The Evolution of Data Journalism: A Case Study of Australia

Abstract

This article investigates how and why data journalism has evolved in Australia. Using semi-structured interviews with Australian data journalists, we examine how they view their role in news organisations; the structure of Australian data journalism within and beyond Australian newsrooms; and how their practice has changed and the factors that drive this. This study finds that there has been a decline in larger projects and in exploratory dashboards, as well as in the number of active data journalists in Australia. However, there remains a small core of data journalists alongside some moves to normalise data into everyday reporting. This suggests that rather than purely a story of decline, t..