Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2007. / Adviser: Jerry Baldasty. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität zu München, 1987. / Also issued in print.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 60-66). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität zu München, 1987.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 60-66). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1972. / Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D)--Ohio State University, 1984. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 183-189). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center.

The following thesis examines and historicizes the assortment of tools and practices—material, epistemic, and institutional—that developed over the last century in U.S.-based newsrooms as a result of news organizations’ first sporadic, then increasingly conscious, attempts at incorporating data-driven methods of information gathering, classification, archiving, and distribution into their organizational operations. In its methods this thesis presents, first, a historical narrative that reaches from the early decades of the twentieth century into the early 2020s, and second, showcases empirical evidence through five case studies. Of the case studies one is historical and is explored in the third chapter through previously not consulted archival material. The other four are recent or current—two involved computational data collection and web scraping (seen in chapters four and five), one relied on ethnographic embedding, and one on interviews (mixed in with the previous two and also featured in chapters four and five). In its conclusion, the thesis will argue that, at the very least, current and future organizational histories of journalism ought to more readily take into account the approaches and findings of the histories of technology and the sociologies of scientific knowledge, especially because understanding the contemporary epistemic and technological intrusions of computer science, statistics, data science, and software development into journalism requires the exploration of both the parallels and fault lines between these domains. In its Conclusion, then, this thesis will speculate on the potential future trajectories that such convergences might take and asks hopefully generative questions, both analytical and (mildly) normative. These include: Can news organizations maintain a unique position among technology companies, intelligence services, and private data brokers in such a way that public and personal data can be responsibly collected, analyzed, and made transparent? Should the multi-lingual journalistic media corpus (text and images both) constitute a significant part of the training data used by generative language models and computer vision algorithms? Should investigative reporters work alongside computer scientists, statisticians, geographers, and data scientists, or should they incorporate the skills of the aforementioned domain knowledges into their own area of expertise? Does it benefit news organizations to rely on external data-analytic products for their work, or should they develop their own proprietary ones? And finally (and very broadly): What is the role of news stories today in not only the traditional sense of framing and giving account of current events but as automatically becoming the data that are inevitably ingested into the machines that “read,” “make sense of," and invariably produce much of the public intelligence on which humans rely?

Today�s globalized network communication initiates new interactive formats, transforming not only the dissemination, but - increasingly - the production of news. The �one-way� flow of news from a news outlet to the audience has been replaced by a network structure. Following Castells� concept of the �network� (1996) as the central model of information structures, I perpetuate this paradigmatic shift and suggest that networks also transform the professional journalism sphere in many world regions. A revised sphere of journalism is taking shape in which an increasingly global flow of news is evolving and a multiple platform structure of journalism is taking shape in which boundaries between traditional media outlets of print, radio, and television and between national and �foreign� journalism are blurring. Furthermore, I argue that a globalized journalistic network sphere is emerging which involves �traditional� journalistic outlets and bloggers, media activists, so-called citizen journalists, or user-generated content providers alike. These new journalistic spheres of connectivity establish new (and continuous) links between journalists, their sources as well as their audiences. This fundamental change creates new professional levels of connectivity on one hand and on the other, has severe strategic and organizational implications for the management of print, broadcast and online news outlets. Within this new �network� sphere of journalistic practice, the roles of journalistic outlets change. This work suggests a framework that helps to understand journalistic organization today, with innovative work structures based on digital technologies transforming the character and in effect substituting the model of �top-down� journalism models by a model that is far more complicated. I argue that within an evolving global news sphere, information flows are multidirectional. Decentralization and non-linearity become the key parameters defining news flows at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The character of this network in the journalism sphere is transnational, crossmedia, and cross professions. Based on results of thirteen qualitative interviews with media practitioners in Germany, the US and the UK, I argue that a new geography of journalism is taking shape in which journalistic outlets are being transformed into nodes. These nodes are arranged in a dense net of information gathers, producers and disseminators and the interactive connections among them constitute what I want to call network journalism.

Today�s globalized network communication initiates new interactive formats, transforming not only the dissemination, but - increasingly - the production of news. The �one-way� flow of news from a news outlet to the audience has been replaced by a network structure. Following Castells� concept of the �network� (1996) as the central model of information structures, I perpetuate this paradigmatic shift and suggest that networks also transform the professional journalism sphere in many world regions. A revised sphere of journalism is taking shape in which an increasingly global flow of news is evolving and a multiple platform structure of journalism is taking shape in which boundaries between traditional media outlets of print, radio, and television and between national and �foreign� journalism are blurring. Furthermore, I argue that a globalized journalistic network sphere is emerging which involves �traditional� journalistic outlets and bloggers, media activists, so-called citizen journalists, or user-generated content providers alike. These new journalistic spheres of connectivity establish new (and continuous) links between journalists, their sources as well as their audiences. This fundamental change creates new professional levels of connectivity on one hand and on the other, has severe strategic and organizational implications for the management of print, broadcast and online news outlets. Within this new �network� sphere of journalistic practice, the roles of journalistic outlets change. This work suggests a framework that helps to understand journalistic organization today, with innovative work structures based on digital technologies transforming the character and in effect substituting the model of �top-down� journalism models by a model that is far more complicated. I argue that within an evolving global news sphere, information flows are multidirectional. Decentralization and non-linearity become the key parameters defining news flows at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The character of this network in the journalism sphere is transnational, crossmedia, and cross professions. Based on results of thirteen qualitative interviews with media practitioners in Germany, the US and the UK, I argue that a new geography of journalism is taking shape in which journalistic outlets are being transformed into nodes. These nodes are arranged in a dense net of information gathers, producers and disseminators and the interactive connections among them constitute what I want to call network journalism.