Evolving data teams: Tensions between organisational structure and professional subculture

  • This study explores the integration of data journalism within three European legacy news organisations through the lens of organisational structure and professional culture. Interviews with data journalists and editors suggest that professional routines resonate with established data journalism epistemologies, values, and norms that appear to be constitutional for an inter-organisational data journalism subculture. At the same time, organisational structure either integrates the journalistic subculture by increasing levels of complexity, formalisation, and centralisation or rejects it by not accommodating it structurally or culturally. The three data teams work along epistemologies of computer-assisted reporting, investigative journalism, and data journalism but differentiate themselves through nuanced understandings of data journalism practice, driven by individual journalists. After a structureless episode, one team sets itself apart as it diverges from data-driven routines and orients itself towards technological andThis study explores the integration of data journalism within three European legacy news organisations through the lens of organisational structure and professional culture. Interviews with data journalists and editors suggest that professional routines resonate with established data journalism epistemologies, values, and norms that appear to be constitutional for an inter-organisational data journalism subculture. At the same time, organisational structure either integrates the journalistic subculture by increasing levels of complexity, formalisation, and centralisation or rejects it by not accommodating it structurally or culturally. The three data teams work along epistemologies of computer-assisted reporting, investigative journalism, and data journalism but differentiate themselves through nuanced understandings of data journalism practice, driven by individual journalists. After a structureless episode, one team sets itself apart as it diverges from data-driven routines and orients itself towards technological and interdisciplinary interactive journalism. The findings show an interdependence of individual efforts, varying conceptualisations of data journalism practice, and interplay between organisational structure and professional culture.show moreshow less

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Metadaten
Author:Florian Stalph
URN:urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-9236
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951720919964
Parent Title (English):Big Data & Society
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Year of Completion:2020
Year of Completion:2020
Date of first Publication:2020/04/17
Publishing Institution:Universität Passau
Release Date:2022/05/27
Tag:Computer-assisted reporting, data journalism, journalistic routines, newsroom organisation, organisational structure, journalism culture
Page Number:13 Seiten
Note:
Gefördert durch den Publikationsfonds der Universitätsbibliothek Passau
Institutes:Juristische Fakultät
Licence (German):License LogoCreative Commons - CC BY - Namensnennung 4.0 International