‘Machines don’t have instincts’: Articulating the computational in journalism

Abstract

This article examines the articulation of computational journalism, focusing on how the meaning of the computational is discursively constructed and mobilized as a specific constellation of intelligibility within news organizations. Relying on the concept of articulation developed in cultural studies, the article asks what, exactly, is meant by the computational in the context of journalism? Drawing on interviews with key managerial staff, editors and developers at Scandinavian news organizations, three broad claims about the linkage between the computational and journalism emerged. These articulations include the notion that machines don’t have instincts, that democracy can never be personalized and finally that the computational is something to think with, rather than simulate. The argument is made that what can and cannot be calculated is not merely a technical question, it is also a deeply social, cultural, political and economic one. Thus, the computational emerges as an important organising framework and discursive order for thinking and talking about journalism in the digital age.