Digital Scholarship and Digital Journalism for the Common Good
Pop quiz! In what field of scholarship did the map above originate? If you guessed education, political science, or sociology — or any academic field — you would be wrong. Yes, it looks like an illustration of research data produced by scholar. But, in fact, it was the work of journalists Heather Vogell and Hannah Fresques for the investigative news site ProPublica. The map was part of a long-form article from 2017, ‘Alternative’ Education: Using Charter Schools to Hide Dropouts and Game the System, which used federal and local data to uncover problems with alternative schools.
This kind of data-driven journalistic work clearly bears similarities to the examples of digital scholarship that you’ll see on this blog and that are under way at Marquette and across the academy. It presents findings drawn from analysis of quantitative data. It uses visualization to simplify the findings and engage the reader. It attempts to draw attention to and, perhaps, help solve a social problem. And it is available online, accessible to anyone with a networked device. All these qualities could equally describe many digital scholarship projects.
But these parallels were not always so. Let’s give a quick glance back at scholarship and journalism BCE (ahem…Before the Computer Era): the fields had only loose affiliations. Yes, both have aimed, in their own ways, to help people understand the world around them, to solve societal problems, and to enrich daily life — and these were (and are) important fundamental similarities. At the same time, each had distinct practices, cultures, methodologies, and products and little incentive or ability to collaborate.
Now, as technologies for communication and research have shifted from analog to digital, these separations are shrinking. Growing storehouses of digitized information, increasingly sophisticated data tools, and a plethora of options for sharing knowledge online have empowered scholars and journalists alike to explore new ways to discover and understand the world and our experiences in it. And, as technology removes barriers to communication and fosters a culture of openness and transparency, the two fields are more able than ever to work together to bring their discoveries and understandings to the general public for the common good.
An excellent example of the possibilities for cross-germination is the Stanford Open Policing Project. It has a similar feel to the ProPublica map shown above. However, it was not only the work of digital scholars, it was developed explicitly to provide journalists with access to high-quality data and analysis on the social issue of current interest. The project authors state, “Our goal is to help researchers, journalists, and policymakers investigate and improve interactions between police and the public.”
This passage from Carlos Martínez de la Serna in Collaboration and the Journalism Commons crystallizes the possibilities for not only digital journalism but also digital scholarship:
Traditional news media, nonprofit organizations, journalism schools, and other information producers are taking advantage of opportunities created by the combination of decentralized, networked, and traditional models for news production and dissemination to work together, create shared resources, and advance their work. The cooperation of multiple organizations and individuals to address journalistic [and scholarly!] challenges is happening at a scale that no single organization could replicate by itself.
Here are some examples of collaborations as well as some exemplars and tools from digital journalism to help you discover ways that digital scholarship and digital journalism can benefit each other. Dive in!
Journalist/scholar collaborations
Collaboration and the Journalism Commons by Carlos Martínez de la Serna, Center for Digital Journalism, Columbia University: An excellent 2018 report on key developments in digital journalism; fascinating for its implications and overlaps with digital scholarship.
- Data Journalism Awards: Award-winning and noteworthy projects highlighted by the Data Journalism Awards.
- Stanford scholars are helping journalists do investigative journalism through data: A 2018 post by the Stanford Journalism and Democracy Initiative.
- Working together 101: How academics and journalists can collaborate: A 2018 article by the Center for Investigative Reporting.
- Journalist’s Resource: A site maintained by Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorestein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy that provides academic research on current news topics for use by journalists. “Our philosophy is that peer-reviewed research studies can, at the very least, help anchor journalists as they navigate difficult terrain and competing claims.”
Crossover tools and best practices from data journalism
Some of the tools and techniques herein also appear in the Digital Scholarship Lab’s own toolbox!
- Data Journalism Tools from the Knight Science Journalism program (MIT).
- Data journalism resources, tools, and conference info from the Global Investigative Journalism Network.
- Journalists Toolbox — Data Journalism Tools from the Society for Professional Journalists.
- Data Journalism Handbook, v. 1–2: An overview of current practices and examples, produced by the European Journalism Centre and Google News Initiative.
- Digital storytelling tutorials from StoryBench, a project of the Northeastern University journalism school.
