Data-Driven Reporting - an On-Going (R)Evolution? A Longitudinal Analysis of Projects Nominated for the Data Journalism Awards 2013-2015

The emergence of data-driven journalism (DDJ) can be understood as journalism’s response to the datafication of society. We retrace the development of this emerging reporting style by looking at what may be considered the gold‐standard in data‐driven reporting: projects that were nominated for the Data Journalism Awards (DJA), a prize issued annually by the Global Editors Network. Using a content analysis of the nominees from 2013 to 2015 (n=179) we examine if and how, among other aspects, data sources and types, visualisation strategies, interactive features, topics, and types of nominated media outlets have changed over the years. Results suggest, for instance, that the set of structural elements data‐driven pieces are built upon remains rather stable, that data journalism is increasingly personnel intensive and progressively spreading around the globe, and that journalists, while still concentrating on data from official institutions, are increasingly looking to unofficial datasources for their stories

Learning about climate politics during COP 21: explaining a diminishing knowledge gap

A basic understanding of climate politics is necessary for citizens to assess their government's policies. Media use is supposed to enable learning, while widening knowledge gaps. We analyze whether such a gap opened up in times of intense media coverage during the 2015 climate conference in Paris and explain learning through hierarchical regression analyses, drawing on a 3-month panel survey (n = 1121) in Germany. We find a diminishing knowledge gap: people with low previous knowledge catch up on the better informed, but overall knowledge remained low and learning was limited. This suggests a ceiling effect: possibly journalistic media did not provide enough new information for the well-informed. Closing knowledge gaps may also be explained by the media system with public television and regional newspapers reaching broad segments of the population. Higher knowledge was predicted less by media use than by education, concern, and being male

Wenn aus Daten Journalismus wird: eine Inhaltsanalyse der für die Data Journalism Awards 2013 bis 2015 nominierten Projekte

Die Entstehung des Datenjournalismus kann als Antwort des Journalismus auf die "Datafizierung" der Gesellschaft verstanden werden: In der Auseinandersetzung mit dem Phänomen "Big Data" entwickelt der Journalismus neue Wege, Geschichten (in Daten) zu identifizieren und (mit Daten) zu erzählen. Von Journalismusforschern wie -praktikern wird das dabei entstehende Berichterstattungsmuster häufig als die Zukunft des Journalismus angesehen, vor allem aber als genuin für den Onlinejournalismus. Aus Sicht der Forschung ist jedoch noch nicht einmal der Status Quo des ohnehin sehr dynamischen Datenjournalismus geklärt: Noch wissen wir wenig insbesondere über das, was den Datenjournalismus als Berichterstattungsmuster ausmacht, nämlich die datenjournalistischen Beiträge sowie die spezifischen inhaltlichen und darstellerischen Elemente, aus denen sie bestehen und die sie von anderen Formen der Berichterstattung abgrenzen. Der Schwerpunkt dieser Studie liegt daher auf den Produkten des Datenjournalismus: Mithilfe einer standardisierten Inhaltsanalyse untersuchen wir datenjournalistische Projekte, die man als "Goldstandard" datengetriebener Berichterstattung betrachten kann - Projekte, die von 2013 bis 2015 (N = 179) für einen der Data Journalism Awards (DJA) nominiert wurden, einen jährlich vom Global Editors Network in unterschiedlichen Kategorien vergebenen Preis. Untersucht wurden unter anderem die genutzten Datenarten und -quellen, Visualisierungsstrategien, Interaktionsmöglichkeiten, die behandelten Themen sowie die Medienangebote, von denen die Beiträge stammen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen unter anderem, dass über 40 Prozent der datengetriebenen Arbeiten auf Webseiten von Tages- oder Wochenzeitungen veröffentlicht wurden und fast 20 Prozent von Non-Profit Organisationen für investigativen Journalismus wie Pro Publica stammen. Fast die Hälfte der Fälle behandelt ein politisches Thema. Auch Gesellschafts- und Wirtschafts- sowie Gesundheits- und Wissenschaftsthemen kommen vermehrt vor. Finanz- und Geodaten sind die meistgenutzten Datenarten, wobei sich der Großteil der Datensätze auf eine nationale Ebene bezieht. In mehr als zwei Drittel der Projekte werden die Daten einer offiziellen Quelle wie zum Beispiel Eurostat verwendet. In weiteren Analysen werden die Unterschiede zwischen den Jahren 2013, 2014 und 2015 herausgearbeitet und Visualisierungsstrategien sowie Interaktionsmöglichkeiten untersucht

Wissenserwerb zum Thema Klimapolitik aus Mediennutzung und interpersoneller Kommunikation

Ein Basiswissen über Klimapolitik ermöglicht demokratische Teilhabe und Engagement für den Klimaschutz. Bestehende Studien zum Wissen der Deutschen konzentrieren sich jedoch entweder auf Folgen und Ursachen des Klimawandels oder auf andere Politikbereiche. Zudem gibt es wenig Forschung zu den Quellen und dem Prozess des Wissenserwerbs. Daher untersucht die vorliegende Studie, welchen Beitrag Mediennutzung und interpersonelle Kommunikation zum Wissenserwerb über Klimapolitik leisten, und welche anderen Faktoren neben den Informationsquellen das Lernen beeinflussen und erklären. Die Studie wurde im Kontext des UN-Klimagipfels 2015 in Paris durchgeführt und kombiniert eine dreiwellige Panel-Befragung der deutschen Bevölkerung (N = 1121) mit einer qualitativen Tagebuchbefragung (N = 42) und einer qualitativen Inhaltsanalyse der genutzten Medieninhalte der TagebuchschreiberInnen. Es zeigt sich ein eher niedriger Wissensstand; mittelfristig gibt es einen Lerneffekt in Bezug auf besonders aktuelle Aspekte des Themas. Der Wissenserwerb wird durch einen Deckeneffekt limitiert, der zu einem großen Teil aus einer inhaltlich eingeschränkten Berichterstattung resultiert

