Research on the Influence of Data Journalism on the Diffusion of Scientific Culture

Ren Ruijuan1, Huang Chuxin2

1 Journalism and Communication College of Hebei University, HBU, Baoding, China

2 Journalism Studies Department of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, CASS, Beijing, China

Abstract: Starting with the function and significance of scientific culture to the scientific community, this paper analyzes how the scientific cultural ideas and norms spread from the scientific community to the masses, combining the value of information and the law of communication, it finds that the data journalism coincides with the function of scientific culture and the historic mission through the analysis of the idea, structure, processes, attributes and final story telling of the data journalism. Data journalism has the function of accelerating the spreading speed of the scientific culture conception and institutional norms from the scientific community to the masses, and it is convenient to popularize the scientific culture conception and institutional norms of the common body to the public in the mass community. Therefore, this article attempts to apply the conception of scientific culture and institutional norms to the design ideas of data journalism through cases study, and penetrates them to the whole process of data collecting, data processing, data visualizing, data interacting and other production of data journalism. The article tries to present them with the words and charts, in order to widely disseminate and communicate with the public through data journalism. Finally, this article concludes that the data journalism can be the bridge tower of the dissemination of scientific culture, and the data journalism is an excellent information carrier and communication tool for the promotion of the scientific cultural literacy among the public.

1. Introduction: The Characteristics of Information and the Law of Information Dissemination

1) The Characteristics of Information

(1) The objectivity and universality of information

The existence of information is objective, everything in the objective world is constantly moving and changing, and shows different characteristics and differences. Information is everywhere and is always there.

(2) Convertibility and transferability of information

Any information must be represented by a material carrier. The invariance of information in transforming its carrier makes it possible for information to be transformed from one form to another. In order to realize its value, information must go through the movement process of starting from the source, relying on the information carrier to be spread out, until it reaches the sink.

(3) Information sharing and exploitability

Information sharing mainly refers to the same content can be mastered and used by two or more users at the same time. For the same information, different value and utility can be found because of the different experience, status and knowledge level of the recipient. Therefore, information also has certain exploitable nature.

2) The Essence of Information Dissemination

(1) Information dissemination is the way to realize information value

Information science claims that information, as a unity of meaning and symbols, spiritual content and material carrier, cannot be expressed without symbols, while symbols leaving meaning are just some inexplicable substances, neither of which can cause social interaction alone. The function and function of information can only be realized through this kind of social interaction, which is essentially a communication activity. That is, information must rely on communication activities to realize its value.

(2) Information dissemination is the symbolic expression of information content

Information dissemination, as an activity, mainly includes information content, information symbols, information sources, information lodging, channels, information dissemination methods and other elements. Information content reflects the nature of information. It is the core of information dissemination, the core of information value, and the first element of information dissemination. Information symbol is the carrier of information content and the substitute and conversion of information content. The advantages and disadvantages of the symbol system will affect the expression of information content.

2. Data Journalism Coincides with Scientific Culture

1) Scientific Culture

In the three levels of culture: the level of physical appliances, the level of institutional norms, and the level of ideological concepts, this paper should pay attention to the level of institutional norms and ideological concepts. Scientific culture embodies the spiritual temperament of science and scientific community, and is the cultural standard and symbol of science. Scientific culture is the scientific life form and attitude of the scientific community in scientific activities, or the aggregation of the attitude and paradigm of scientific activities that the scientists consciously and unconsciously follow. Scientific culture takes science as the carrier, contains the natural endowment and nature of science, and reflects the spiritual temperament of the scientific field and the scientific community which is cultivated together in this field. Therefore, scientific culture is the cultural standard and symbol of science. Compared with sub-cultures such as art and religion, the history of science and culture is much shorter. However, science and culture are deeply embedded in science and obscure in the world. It can imperceptibly infiltrate people’s thoughts and psychology, and even shape public thinking mode. Therefore, the promotion of scientific culture can promote the rational thinking of the public and promote the progress and perfection of human society.

