Developing Data Stories as Enhanced Publications in Digital Humanities

This paper discusses the development of data-driven stories and the editorial processes underlying their production. Such ‘data stories’ have proliferated in journalism but are also increasingly developed within academia. Although ‘data stories’ lack a clear definition, there are similarities between the processes that underlie journalistic and academic data stories. However, there are also differences, specifically when it comes to epistemological claims. In this paper data stories as phenomenon and their use in journalism and in the Humanities form the context for the editorial protocol developed for CLARIAH Media Suite Data Stories

Data Stories in CLARIAH: Developing a Research Infrastructure for Storytelling with Heritage and Culture Data

Online stories, from blog posts to journalistic articles to scientific publications, are commonly illustrated with media (e.g. images, audio clips) or statistical summaries (e.g. tables and graphs). Such “illustrations” are the result of a process of acquiring, parsing, filtering, mining, representing, refining and interacting with data [3]. Unfortunately, such processes are typically taken for granted and seldom mentioned in the story itself. Although recently a wide variety of interactive data visualisation techniques have been developed (see e.g., [6]), in many cases the illustrations in such publications are static; this prevents different audiences from engaging with the data and analyses as they desire. In this paper, we share our experiences with the concept of “data stories” that tackles both issues, enhancing opportunities for outreach, reporting on scientific inquiry, and FAIR data representation [9]. In journalism data stories are becoming widely accepted as the output of a process that is in many aspects similar to that of a computational scholar: gaining insights by analyzing data sets using (semi-)automatized methods and presenting these insights using (interactive) visualizations and other textual outputs based on data [4] [7] [5] [6]. In the context of scientific output, data stories can be regarded as digital “publications enriched with or linking to related research results, such as research data, workflows, software, and possibly connections among them” [1]. However, as infrastructure for (peerreviewed) enhanced publications is in an early stage of development (see e.g., [2]), scholarly data stories are currently often produced as blog posts, discussing a relevant topic. These may be accompanied by illustrations not limited to a single graph or image but characterized by different forms of interactivity: readers can, for instance, change the perspective or zoom level of graphs, or cycle through images or audio clips. Having experimented successfully with various types and uses of data stories1 in the CLARIAH2 project, we are working towards a more generic, stable and sustainable infrastructure to create, publish, and archive data stories. This includes providing environments for reproduction of data stories and verification of data via “close reading”. From an infrastructure perspective, this involves the provisioning of services for persistent storage of data (e.g. triple stores), data registration and search (registries), data publication (SPARQL end-points, search-APIs), data visualization, and (versioned) query creation. These services can be used by environments to develop data stories, either or not facilitating additional data analysis steps. For data stories that make use of data analysis, for example via Jupyter Notebooks [8], the infrastructure also needs to take computational requirements (load balancing) and restrictions (security) into account. Also, when data sets are restricted for copyright or privacy reasons, authentication and authorization infrastructure (AAI) is required. The large and rich data sets in (European) heritage archives that are increasingly made interoperable using FAIR principles, are eminently qualified as fertile ground for data stories. We therefore hope to be able to present our experiences with data stories, share our strategy for a more generic solution and receive feedback on shared challenges

Production studies and documentary participants: a method

It was only after I finished my PhD thesis that I learned that my research related to production studies. Departing from the question of ethics in documentary filmmaking, I investigated both the perspective of filmmakers and participants on ethical issues in the documentary filmmaking practice, using quantitative and qualitative research methods respectively (Sanders, 2012). For the latter, I extensively interviewed four participants who had participated in documentary film projects. The analysis of the participants’ interview accounts resulted not just in an understanding of their take on ethical issues in documentary filmmaking, but also in an understanding of the complexity of their involvement in documentary film projects, which included contributing unsolicited content and the taking on of production responsibilities, such as arranging for locations and recruiting additional participants. Hence, I theorized them as co-creators, who contribute to their own representation in the resulting film. My research was firmly situated within documentary film studies and I refrained from including perspectives from media ethics and journalism ethics explicitly, arguing that the former is too general and the latter too specific. I also excluded discussion of other—more or less documentary—formats such as docu-soaps and reality TV. Instead, I approached documentary filmmaking as an artistic practice of its own

Film and television production in the Netherlands - a comparison between three medium-sized companies.

This paper discusses the different ways in which production companies established in similar ways can develop over time. It takes three Dutch private film- and television companies as cases. The research forms part of the Dutch component of a European partnership project, Success in the Film and Television Industries (SiFTI), which aims to explore and explain what characterises the organizational culture of successful film and television companies, understanding ‘successful’ to encompass critical reputation, a degree of longevity (have been operating for at least five years) and economic turnover. Film production in the Netherlands has from the beginning been organised through private enterprises; television production until the 1980s has been dominated by integrated public service organisations. Since the 1990s a large number of private production companies have been established, with varying degrees of success. Many companies are small or medium-sized, but enter in network relationships with a range of others, including with freelancers, commissioning editors, distributors and other production companies, in what has been called flexible specialisation of the film industry (Lorentzen 2009). This network organisation has a global dimension, as the most successful companies are often bought out by foreign multimedia conglomerates. Recently this was the case with Eyeworks. In this paper we compare three production companies. One company produces art-house feature films as well as fiction for children and youth. The second company produces a large range of television programmes: reality programmes and fiction as well as documentaries and game shows. The third company specialises in children’s television, educational and cultural programmes. All three companies were established in the 1990s by two persons. They are successful in terms of having survived in a competitive market since the 1990s and in terms of having received critical acclaim for their productions. Still the way they developed is very different. In this paper we will discuss various factors that relate to the companies’ developments. We will look at their internal conditions (the companies culture, identity, and strategies), and their networks (interactions with freelancers, other producers, television channels, distributors and public funding bodies). We will also look at how the owners and employees reflect on their organisations (the origin of the companies and their internal organization), on their network, and their development within it, and on success and their achievements in terms of their own success criteria. This paper is based on interviews with owners/employees of the companies, observations of their work environment, and textual analysis of their webpages as ‘deep texts’ (Caldwell 2008). Caldwell, J.T. (2008). Production Culture: industrial reflexivity and critical practice in film and television. Durham: Duke University Press. Lorenzen, M. (2009). Creativity in context. Content, cost, chance and collection in the organization of the film industry. In: A.C. Pratt & P. Jeffcutt (eds.) Creativity, Innovation and the Cultural Economy. London and New York: Routledge