GIJC23 Academic Papers
The Global Investigative Journalism Network is delighted to share the complete selection of 16 research papers submitted to the 2023 Global Investigative Journalism Conference, held in Gothenburg, Sweden, in September 2023.
At every global conference, we ask academics to contribute their knowledge and research to foster discussion within the community.
Below you’ll find the title of each paper, along with its author and its abstract, that were selected for GIJC23.
A Theoretical Explanatory Study Towards the Immersion of Citizen Investigative Journalism in the Arab World
by Dr. Ahmed Makharesh, College of Media and Communication, University of Southern Mississippi, US; Dr. Manasar Alharethi, College of Arts And Humanities, Taibah University, Saudi Arabia; Dr. Shlash Alzyoud, College of Media and Communication, University of Southern Mississippi, US; Dr. Amjad Omar Safori, Faculty of Media, Zarqa University, Jordan; and Dr. Abdullah Alahmari, Faculty of Communication and Media, King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia
This paper discusses the adoption of citizen investigative journalism in the Arab world and analyzes its emergence using agenda-setting, gatekeeping, and media dependency theories. It seeks to give a thorough kunderstanding of the intellectual aspects of this adoption.
The study investigates how citizen investigative journalism is delivered in the Arab world and develops a model for how the Arab media system functions. The results show two kinds of media organizations: those wholly controlled by state authorities and the independent groups following state laws.
The study also shows the emergence of a new generation of skilled investigative reporters and the role played by international media organizations in engaging citizens in the media production process, leading to the emergence of both professional and citizen reporters who practice investigative reporting.
Keywords: Investigative reporting, citizen journalism, traditional journalism, Arab World, theory.
Arab Investigative Reporters Have No Place: Authorities Use Digital Surveillance to Control Press Freedom
by Prof. Miral Sabry AlAshry, Future University, Cairo, Egypt
The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent of digital surveillance by Arab authorities, which journalists face risks and threats of surveillance, and how they seek press freedom by using tools and techniques to communicate securely. The study used focus group discussions with 14 journalists from Syria, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Yemen, Oman, Jordan, and Egypt.
The study results indicated that journalists from these countries reported severe censorship by their respective governments, an element inconsistent with the Arab Constitution. The recommendation of the study encourages media organizations to play a more active role in setting policies that make it easier for journalists to adopt and use digital security tools.
Keywords: Arab Authorities, online news monitoring, surveillance, Arab countries, press freedom.
Beyond Datawrapper: What Dynamic Data Visualizations in Award-Winning Journalism Tell Us about Data Education
By Nausheen Husain, Syracuse University, New York, US; Travis Weiland, University of Houston, US; and Anita Sundrani, University of Houston, US
In 2021, three scholars came together to talk about data education — a statistics educator, a mathematics educator, and an investigative journalist. The goal was to understand how best practices around data visualization production and their supporting role in storytelling are taught to students in K-16 environments. To investigate these practices, the plan was to identify and categorize elements of data visualizations in award-winning investigative journalism to understand how best to teach data communication for social justice or accountability reporting. The scholars quickly found that the most compelling visualizations were unique, dynamic, and very difficult to code into traditional categories.
This paper aims to analyze award-winning investigative journalism pieces that contain at least one ‘dynamic’ data visualization element. The authors’ working definition of dynamic is any visualization whose main takeaway is displayed through movement, either on its own or via the reader’s influence; ‘scrollytelling’ is a popular example of this kind of dynamic data visualization. These dynamic data visualizations tend to defy categorization into just one traditional static chart type (bar chart, line chart, pie chart, etc.) and their accompanying best practice rules, as taught in both data journalism and math communication. This analysis aims to be tool-agnostic, looking across various code libraries and platforms like D3, ArcGIS, Tableau, and Adobe Illustrator. The authors will rely on their own knowledge and study of best practices traditionally taught in data education to assess whether and how these pieces break the rules that educators, including the authors, normally teach in journalism, mathematics and statistics courses.