2) Data Journalism

Data journalism is an extension of ‘computer aided journalism report’ and ‘accurate journalism’. In the current large data horizon, assisted journalism reporting is far more than a computer, sensors, UAVs and other assisted reporting tools. In the ‘Internet+’ information environment, online and offline integration, User Generated Content (UGC) has greatly increased, which has changed the mode of production and dissemination of traditional journalism. If accurate journalism is more from the professional perspective of the media, it is seeking to use data to enhance the accuracy and accuracy of reporting. Obviously, the data journalism is more from the perspective of users, to explore the meaning of data for users; and users from the passive acceptance of journalism to active access, participation in production, they occupy an important position in the production of data journalism. From the scope of influence, the concept of accurate journalism was proposed by Philip Meyer. Its dissemination and practice mainly in the United States, but also in other countries around the world, but the scope and scope of influence is limited. Data journalism is not a concept proposed by a single scholar. It springs up among journalists around the world and has a broader impact (Ren Ruijuan, Bai Gui, 2015).

The essence of journalism is information, and data journalism is a new way of making and presenting journalism. Under the ‘Internet+’information environment, data journalism must also have ‘Internet+’ propagation characteristics under the information environment.

(1) The essential attribute of journalism is its information attribute. According to the objective attribute of information, journalism also has the objective attribute. Using the natural objectivity of data and emphasizing the information attribute of journalism, the paradox of journalism objectivity in journalism can be corrected and interpreted. Information sharing nondestructiveness and polymorphism lays the data foundation for the multi-channel and diversified dissemination of data journalism, and is the premise and basis for vividly interpreting data.

(2) The visual expression of data in data journalism, the viewpoints or stories presented are more in line with the psychological habits of human beings to read and receive information, which makes data journalism more easily accepted by the audience. The visual narrative mode of data journalism will make the presentation of journalism content more concrete and vivid. The combination of scene personalized sharing and other elements will make data journalism insert wings.

(3) The polymorphism and non-destructive sharing of information provide theoretical basis for the interactive, multi-channel and multi-touch network chain transmission of data journalism.

3) ‘Internet+’ Propagation Path Characteristics of Data Journalism in the Environment

The one-to-many broadcast situation in the mass communication environment is the one-way non-feedback mode of mass communication. In the ‘Internet+’ information environment, the release of information presents the characteristics of multi-source: the decentralization of information sources, and the interactive way to make multi-touch chain communication widely sought after. The way users access information mainly includes thematic communities and friends communities. The core reason is the self-organization of information and individualization of information users’ needs under the current information environment. The self-organizing overlap of personalized needs and information forms the network interactive transmission of information, that is, the network interactive multi-point chain transmission, which has the characteristics of real-time dynamic and multidirectional interaction. The dissemination of data journalism is summarized as follows:

(1) Two-way low feedback transmission

The disseminator disseminates information to the recipient and receives a small amount of feedback. That is to say, the producer of the‘transmitter’ data journalism releases the data journalism to the ‘recipient’, and the audience reads the journalism and feeds back a small amount of information to the media. The most common is to publish data journalism directly on their own websites for the audience to read, and provide comments, comments, messages and other interactive feedback functions.

(2) Multidirectional interactive propagation path

Information communicator and receiver interact with each other. The earliest and most influential Pro Pulica journalism organization is a non-profit online journalism site and an outstanding pioneer in data journalism. Unlike other media, where data journalism is mostly represented by charts and data maps, Pro Pulica focuses on journalism applications. It is good at collecting data with users. In 2013, Pro Pulica launched a survey called The Price of an Internship, which collected a large amount of research-worthy user data. Such interactive dissemination, dissemination of information will allow the audience to quickly accept and timely feedback to the effect of the disseminator. Such circular dissemination not only achieves the pre-dissemination effect, but also allows the disseminator to enrich and improve their own dissemination content. This kind of interactive communication breaks the traditional linear and single static transmission characteristics of the report, so that the audience from passive acceptance to active participation, to create a custom space for the audience.

