Data Journalism in Turkey: Developing a Scale and Measuring Journalists’ Skills

Data journalism has recently emerged as an important method of news gathering and editing in journalism. For data journalism -which includes the process of producing news from data- journalists need to have various skills and competencies. As a result of the literature review, it is observed that th...

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Main Authors: Seçil Özay, Serkan Bayrakcı
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: İlmi Etüdler Derneği (İLEM) 2022-12-01
Series:İnsan & Toplum
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.insanvetoplum.org/sayilar/12-4/m0666
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author Seçil Özay
Serkan Bayrakcı
author_facet Seçil Özay
Serkan Bayrakcı
author_sort Seçil Özay
collection DOAJ
description Data journalism has recently emerged as an important method of news gathering and editing in journalism. For data journalism -which includes the process of producing news from data- journalists need to have various skills and competencies. As a result of the literature review, it is observed that the required skills and competencies for data journalism have not been determined precisely, and in this regard, there is a lack of quantitative studies to measure these skills and competencies of data journalism. This study aims to develop a unique scale that will reveal the data journalism skills of news producers. For this purpose, a data journalism scale has been developed through an online survey applied to news producers registered with the Turkish Press Agency (BIK). As a result of the item pool, expert views, and the scale application stages, it is understood that data journalism skills can be measured with a 2-factor structure: “data skills and tools” and “journalism skills.” The Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient for the overall 21-item data journalism scale was calculated as 0.856, the data skills and tools factor as 0.883, and the journalism skill factor as 0.821. As a result of the research, it has been determined that while the journalism skills of the news producers are at a high level, their competence in data processing is low. In this sense -as a result of the study- a revision is recommended in both academic and professional training curriculum to include data collection, analysis and visualization skills that will improve data skills of news producers.
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issn 2146-7099
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language English
publishDate 2022-12-01
publisher İlmi Etüdler Derneği (İLEM)
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spelling doaj-art-4e7c6f846b0143f9892f3a78550d41cc2025-08-20T01:56:57Zengİlmi Etüdler Derneği (İLEM)İnsan & Toplum2146-70992602-27452022-12-01124749810.12658/M0666Data Journalism in Turkey: Developing a Scale and Measuring Journalists’ SkillsSeçil Özay0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0695-8258Serkan Bayrakcı1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3817-1927Marmara UniversityMarmara UniversityData journalism has recently emerged as an important method of news gathering and editing in journalism. For data journalism -which includes the process of producing news from data- journalists need to have various skills and competencies. As a result of the literature review, it is observed that the required skills and competencies for data journalism have not been determined precisely, and in this regard, there is a lack of quantitative studies to measure these skills and competencies of data journalism. This study aims to develop a unique scale that will reveal the data journalism skills of news producers. For this purpose, a data journalism scale has been developed through an online survey applied to news producers registered with the Turkish Press Agency (BIK). As a result of the item pool, expert views, and the scale application stages, it is understood that data journalism skills can be measured with a 2-factor structure: “data skills and tools” and “journalism skills.” The Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient for the overall 21-item data journalism scale was calculated as 0.856, the data skills and tools factor as 0.883, and the journalism skill factor as 0.821. As a result of the research, it has been determined that while the journalism skills of the news producers are at a high level, their competence in data processing is low. In this sense -as a result of the study- a revision is recommended in both academic and professional training curriculum to include data collection, analysis and visualization skills that will improve data skills of news producers.https://www.insanvetoplum.org/sayilar/12-4/m0666data journalismdatadata skillsjournalismscale developmentdata journalism scale
spellingShingle Seçil Özay
Serkan Bayrakcı
Data Journalism in Turkey: Developing a Scale and Measuring Journalists’ Skills
İnsan & Toplum
data journalism
data
data skills
journalism
scale development
data journalism scale
title Data Journalism in Turkey: Developing a Scale and Measuring Journalists’ Skills
title_full Data Journalism in Turkey: Developing a Scale and Measuring Journalists’ Skills
title_fullStr Data Journalism in Turkey: Developing a Scale and Measuring Journalists’ Skills
title_full_unstemmed Data Journalism in Turkey: Developing a Scale and Measuring Journalists’ Skills
title_short Data Journalism in Turkey: Developing a Scale and Measuring Journalists’ Skills
title_sort data journalism in turkey developing a scale and measuring journalists skills
topic data journalism
data
data skills
journalism
scale development
data journalism scale
url https://www.insanvetoplum.org/sayilar/12-4/m0666
work_keys_str_mv AT secilozay datajournalisminturkeydevelopingascaleandmeasuringjournalistsskills
AT serkanbayrakcı datajournalisminturkeydevelopingascaleandmeasuringjournalistsskills