For each news piece, the authors will focus on three main questions:
- Which of these dataviz elements is considered ‘dynamic’ and what makes it so?
- How do the elements of its visualizations support its main takeaway in the narrative?
- What lessons can be gleaned from its visualizations about data education?
The authors will use thematic analysis to find and extrapolate methods for teaching data literacy in the service of accountability reporting and social justice.
Culture Wars: Balancing ubuntu and ukuhlonipha in South African Investigative Journalism
by Dr. Sandra Pitcher, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa and Dr. Nicola Jones University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Much has been written about the challenges of investigative reporting in Africa (Mabweazara et al, 2020; Ndlovu & Sibanda, 2020). South Africa is not immune to these issues, but its journalists often fare better than their geographical neighbors. In part, this is due to a press system that graduated from a restrictive authoritarian system to one “in which journalism’s ‘watchdog’ function [is] emphasized” (Wasserman, 2011: 586-587) in a socially responsible way. However, the liberalist paradigm on which this system is based is often considered “incongruent to the needs of Africa” (Ndlovu & Sibanda, 2020: 44).
Repeatedly, South African politicians, such as former President Jacob Zuma, cite that journalists’ criticism of leaders lacks respect for African culture and insults the dignity of African people.
It has thus been argued that South African journalists should adopt more communitarian and African-centric ethics to govern their practice (Kasoma, 1994), usually centered around the concepts of ubuntu and ukuhlonipha.
Ubuntu offers a framework which focuses on an ethics of care by the community for the community, whereas ukuhlonipha functions as a tool for respect so as not to harm the dignity of a community or its people. Both concepts are built around communitarian values that witness people as the sum of their community. Therefore, politicians argue that to report on the corruption of a leader is to imply the corruption of a community, thus undermining the dignity of all. However, we argue that this presumed contradiction is a false problem.
In this paper, we unpack the concepts of ubuntu and ukuhlonipha in detail and explore how South Africa’s journalists who ground themselves in these ideals can offer socially responsible investigations that hold leaders to account, and in doing so, maintain the dignity of South African communities and their various cultures.
Enhancing Government Accountability: Assessing the Influence of Investigative Journalism Training in Sri Lanka
by Dr. M. C. Rasmin, Media Development Expert and Researcher, Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka is currently grappling with a severe economic crisis primarily caused by widespread corruption and a lack of responsiveness in governance. The government of Sri Lanka has officially declared the country bankrupt, leading to a significant US$2.9 billion bailout approved by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The crisis is further aggravated by rampant corruption and abuse of power, with public allegations implicating the Rajapaksa family and their associates in extensive embezzlement.
However, despite numerous protests and allegations, there have been very few convictions resulting from legal cases. In response to the crisis, international agencies have taken the initiative to fund investigative journalism training programs. Prominent donors, including the US State Department, USAID, the European Union (EU), UNDP, and OCCRP, have partnered with leading implementing agencies such as IFCJ, IREX, HELVETAS, as well as local media training institutes like SLPI, TISL, CIR, SDJF, and Watchdog, to support these efforts. However, the effectiveness of investigative journalism training in promoting financial accountability in Sri Lanka remains largely unexplored, particularly in the context of the prevailing economic and political instability.
It is unclear to what extent investigative journalism holds the government accountable for financial mismanagement and whether the training provided by international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) adequately addresses the capacity needs of journalists to enhance transparency, openness, accountability, and government responsiveness. To address these knowledge gaps, this study adopts a qualitative approach, combining 30 in-depth interviews with five focus group discussions. The research aims to gather objective insights from senior editors, media owners, heads of local media non-governmental organizations, investigative journalists, international INGOs, and donors, if possible.