(3) Customized propagation path

In the ‘Internet+’ information environment, information is carried out between specific communicators and recipients. Customized communication is based on the needs of the audience to provide suitable content for the audience. To maximize the different objectives and resources of different customers, the Guardian’s customization business also needs to share revenue. These orientations are generally targeted at specific groups of people, research scholars, media reporters and enterprises. The advantage of this kind of communication is that both sides can meet their respective needs to the greatest extent, and the communication effect is ideal.

3. Data Journalism Coincides with Scientific Culture

(1) Authenticity and objectivity

Data journalism includes the process of topic selection, data acquisition, analysis and presentation. Once completed, data journalism contains not only the original material of journalism facts, that is, the factual information (data) of journalism’s free and non-disseminated state, but also the factual information of journalism which is reflected through the cognition of the disseminator. After that, it enters the state of acceptance of communication—the visualization of data after the process of analysis, mining and front-end design of journalism fact data, the communication state of network interaction or personalized push, and even the interactive design. And the audience’s personal data or opinions directly as journalism material—data, real-time participation in production and presentation, that is, the state of non-dissemination and dissemination of two in one. This two in one deduction explains the essence of information attribute as data journalism. In this way, the theory of journalism reaction (subjectivity) has been greatly weakened, and the attribute of information (objectivity) has been greatly enhanced, thus the objectivity and persuasiveness of data journalism have been greatly increased. The object and content of scientific culture are real rather than illusory. Scientific culture is rooted in the real object of study and the careful logic of research in the field of science.

(2) Skepticism and criticism

Science and culture are particularly strong rational and positive culture; doubt and criticism are the life of science and culture and the internal driving force of the development of science and culture; reliability (i.e. credibility) reputation is the primary personal asset in science and culture. Data journalism requires not only official data but also UGC data to provide storytelling material(data), and requires the declaration and annotation of true and reliable data sources and the presentation of data cleaning process, data cleaning tools and methods require transparency, not hands-on; data analysis requires scientific and reasonable. We should not make assumptions and speculations, and objectively explain the relationship between great journalism events and individuals. So the two coincide.

(3) Diversified interpretation

Front-end design of data journalism, such as visualization, personalization, scene, is an important element in the presentation and dissemination of data journalism. The data objectively presents the unprocessed material of journalism content in the natural state, unlike traditional journalism which is directly summarized or described by reporters’ reasoning and deduction, reporters are the descriptors or narrators of traditional journalism’s unprocessed state. Sowing state. In data journalism production, the reporter’s role is transformed into the analyst and digger of journalism facts (data), and becomes the narrator or narrator of journalism stories. This journalism story is obtained on the basis of data, or the story is narrated with data analysis as the carrier or presentation tool. Data journalism transforms journalists’ identities into interpreter analysts who influence journalism factual information. The change of the role of journalist undoubtedly changes the subjectivity of journalism communication, and this change is based on data as the premise or carrier, objectivity greatly enhanced, traditional reporters from story tellers to data interpreters, leading the public to understand the objective facts (interpretation of data) faithful guide!

To sum up, science and culture are universal, public and shared; science and culture are autonomous, initiative and non-historic; science and culture are the arena of diverse opinions and their interpretation, the contexts of argument and refutation institutionalization; reliability(or credibility) is the primary personal asset in science and culture. Peer review is the key system of scientific culture, which has some ethical implications, especially honesty first. All these coincide with the data journalism, or the data journalism coincides with the concept of science and culture, which is convenient to condense and explain the logical symbols and ideas of the process of scientific and cultural verification, and meets the various needs of the presentation and dissemination of science and culture. The essential attribute of data journalism corresponds to the symbolic expression of scientific and cultural transmission. Therefore, the dissemination of data journalism must conform to such a law of dissemination, as is the dissemination of the data journalism entity itself, which contains the content of scientific and cultural dissemination.

