Digital Media Post #7 – Online & Data Journalism
As we look again into the crystal ball–this time regarding the future of journalism in this era of deep pluralistic information and data platform accessibility–we can see increasing tools, modalities, formats, and interaction types for both journalists and audience members alike.
We can apply this future of journalism to science communication, and extract lessons from each. Journalism, media, communication, and education all dance under one large umbrella of information sharing and comprehension, as the Polichinelles under Mother Ginger’s prodigious hoop skirt.
After querying ChatGPT for its advice to keep journalists relevant, the second set of recommendations “Master Digital and Multimedia Storytelling” speak most directly to me, my background, my career path, and current working directives.
Video and audio fluency has already become a somewhat mastered tool in my tool belt, and each have been on my radar for a number of years, and will remain on my list of continually improving and ever-expanding skillsets. The data journalism and visual tools is something on the periphery of my current skillset – one which will indeed require some growth – though the research I have been conducting identifies the combination of data visualization and audio/visual components as imperative for developing scientific storytelling into a long-lasting, ever-more impactful endeavor.
For an incredible period of time, data has been vital for accurate, informative, and impactful reporting, but (up to recent years) has also been mainly static in nature. Research findings suggest that not just visualizing data but creating increasingly engaging and interactive data reporting can significantly benefit the audience engagement with not just the data, but the story in which it resides.
As researchers begin to understand the role audio/visual components play in maintaining audience attention, particularly through adequate visual pacing and flow, they are finding that increased use of these engaging elements “…in turn means people will spend more time engaging with content and ultimately lead to improved learning outcomes. While engagement itself may not be an end goal of most research communications, the ability to influence both audience attitude and the amount of time that is spent is a useful lever to improve learning: we know from education research that both time spent [37] and emotion [38] are predictive of learning outcomes,” per Homan et al in their article Communicating with Interactive Articles.
This ability to influence attitudes toward data stories can be used to inform scientific research reporting, such as the animated depictions of temporal data, or even go a step further into the territory of interactive data stories like Figure 5 from Homan et al. Moving beyond simply creating more dynamic visuals and using them to influence appropriate pacing, combining both journalistic and educational research naturally leads one to understand that heuristic engagement with educational (or journalistic, or scientific) information tends to not only result in more effective comprehension and longer-term retention, but influences a more positive attitude toward the information they were engaging with.
This conclusion is reflected repeatedly in the research of Haiyan Jia and S. Shyam Sundar in their article Vivid and Engaging: Effects of Interactive Data Visualization on Perceptions and Attitudes about Social Issues. Their research question, as many communicators ponder, was “How can we make data information more usable for reader perception and attitude formation when they are often accompanied with anecdotes and quotations that are inherently more attractive?” and they accurately predicted interactive data stories and storytelling techniques, embedded in heuristic learning methodologies, retains readers and ultimately entertains readers.
In this manner, we begin to see data relationships between consumers and storytellers blending with artistic and entertainment practice, not as a distraction from the data, but as an imperative enhancement to the user experience of the data–more like a partnership than a feudal detraction.
The future of journalism (and by association, research storytelling) is in data storytelling via edutainment using heuristic models to draw audiences in and cement comprehension and attitudes toward data. To make this happen, we need a new structural model for this new wave of journalism and research storytelling.
Doherty et al. set forth a process model for navigating and co-creating this new wave of journalistic and research communication. This model draws heavily from design-thinking and design process models toward “‘experiential material engagement’ (Frankjaer and Dalsgaard 2018, 481).” The emphasis here is participatory engagement from audience and from journalists–once again in partnership, dancing together to craft a new form of information seeking, crafting, understanding, and engagement.
“In design, notions of openness (McCarthy and Wright 2015) and co-design (Sanders and Stappers 2008) show how designerly material practices can enable alternative appropriations of interactive systems through the inclusion of individuals and publics in the design process. Inspriation can be drawn from work in digital civics, where citizens are seen as participants, rather than service consumers and “cities are constructed through participation rather than delivered via service transaction” (Le Dantec 2019, 170).”
This also leads us back to social media journalism, and social media edutainment. The Pew Research Center’s data shows us that increasingly, the U.S. population is trending toward social media as their main source of news information. These platforms allow a democratic ecosystem of journalistic coverage, yet retains none of the checks and balances on information sourcing or even full picture reporting. From one angle, you may see an aggressor throwing a fist, but from the other angle, you may see that same action as a victim acting in self defense. There are many limitations to such democratic access to information sharing.
So, are these news consumers following trustworthy journalists, or just receiving what their algorithm shares? Probably both…
Regardless, we see that social media is becoming a platform for learning in the same way the television became a source of edutainment through programming like Sesame Street, Bill Nye, Between the Lions, Arthur, etc. Using the platforms available to us as researchers is now an imperative for amplifying research being done along with the findings.
Even Data knows the arts are his commrades… ☺️
Sarah Wingfield 
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