A Study On The Data Journalism Production In China's New Media Platforms

Nowadays,big data has become an important production factor on every sector of the information society.Under such background,the data-driven journalism,developed from information graph and computer-assisted reporting,has been introduced into the field of journalism and communication.In recent years,with the development of data technology and the prevalence of fragmented reading habit,the Chinese media has gradually begun the data journalism practice from traditional media to mobile client.Differing from the traditional news production process,the data journalism has formed its unique production characteristics especially with the interactive function of mobile client,which has attracted the attention from the journalism community.Thus,it is meaningful and valuable to study the data journalism production process on mobile client.On the basis of field theory,this paper aims to use the quantitative and qualitative method to study the data journalism production on journalism field and society field.This paper selects the 216 data news coverages on Meishuke from June 30th 2016 to June 30th 2017 and focuses on the team structure,data gathering,report topic and visualizing communication to review the production performance.With the results of content analysis,an in-depth interview with the chief editor of Meishuke has been conducted to explore the characteristics on the process of data journalism production and the interactive rule with the political field,economic field and cultural field.On the dimension of data journalism field,Meishuke has four characteristics on the production process.Firstly,there is an independent team with multi-skill talents,which has formed a regular working flow.Secondly,the data sources mainly come from the authorities including the government and other media.Thirdly,the coverage ranges from both home and abroad,which also varies on the news content and report function.Lastly,the visualizing communication follows the rule of media development and shares the characteristics of mobile client.From the perspective of society field,the political capital plays the role of gate keeper and interactor on the process of data journalism production.Although there is a rule to separate the newsroom and business division,the economic capital still has indirect effects on data news production.Meanwhile,the cultural capital always has an invisible effect on the selection of report topic and visualizing technology.In conclusion,during the development process of data journalism,Chinese media,on one hand,need to interact with society field to explore the value of data,improve the quality of data and widen the data sources channel.On the other hand,the data news production should take the feature of mobile client into consideration,which will help the news content to be accepted by the audiences.Furthermore,the interaction between news room and society field should be more reasonable to prevent the professional anomie.