4. The Spread and Diffusion of Scientific Culture from Scientific Community to Public Group

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1) The Essence of Dissemination of Scientific Culture

The core idea of the diffusion and dissemination of scientific culture is to transplant the scientific and cultural concepts and institutional norms to the public, that is, to let the public understand scientists and scientific activities. It emphasizes that the public can understand, communicate and question science as a human cultural activity. Therefore, the diffusion and transplantation of science and culture need to rely on the interpersonal communication between specific groups of scientists and the public and other types of communication practice.

2) The Spread of Scientific Culture and its Legal Protection

The diffusion and dissemination of scientific culture emphasizes the diffusion degree and dissemination effect of the concept and institutional norms of the scientific community in the public. That is, the purpose of scientific and cultural communication is to promote public understanding of the cause of science, break the barrier between the cause of science and the public, and promote understanding and communication between the public and scientists in terms of scientific ideas and ideas, norms and methods. This is the core content stipulated in the science popularization law of our country. In fact, these not only conform to the principles of science popularization activities, ‘carry forward the spirit of science, disseminate scientific ideas, introduce scientific methods and popularize scientific knowledge’, but also conform to the principles of proximity and importance in the five nature of journalism value. They are also good applications of the proximity and innovation principles in communication.

3) ‘Internet+’ the Spread of Science and Culture of Traditional Media in the Media Environment

Dissemination of science and culture has rich practical basis and content. The progress of modern media technology, especially the role and status of the public in science popularization activities under the Internet+ ‘information environment’ is increasingly prominent. From the perspective of communication effect, or from the perspective of interaction between the public and scientists in the process of communication, the media are the main body and hub in the dissemination of scientific culture.

In the ‘Internet+’ information environment, almost all the major media in the world today have created their own network platforms and their APP or other media applications. The information mirroring of their journalism reports or media reports occurs almost simultaneously in the ‘Internet+’ information environment. M. McLuhan, a famous Canadian communication scholar, put forward the idea that ‘media is information’ as early as the 1960s. As a link between science and the public, media representative organizations (media) play an extraordinarily important role. In Europe and the United States, the birthplace of science communication and the main emerging countries, science communication is mainly done by the media and scientists. For example, the New York Times has a lot of coverage of scientific activities, reporters often interview scientists with questions and their own understanding, reveal scientific events, the stories behind scientific achievements and their social impact through personal interviews, as evidenced by Hainan’s New York Times 50 Scientists. However, there are also scientific and cultural communication programs in the major domestic media into the pursuit of mysterious errors, such as CCTV’s Water Monster Survey and Phoenix Satellite TV’s Chinese Fengshui Culture and other programs.

5. Data Journalism Carries the Advantages of Scientific and Cultural Dissemination and Diffusion Mission

The current ‘Internet+’ information environment, data journalism coincides with the concept of scientific culture and the way of communication. Its visualization, interaction, multidirectional interactive communication with the communication and communication between the communicator and the audience advocated by science and culture, as well as the interaction between the audience and the audience, are becoming more and more scientific and cultural. The important work of communication is not just a part of the past as a detail or tool. Another important change is that the application of data journalism to new technologies, compared with traditional journalism, changes in communication channels, interactive technology development and other changes in communication patterns caused by changes in the dissemination of science and culture and promote more influence. Thirdly, based on the discovery of the implicit relationship in the data and the intersection of the past and the future, nature and society, science and technology, data journalism is an ideal tool for communicating scientific culture with the public and helping the public understand science. The following case illustrates four distinct advantages of data journalism in disseminating science and culture.

1) The Visualization Presentation of Data Journalism Reduces the Public’s Difficulty in Understanding Science

For a long time, science and technology journalism is facing problems that are difficult to understand and cannot be understood by the public. Data visualization makes up for the shortcomings of difficult reading caused by obscure content of popular science reports. Visualization is one of the distinct characteristics and advantages of data journalism.

