The Practice of Data-Driven Journalism in Brazil: Between Disruption and the Reinstatement of Professional Values

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of metadiscourses used by professionals and institutions that practice data-driven journalism (DDJ) in Brazil. It aims to understand how they define this practice and seek autonomy within the journalistic field. We conducted an argumentative analysis of editorial texts from 15 news outlets and carried out in-depth interviews with 33 professionals in the field, which allowed us to identify three prevalent metadiscourses: (1) cyberactivism; (2) reinforcing traditional journalistic values; and (3) authority. Using boundary-work as a theoretical basis for the analyses we discovered that all the discourses in these self-referential texts expressed some degree of disruption in DDJ, especially regarding data and its ability to reshape the concept of news transparency and introduce the values and practices of hacktivism in journalism. These discourses also reinforce elements of continuity and suggest a conservative restoration of production routines, values, and conventions in journalism without changing the basic ideology of the profession. Added to highlighting the flexibility and demarcation of this profession’s boundaries, this article also identifies the repertoires and identities mobilized in these processes that give Brazilian data journalism a higher profile.

Keywords:

• Data-Driven Journalism
• discursive strategies
• boundary work
• data journalists
• argumentative analysis
• Brazil

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 After the Ministry of Health made the dissemination of epidemiological data on covid-19 difficult in Brazil, a group of 40 volunteers, which included data journalists, created an alternative channel to disseminate this data (https://brasil.io/covid19/). Traditional fact-checking agencies have increasingly incorporated DDJ tools to combat disinformation, especially propagated by public officials. Due to the lack of transparent data on environmental crimes, some independent projects use artificial intelligence to monitor, in real time, the frequency of fires and deforestation in protected areas and, from this, form alternative databases that challenge government versions.