Journalism innovation leads to innovation journalism: The impact of computational exploration on changing mindsets

Abstract

This article investigates a rapidly expanding branch of journalism innovation in online news media. The umbrella term computational exploration in journalism (CEJ), embraces the multifaceted development of algorithms, data, and social science methods in reporting and storytelling. CEJ typically involves the journalistic co-creation of quantitative news projects that transcend geographical, disciplinary, and linguistic boundaries. Drawing on extensive empirical data, this article provides a conceptual overview of the field by identifying three main pathways of computational exploration in journalism: the newsroom approach, the academic approach, and the entrepreneurial approach. Implications for changing journalistic practice are discussed, and the theorizing is summed up in a triplex proposition about changing mindset processes coming out of CEJ. The study indicates that the computational exploration not only leads to innovative uses of the technology, but also to innovative ways for journalists to think and behave; journalism innovation leads to innovation journalism.