoings seem to be prevalent topics of data-driven stories and projects. To conclude, we consider the combination of data journalism
with international reporting particularly eligible for investigative stories. Furthermore, with the availability of data, previously inaccessible regions can be
covered even if traditional sources are not acquirable. Bradshaw, Paul (2011, July 7).The Inverted Pyramid of Data Journalism. Retrieved from
http://online‑
journalismblog.com/2011/07/07/the-inverted-pyramid-of-data-journalism/ Hafez, Kai (2002). Die politische Dimension der Auslandsberichterstattung.
Band 1: Theoretische Grundlagen. Baden-Baden: Nomos.
PP 528
Making the News World Go Round: The Role of the News Agency in the Production of Print and Online News
J. Boumans
1
, D. Trilling
2
, R. Vliegenthart
1
, H. Boomgaarden
3
1
ASCOR- University of Amsterdam, Corporate Communication, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2
ASCOR- University of Amsterdam, Political Communication and Journalism, Amsterdam, Netherlands
3
University of Vienna, Department of Methods in the Social Sciences, Vienna, Switzerland
Research on news production has a varied and rich research history. Surprisingly, a key player in the news production process is systematically overlooked:
the news agency. The lack of academic attention has earned them the title of ‘silent partners’ of news organizations (Johnston & Forde, 2011). This study
addresses the question to what extent the news agency content influences the agenda and content of print and online news. The dataset consists of all
news that has been published in 2014 in the print and online versions of three Dutch national newspapers (De Telegraaf, de Volkskrant, Metro) as well as
the largest online news provider (nu.nl). Furthermore, all the articles published in that same period by the Dutch’national news agency, ANP, are integrated
in the dataset. In total, the study compares 119,452 news agency articles with 75,434 print news articles and 171,727 online news articles. An innova‑
tive automated tool determines the degree of overlap between an agency text and a news article. This information is used to indicate what percentage
of the total news articles has been initiated by agency copy, and how strong the content overlap is. The approach extends previous research in an important
way. Reliance on agency copy has typically been measured on the basis of manifest attributions to the agency (Hijmans et al., 2011; Van Leuven, Deprez,
& Raeymaeckers, 2014; Powers & Benson, 2014; Sjovaag, 2014). This is problematic because research has shown that news organizations often veil their
reliance on agency copy and do not attribute the agency (Reich, 2010). Studies that do take the actual agency copy into account generally rely on case
studies, which limit their generalizability. In contrast, the approach presented in this study compares news content with agency copy in a systematic and
automated fashion. This implies not only that the methodological shortcoming of previous studies is bypassed, but also enables tracing agency copy in
news content with an unprecedented accuracy and on an unmatched scale. Results show that online news is highly dependent on the agency’s information
supply: The agency is responsible for the majority (66 percent) of the online news agenda, and this is even up to 75 percent in the case of the largest online
news provider. The agendas of the print titles are statistically significantly less strongly dependent on the agency’s input: overall, 23 percent of the print
articles are initiated by agency copy.The analyses furthermore reveal that – different fromprint news –many of the online articles are more or less verbatim
agency copy and contain very little additional information.The findings show that both the online news agenda as well as the literal news content is by and
large based on one source only: the national news agency. The study provides strong empirical support for concerns on the high level of homogeneity and
potential lack of diverse viewpoints in online news (Fenton, 2010; Doyle, 2015).
Media’s gatekeeper role in an era of ‘prosumers’and ‘gate-watching’(Bruns, 2009) or ‘gate-checking’(Schwalbe et al., 2015).