Can journalists use data in order to produce better journalism? In this book, C.W. Anderson traces the genealogy of data journalism and its material and technological underpinnings, arguing that the use of data in news reporting is inevitably intertwined with national politics, the evolution of computable databases, and the history of professional scientific fields. This book shows how the changes in specifically journalistic understandings of evidence can help usthink through the current "digital data moment" in ways that go beyond simply journalism.

• Acknowledgements


• Chapter One: Introduction


• Chapter Two: The Idea of Data, Documents, and Evidence in Early 20th Century Journalism


• Chapter Three: Journalism Interprets, Sociology Scientizes: Boundary Work Between Empirical Occupations in the 1920s and Beyond


• Chapter Four: Context, Social Science, and the Birth of Precision Journalism


• Chapter Five: Precision Becomes Data


• Chapter Six: Databases, Stories, Databases: Narrative, Semantics, and Computational Journalism


• Chapter Seven: Three Overview Cases: Varieties of Information in the Digital Age


• Chapter Eight: Solidarity and Uncertainty


• Appendix: On Objects, Objectivity, and Method


• Primary Sources and Archives


• Bibliography


• Index

C.W. Anderson is Professor of Media and Communication at the University of Leeds. He studies journalism, politics, and how the production of public knowledge is being transformed in the digital age. He is the author, co-author, or co-editor of several books including Rebuilding the News, Remaking News (with Pablo Boczkowski), and News: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Michael Schudson and Len Downie).