VISUAL JOURNALISM IN HUNGARY

Krisztián Szabó

Krisztián Szabó

Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE)

Átlátszó

ATLO

Visual (data) Journalism in hungary

The discourse on data journalism practices

Research methods and results

Conclusion

data journalism, data-driven journalism, database journalism, computational journalism, data visualization (Kalatzi et al. 2018)

news graphics (Cairo 2017)

(news) infographics (Weber 2017, Rendgen 2019)

what is...?

Data journalism can be defined as the process of extracting useful information from data, writing articles based on the information and embedding visualizations (interacting in some cases) in the articles that help the readers understand the significance of the story or allow them to pinpoint data that relate to them.

Veglis & Bratsas (2017)

GDJ vs IDJ

Alberto Cairo – Nerd Journalism (2017, pp.215-216)

Research methods

Content analysis

Interviews

Top five most visited Hungarian online news sites*
index.hu
24.hu
origo.hu
hvg.hu
telex.hu

Details of the content analysis

*Based on the online audience reach data of the National Media and Infocommunications Authority

Four columns
National news
World news
Business/economy
Coronavirus
Time span of analysis
16 – 22 February 2021
29 June – 5 July 2021
9 – 15 November 2021

Text only: 55.82% (4012 posts)

Has image or video: 40.89% (2939 posts)

Has visualisation from elsewhere: 2.09% (150 posts)

Has self-made visualisation: 1.2% (86 posts)

Initial hypotheses:
Readers are not interested in this genre
Newsrooms are unable to develop it
Difficult to learn, lack of support for gaining new knowledge

The state of data journalism in hungary: Details of the Interviews

Topics of conversations:
Professionalization
Adaptation of Western methods
Significance of data
Issues:
Lack of available data sources
Lack of adequate education
Lack of support from newsrooms
Lack of experts
Negative effects of social media platforms
Interviews with eight journalists actively working in the field of data journalism

Conclusion

Only handful of news sites active in general data journalism (GDJ)
Even less sites using investigative data journalism (IDJ) skills in their work
Some developments but still a long way to go
Other issues: reader's interest; text-centered journalistic traditions; lack of funds and education; restricted, closed data

Thank you for your attention!

szabo.krisztian@atlatszo.hu
https://www.szabokrisztian.me

HODJ2022

By Szabó Krisztián

HODJ2022

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