the long history of data journalism (1907-2011)
DESCRIPTION
“What reporters know and don’t report is news– not from the newspaper point of view, but from the sociologists and novelists.” (Lincoln Steffens, 1931)TRANSCRIPT
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The Long History of Data Journalism (1907-2011)
C.W. Anderson College of Staten Island (CUNY)
Social Science History Association November 19, 2011
Boston, MA
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“What reporters know and don’t report is still news– not from the
newspaper point of view, but from the sociologists and
novelists.” (Lincoln Steffens, 1931)
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How Are Practices of Empirical Social Research Changing in the
Digital Era?• Journalism as an “odd
form” of empirical social research
• Digitization • New Forms of
Journalistic Evidence
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Three “Generations” of Journalism
• Media and the Survey Movement
• Precision Journalism • “Algorithmic”
Journalism
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What Was the Pittsburgh Survey?
• A pioneering social-science study of urban conditions in Pittsburgh (1907-1908).
• Funded by the Russell Sage Foundation.
• One aspect of the larger “survey movement,” one cornerstone of Progressive Era reform efforts.
• Relation to later sociology?• Relation to journalism?
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An Uneasy Hybrid
• “From the perspective of almost a century, it is possible to see the Pittsburgh Survey as an amalgam of three different strands of social research.” (Anderson and Greenwald, 1996)
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Relation to Earlier and Later Sociology?
• Survey was part of sociology’s roots in social reform.
• Most important jurisdictional conflict in professional history of field is between sociology and social work (not journalism).
• Mania for documentation & publicity, but limited statistical rigor or analysis.
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Relation to Earlier and Later Sociology?
• Story told is usually an institutional history (ex: Turner 1996).
– Survey movement rested on a conception of “social manager” as “social engineer.”
– Success would come from --> A combination of power and publicity.
– Survey movement failed in its practical goals.
– And it failed to impact sociology methodologically.
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Professionalization (1920’s)
• Sociology• Social Work• Policy and Planning• Journalism
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From the perspective of institutional history, then, the
overlapping relationship between journalism, sociology, and
reform found in the Pittsburgh Survey was glancing and
indirect.
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Beyond Institutional History: Empirical Technique and Objects
of Evidence
• Survey’s relation to journalism?
• Survey’s “mania for comprehensiveness.”
• Rise of the magazine and conceptions of journalistic deadlines.
• Lack of statistical analysis versus the “rise of the variable.”
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Fifty Years Later …
• Philip Myer and the rise of “computer assisted reporting.” • Precision Journalism (1973)• “Meyer’s book, which sought to define new forms of journalistic
work based on statistical data analysis, became a leading reference point for individuals involved in the computer-assisted reporting movement.” (Powers 2011)
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Beyond CAR: Big Data and “Algorithmic” Journalism
• Algorithms: A predetermined set of instructions for solving a specific problem in a limited number of steps.
• Hybrids: Made up of both– Human intentionality /
social structure AND
– Technological affordances
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Research (Historical)• Methodological discourse around empirical techniques• Comparison: Park and Giddings. Two journalists who
became sociologists:– their methodological attitudes towards the survey.– their attitudes toward “higher journalism.”
• Comparison: local newspaper coverage of the survey vs. other forms of survey publicity (magazines, etc).
• Comparison: Institutional discourse within professional journals.– How did Editor and Publisher talk about sociology– How did the American Journal of Sociology talk about journalism
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Research (Social Science)• An institutional analysis of the Computer-Assisted
Reporting (CAR) community – its relation to “precision journalism.”
• Ethnographic analysis of big data journalism projects.– PANDA Project– Overview Project