DataMeDe · Datafication, Media and Democracy: Transformation of news work in datafied society
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2020-10-14 → 2022-10-13
- EU contribution
- €214,159
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Datafication, Media and Democracy: Transformation of news work in datafied society
DataMeDe project addresses the implications which the processes of datafication bring for society, by researching datafication of journalism as one of the most important pillars of democracy. Datafication, considered as a conversion of various life-processes into streams of data for further computer-based processing, is altering journalism in several respects. However, DataMeDe argues that exposure to the audience in form of analytics is the most transformative for news work and media organizational structures. For a long time, news work has been guided by professional standards, without much influence of audience feedback. Today, audience interaction with online news leaves a lot of data, which gets collected, transformed into metrics and analytics - audience becomes datafied. Ongoing research is showing that audience analytics gain more importance in deciding what is news, determining news selection, story structuring and presentation of information, newsroom and media organization structures, journalistic role orientations and media service to society. Most of these studies revolve around the central issue: whether audience datafication is driving journalism closer or further away to its normative ideals. There are two camps in considering this issue. At one hand, scholars are concerned that growing datafication leads journalism to content choices that serve more to attract than to inform audience, and fosters fabrication of clickbait news for lucrative reasons. On the other hand, audience datafication enthusiasts point out that audience analytics help establishing better connection between journalist and audience, providing wider, better targeted reach for content. Within journalism field, there are agents that share attitudes of both camps, often pulling in opposite directions and creating tensions in the field. Mostly executives see datafied audience as promising resource, favor innovations in tools and organizational structures, and foster newsroom culture which embraces datafication. Journalists feel that managers use audience data as disciplinary device, to standardize journalistic work, weakening professional standards and autonomy. Against this backdrop, main objective of DataMeDe is to deepen our understanding of journalism datafication, by looking into the journalism-audience relationship at four interrelated levels of news-work: 1) individual journalist, journalism practice 2) media organization, newsroom structures 3) inter-organizational, media industry 4) reception, audience level.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
DataMeDe – Datafication, Media and Democracy is MSCA IF Proposal aimed at examining the journalism datafication, from a comprehensive and multilayered perspective. Objective of DataMeDe is to advance our knowledge about the role of audience datafication in transforming news-work. From one point of view, audience datafication leads to production of content that attracts audience, regardless of the informative, citizen value of news. From the other, it improves connection between journalist and audience, strengthening financial base of news-work. Existing scholarship is characterized by great conceptual divergence, conclusions mostly based on perceptions of journalists or editors, and largely unquestioned belief that audience datafication is closing the ‘news gap’ between journalists and news users. Borrowing from sociology of news, hierarchy-of-influences, and audience studies, DataMeDe will advance the concept of datafied journalism, by conducting research at four interrelated levels: 1) individual journalist 2) newsroom structures 3) inter-organizational 4) reception level. DataMeDe will use mixed methods approach, combining ethnographic observation and interviews at first three levels, and survey with audience. Such multilayered perspective will allow DataMeDe to: a) identify factors that influence differences in comprehension and utilization of audience data by journalists, editors, mangers, media-tech workers b) explore the gap between actual, and audience news preferences re-constructed by audience data. By shedding light on disconnections of journalism practice with executive decisions and audience preferences, DataMeDe will provide research-based evidence to inform policy debates about audience privacy and data-tracking, digital media literacy campaigns, media industry, journalism education development, while advocating for tools and practices that benefit public good and not just prosperity of media organizations.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITETET I BERGEN · BergenCoordinatorNorway
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union