Journalism in the Data Age

Jingrong Tong is Senior Lecturer in Digital News Cultures at the University of Sheffield. Previously, she was Senior Lecturer in Digital News Cultures at Brunel University London and Lecturer in Media and Communication at the University of Leicester. She is also External Examiner for BA (Hons) Communication and Media at Bournemouth University (2018-2022). She has been working in journalism and news media for 22 years, first as a journalist then as an academic. Her work has appeared in prestigious peer-reviewed journals such as Digital Journalism, Journalism, Journalism Studies, Information, Communication & Society and Science Communication. She teaches widely on topics of journalism and digital media and across a range of journalism and media programmes, including undergraduate and postgraduate courses and supervising research and doctoral students. She is Associate Editor of the Chinese Journal of Communication and has served on the editorial boards of Digital Journalism and Journalism Studies. She is the author of two books: Investigative Journalism in China: Journalism, Power, and Society (2011 and 2012) and Investigative Journalism, Environmental Problems and Modernisation in China (2015), co-editor of Digital technology and journalism: An International Comparative Perspective (2017), and co-author of Tweeting the Environment #Brexit (2018) and The Brexit referendum on Twitter: A Mixed-Method Computational Analysis (2021). In her research, she uses qualitative research methods such as interviewing and critical discourse analysis as well as computational methods such as social network analysis and topic modelling. Her current research focuses on the impact of digital technology on journalism, social media analysis, political communication and environmental communication, with a particular interest in journalism and news/social media in the UK and China. She is working on a research project (funded by the British Academy/Leverhulme) that examines the political discourses and practice of media freedom in the UK since 2016.

• IntroductionThe Communication Environment in The Data AgeThe Crises of Quality JournalismOnline JournalismData JournalismAlgorithms, Automation and JournalismEntrepreneurial JournalismUnderstanding the AudienceJournalistic AutonomyJournalistic LegitimacyConclusion

Jingrong Tong has produced an excellent and very timely book on digital journalism.  It covers all of the main developments and areas of debate with outstanding clarity.  It provides a full and well-rounded picture of the central issues facing journalists in the digital age and will be an essential textbook for students studying journalism.