A Study Of Global Data Journalism Narrative Strategies

In 2019,Sigma Awards made up for the closure of the former Global Data Journalism Awards and became one of the most prestigious global data journalism competition of the moment.The Sigma Awards have now been held for three years.The event is dedicated to giving global data journalism creators and creative teams a public platform for professional competition,data sharing and learning exchange.The research object of this paper is the shortlisted and winning works of the three editions of the Sigma Data Journalism Awards 2019-2022,with 242 independent works(including 26 winning works).Through a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods,the author conducts research and analysis on the statistical characteristics,narrative time and space,narrative subjects and perspectives,and narrative symbolic strategies of the shortlisted and winning works,in order to seek the current state of practice and narrative strategies of quality works of global data journalism.The study found that the shortlisted and winning works of the Sigma Data Journalism Award were published mainly in Europe and North America;the size and format of the publishing organizations were diverse and balanced;the news topics focused on the Covid-2019,public health,politics and crime;and the constructive significance of the news was remarkable.In addition,the narrative time and space of data journalism breaks through the original framework,and tells the real story of data journalism in a multi-level and multi-dimensional narrative space background under a non-linear narrative time.Thirdly,the narrative subject is dominated by the hidden narrator and the overt narrator,and the narrative perspective is dominated by the omniscient and omnipotent perspective,supplemented by the composite perspective;finally,the narrative symbolic strategies are diverse,divided into visual narrative,audible narrative and interactive narrative.The Sigma Data Journalism Award winning entry used advanced big data technology to mine and process massive amounts of news data,machine learning and 3D modeling,combined with narrative design,audio-visual language and interactive strategies to deliver more interesting,intuitive and comprehensive news information to readers.This paper analyses the narrative strategy characteristics,methods and presentation of the Sigma Data Journalism Awards winning works,which will help global data journalists and teams to better understand the existing high-quality data journalism works at the level of narrative strategy,as well as to enhance the communication and progress among international data journalism creators and creative teams.