Public opinion at a tipping point: Germany's path to engaging with climate protection

A follow-up study to Brüggemann et al. (2017), The appeasement effect of a United Nations climate summit on the German public Abstract Heat waves occurring around the world, outspoken warnings from scientists, international climate ac-tivism, and ensuing political debates on climate protection have ensured that climate change has finally caught the public’s attention. This comparative analysis of public opinion during three UN climate sum-mits illustrates the awakening of public awareness of and an increased willingness to actively engage with climate change, probably as the cumulative effect of this combination of events. Comparing cli-mate change awareness, communicative engagement, knowledge, attitudes, and climate-friendly be-haviour during the 2015 (n = 1,477), 2018 (n = 1,044) and 2019 (n = 1,000) UN climate summits, we find major and consistently positive changes in various forms of active engagement with the issue. These results indicate that the appeasement effect observed in an earlier study during the 2015 Paris summit is over: the German public is now ready to take decisive steps to tackle the climate problem. Note for version 2: In the original version, one of the tables showed values with a wrong signedness

Climate Engagement in a Digital Age: Exploring the Drivers of Participation in Climate Discourse Online in the Context of COP21

Various scholars underscore the importance of public engagement with climate change to successfully respond to the challenges of global warming. However, although online media provide various new opportunities to actively engage in climate discourse through sharing, evaluating or publishing climate-related content online, so far very little is known about the drivers of public participation in climate discourse online. Against this background this study tested a theoretical model on the effects of media and interpersonal communication on participation in climate discourse online using data from a representative online survey of German citizens (n=1,392) carried out while the climate summit in Paris 2015. Over all, the results show that receiving information on climate change from social media (social networks, Twitter, blogs), active information seeking online, and interpersonal conversations about COP21 strongly encourage participation in climate discourse online. Moreover, results provide relevant insights on the role of interest in climate politics, personal issue relevance and climate scepticism as preconditions of communication effects

Sense-Making of COP 21 among Rural and City Residents: The Role of Space in Media Reception

This chapter explores the role of space in making sense of climate change. The study compares how the United Nations’ summit resulting in the Paris Agreement in 2015 was received in an urban (Hamburg) and a rural setting (Otterndorf), both located in Northern Germany. In each setting, two focus group interviews were held (n = 15), one with long-term inhabitants and one with newly relocated citizens. Media coverage was criticized as depicting climate change as overly complex and distant. Use of the local newspaper was more frequent in the rural setting, but its reporting was seen as failing to provide a local angle to the climate summit. Space plays an important role: people in the rural setting—with the rising tides of the North Sea behind the dikes—felt more personally concerned by climate change. Furthermore, long-term inhabitants drew much stronger links between climate change and their region. The duration of stay in a certain setting thus turns out to moderate the influence of space on interpretations of climate change

Limited Learning Under Low Ceilings - Explaining influences on learning about climate politics from media use and interpersonal communication

Abstract A basic understanding of climate politics is necessary for citizens to assess their government’s policies on mitigating and adapting to climate change. However, research on knowledge about climate change has focused on causes and consequences of climate change rather than climate politics. Even less research has focused on the learning process rather than knowledge. Therefore, this study explores which factors influence learning about climate politics from media use and interpersonal communication. We test a set of factors related to the individual respondent and the type of information sources used. Data from a three-month panel survey conducted in the context of the 2015 UN climate conference in Paris (COP21) is analyzed using hierarchical regression analyses. The strongest explanatory factor is prior knowledge – which, in contrast to the knowledge gap hypothesis, makes learning less likely. The most plausible explanation for this ceiling effect is a lack of background information offered in the most widely used journalistic media. Keywords Knowledge acquisition, Panel survey, media effects, climate change, knowledge ga

Public opinion at a tipping point: Germany's path to engaging with climate protection

A follow-up study to Brüggemann et al. (2017), The appeasement effect of a United Nations climate summit on the German public Abstract Heat waves occurring around the world, outspoken warnings from scientists, international climate ac-tivism, and ensuing political debates on climate protection have ensured that climate change has finally caught the public’s attention. This comparative analysis of public opinion during three UN climate sum-mits illustrates the awakening of public awareness of and an increased willingness to actively engage with climate change, probably as the cumulative effect of this combination of events. Comparing cli-mate change awareness, communicative engagement, knowledge, attitudes, and climate-friendly be-haviour during the 2015 (n = 1,477), 2018 (n = 1,044) and 2019 (n = 1,000) UN climate summits, we find major and consistently positive changes in various forms of active engagement with the issue. These results indicate that the appeasement effect observed in an earlier study during the 2015 Paris summit is over: the German public is now ready to take decisive steps to tackle the climate problem