Probabilistic Storytelling and Temporal Exigencies in Predictive Data Journalism

Pentzold, Christian; Fechner, Denise

doi:10.1080/21670811.2021.1878920

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…Trust in prospective coverage is especially relevant considering the growing scholarly engagement with news temporalities, and the future in particular (Ananny and Finn 2020 ; Neiger and Tenenboim-Weinblatt 2016 ; Pentzold and Fechner 2021 ). Increasing emphasis is being placed on the temporal aspects of journalism, demonstrating how journalists predict upcoming occurrences, potentially contributing to public self-fulfilling and self-defeating prophecies (Tenenboim-Weinblatt 2018 ).…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, they cannot verify such future-oriented assessments. Reporting on what has yet to occur thus transcends traditional journalistic principles (Ananny and Finn 2020 ; Pentzold and Fechner 2021 ; Vodanovic 2022 ) and may expose journalists’ own interpretations of what is reasonable and trustworthy. Future-oriented news discourse is therefore a paradigmatic case of news trust; one that aligns with the theoretical definition of trust as a future-oriented emotion (Luhmann 1979 ) and holds unique opportunities for understanding the role of trust in news production.…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To communicate the probability that a certain projection will realize, journalists employ uncertainty markers (Simmerling and Janich 2016 ) and use a variety of likelihood cues. These range from vague references (e.g., “could,” “possibly”) to more precise estimates (Pentzold and Fechner 2021 ; Tetlock and Gardner 2015 ), which can signify either a speculative or a substantiated stance, respectively. Shifting between assertiveness and tentativeness, probability may assist journalists with hedging less trustworthy estimations (Blom et al 2021 ; Simmerling and Janich 2016 ), while also endowing their stories with scientific rhetoric (Henke, Leissner, and Möhring 2020 ; Pentzold and Fechner 2021 ).…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

“You’d be Right to Indulge Some Skepticism”: Trust-building Strategies in Future-oriented News Discourse

et al. 2023

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This paper explores trust-building strategies in future-oriented news discourse, marked by a high degree of uncertainty. While current research mainly focuses on audiences’ perceptions of news credibility, this study addresses news trust from a production standpoint. We examine the trust-building efforts of media actors, focusing on their discursive labor within the context of election projections. Drawing on rich data from five election rounds in Israel and the US, we qualitatively analyzed 400 news texts and 400 tweets that were produced by 20 US and 20 Israeli media actors. This textual analysis was supplemented by 10 in-depth interviews with Israeli journalists. Our findings demonstrate three types of journalistic trust-building rhetoric in election coverage: facticity, authority, and transparency. These strategies result in a two-fold form of trust, which re-affirms traditional notions of accuracy and validity, while also challenging the ability of newspersons to obtain them in contemporary political and media cultures. Overall, these strategies hold unique opportunities and challenges for sustaining public trust in journalism and illuminate the complex communicative labor involved in building trust with news audiences. Our findings also highlight the importance of studying trust not only in relation to the past and the present, but also in future-oriented discourse.

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Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

“You’d be Right to Indulge Some Skepticism”: Trust-building Strategies in Future-oriented News Discourse

et al. 2023

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“…At some level, weather reporting as a kind of data journalism: some domains with a prospective orientation—like weather forecasting, election campaigns, sales and marketing, crime prevention, or economic modelling—have been profoundly changed by the unprecedented computing power (Pentzold and Fechner, 2021: 716).…”

Section: Research Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Danish public service online weather from 2005 to 2022: From meteorological data and information to leisurely commonality

Bødker,

Simonsen

2023

Media, Culture & Society

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This article combines two neglected elements within the history of online news: public service news sites and weather reporting, and it does so by utilising web archives, which – surprisingly – do not figure very prominently in journalism history. The two elements have – in isolation and in combination – at least in Denmark, become increasingly important as the online news sections of the two public service institutions Denmark’s Radio (DR) and TV2 consistently are among the most visited news sites and since reporting on the weather has gained in prominence and more recently, at least on DR TV, has become increasingly educational in its linking to issues of climate change. This article focusses on online news and conducts a historical analysis of the weather reporting on DR.dk from 2005 to 2022. The analysis seeks to balance the coding of journalistic texts with considerations of the online form of journalism, which here broadly means reading the webpage as a text. A key focus in the analysis is how meteorological data have been woven into cultural and social narratives, some of which are linked to climate change.

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“…As more data, technologies, and computational power become accessible to journalists, MayCotte (2015) foresaw the potential of predictive journalism in news making: “journalists will be able to orchestrate predictions and write tomorrow’s headlines and stories”. News organizations ventured into predictive journalism after recognizing the ability of predictive analytics to generate “pre-emptive knowledge” about the future and shape the formulation of knowledge claims in newsmaking ( Pentzold and Fechner, 2021 ).…”

Section: Background: Predictive Journalism In the Covid-19 Pandemicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting COVID: Understanding audience responses to predictive journalism via online comments

Allaham

Diakopoulos

2022

New Media & Society

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The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a global health crisis that stimulated journalists to frame their stories around predictive models and forecasts aiming to predict the future trend of the pandemic. This article examines the audience response to predictive journalism by qualitatively analyzing readers’ comments to articles covering COVID that were published in a small sample of mainstream media. Based on a thematic analysis of readers’ comments, this research contributes a typology of audience response types to the models incorporated in such predictive journalism. We elaborate on each of three primary themes—reflecting affective, action-oriented, and evaluative responses—and discuss the implications of our findings and the importance of expanding research to answer questions related to the role of predictive journalism in shaping affective response, encouraging action-oriented responses and collective planning around responsibility for taking future actions, and considering the ways in which supportive and critical comments triggered by the models may be harnessed to improve communication.

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Probabilistic Storytelling and Temporal Exigencies in Predictive Data Journalism

Cited by 8 publications

References 54 publications

“You’d be Right to Indulge Some Skepticism”: Trust-building Strategies in Future-oriented News Discourse

“You’d be Right to Indulge Some Skepticism”: Trust-building Strategies in Future-oriented News Discourse

Danish public service online weather from 2005 to 2022: From meteorological data and information to leisurely commonality

Predicting COVID: Understanding audience responses to predictive journalism via online comments

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