Visualization can integrate different stages of data and present it in a graph, which is conducive to mining the details of journalism reports. Using data visualization reporting method can conveniently display the relationship between journalism facts, use graphics to interpret journalism facts in depth and shallowly, and enhance the readability and appeal of journalism. The visualization of data journalism expands the way of journalism narration, making boring numbers interesting in the spread of science and culture, and using data journalism to disseminate hot issues in the field of science and culture to the public has a significant advantage. As the Guardian reported on the riots in London in August 2011, the timeline shows how a protest spread from northern London to all of England into violence. Reporters use Google maps and data analysis to fuse data, plotting where the riots occurred to show the details of the incident, and then exploring why a parade evolved from a controversial shooting spree to a nationwide riot. The riot map in the data journalism constitutes data journalism. Important clues.

Using data visualization to report journalism can make it easy for the audience to understand the process of event change and save a lot of space. There are many vivid examples, such as‘a picture that teaches you to read. . . ’ Series. Another example is Tencent’s special report on influenza H7N9. For example, Encyclopedia Illustration, Influenza Notes describes in detail the symptoms and characteristics of influenza in graphical form. In order to show the distribution area of influenza more clearly, Tencent has produced a distribution map of H7N9 avian influenza in China. In the map, the distribution area of influenza is marked, and the number of symbols is added after the text description. The icon enables people to have a more intuitive understanding of the virus’s rampage.

2) Data Journalism Platform can Combine Data Analysis and Mining to Better Explain Scientific Knowledge and Scientific Laws

Net Ease Number Read and ‘The Shadow of Coal Dependence: More than Mine Accidents and Mist’ introduced in detail the serious consequences of coal dependence on health related knowledge. What the public really needs is the understanding and practice of knowledge. In the case, through the mining and processing of a large number of data through the website, the sublimation from information to knowledge can be completed. Only in this way can the new discoveries and new technological achievements in the field of science and technology be analyzed thoroughly and the public’s scientific and technological literacy be improved. Fully reveal the haze, coal dust and smoke will bring lung cancer, heart disease, stroke and other health threats. The article also quotes Greenpeace, an environmental group, as issuing a survey on the health effects of coal-fired power plants on residents, pointing out the number of deaths caused by PM2.5 in 2011. It is reported that the more the death toll is, the larger the circle area will be.

The advantage of data journalism is to show the change of the amount of journalism events. The application platform or data analysis makes the horizontal or vertical comparison of similar events, so that the report is in-depth and superficial. The platform can integrate different stages of data and present them in a graph. The data journalism network platform is helpful for mining the details of scientific communication reports. For example: Xinhua data journalism Cold Knowledge: Watch Law at the beginning of the monkey cartoon to tell the public what is the watch law, instead of the previous definition of the first reporting model, so that the public easier to understand and accept. Then, with the specific example of parent-child education, the Enlightenment of watch law is drawn, and the transformation from abstract to concrete is completed.

3) Data Journalism can Effectively Combine Hot Topics with Predictive Reports

At present, more and more media use data journalism to discuss hot topics, and forecast the future situation of events. The dissemination of science and culture requires that the report itself undertake the task of disseminate scientific and technological achievements and predict the future state. Therefore, in the field of science and culture dissemination, data journalism has obvious advantages. Xinhua data journalism geeks say the blockbuster article The Future, These Dark Technologies Are Coming Near You combines the world released at the Third World Internet Congress

6. Conclusion

Data Journalism has many advantages in the dissemination of science and culture, but there are few data news advertisements, long production cycle, technical requirements and other constraints. The website should increase the investment in the data news science and technology sector, change the click-through-only business philosophy, and look at data news in a long-term perspective. It is advantageous to apply the visual narrative expression of data news to the dissemination of science and culture;to expand the rational use of data, analysis and mining of data in the news data platform, and to reveal the connotation and laws of science to the public; and to apply the predictive function of data in the dissemination of science and culture, it is more convenient for the public to make predictive reports. Effective use of interactivity enables data journalism to successfully stimulate public participation in the spread of science and culture. In a word, data news has become the bridgehead of scientific and cultural communication and its role in the dissemination of scientific and cultural.

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