Europeanisation and Transnational Investigative Journalism: the Case of IJ4EU
by Edoardo Anziano, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
In recent years, cross-border investigations have become more prominent worldwide. In Europe, the EU played a crucial role, supporting platforms to fund transnational investigative projects. This study evaluated the potential of EU-funded, cross-border investigations to increase Europeanisation, taking the case of recently-launched Investigative Journalism for Europe (IJ4EU). I did not find any increase in the indicators of Europeanisation. This strongly contradicts previous research that assumed transnational investigative networks were a prominent driver of Europeanisation. EU-funded, transnational investigative journalism did not match any criteria of Europeanisation, while it was touted as an infrastructure that fosters public debate about the EU and its members.
This infrastructure seems to encourage individual-level dialogue among journalists and media outlets, and synchronous coverage of common topics, but its effects on the formation of a European public sphere are much more limited. Implications for a model of the European public sphere are briefly discussed.
Keywords: Europeanisation, investigative journalism, cross-border journalism, collaborative journalism, European Union.
Human Flesh Search Engines and the Woman in Chains: How Chinese Citizens Are Investigating Crimes and Local Corruption Online.
by Dr. James Eric Black, Mercer University, US
This paper explores both the historical and political power ramification of what has been referred to as the Human Flesh Search Engine in Chinese media since 2013. The Chinese civil society and the Internet have energized each other in their co-evolutionary development even as both are constrained by other forces. Few countries censor information and communications as tightly as China, which has as many as 50,000 people policing the Internet. Yet, the Internet allows societies of netizens known as Human Flesh Search Engines to provide the necessary social basis for citizens and citizen groups dealing with communication and interaction. Thousands if not millions of netizens and public officials appear to signal an opening of the country’s media to community journalism tactics against at least local corruption.
Furthermore, the traditional media, both national and international, has covered all of these occurrences after the facts came to light on the Internet. These occurrences seem improbable, if not indeed unfathomable, in a country that claims to openly restrict independent reporting. The Woman in Chains and the physical abuse of young women in a café are only the latest examples of how Chinese citizens have banded together to investigate and correct wrongs in China by bypassing traditional media one bit of minutia at a time.
Investigative Journalism and Its Obstacles in French-Speaking African Countries
by Komi Aziadouvo, Journalist and Writer, Lomé, Togo
The media play a fundamental role in the process of democratization and the establishment of the rule of law. However, in most French-speaking African countries, there is a facade of democracy marked by the locking of institutions, longevity in power, massive violations of human rights, corruption, illicit enrichment, etc. In addition, in recent years, there have been military regimes resulting from coups. Under these conditions, the media, even if they exist, are not authorized to make heard dissenting voices and alternative approaches heard.
If in normal times, the media of French-speaking African countries are confronted with these misfortunes, the situation becomes more complicated when it comes to investigative journalism. All authoritarian regimes abhor investigative journalists who seek to go beyond what has been said or shown. Thus, there stands before these journalists a myriad of obstacles: retention of information and administrative red tape, judicial harassment, intimidation, threats and murders, attempted corruption, financial asphyxiation, family pressure and cultural constraints.
The governance through terror and harassment discourages a significant number of media professionals in French-speaking African countries from pursuing investigative journalism. This is particularly true for women, who are already less inclined to choose journalism as a career. We will then try to talk about, in a global way, the issue of freedom of the press in these countries before dwelling with the obstacles to investigative journalism, their consequences and some possible solutions.
by Richard Mensah Adonu; Redeemer Buatsi; Albert Junior Nyarko, and Michael Sataaviel Yerb Jr
This study examined investigative journalists’ use of AI tools in Ghana and their challenges in adopting and utilizing them. The literature review explored AI tools’ adoption, opportunities, and challenges in investigative journalism. The methodology involved in-depth interviews with five investigative journalists using purposive sampling. The researchers used thematic analysis to analyze the collected data.
The findings reveal the use of various AI tools, such as Grammarly and ChatGPT, and highlight opportunities for improvement in writing skills, research, fact-checking, and more. However, financial constraints, device incompatibility, low awareness, and privacy concerns hinder widespread adoption. Recommendations include training programs, collaborations, affordable pricing, and further quantitative studies. Stakeholders can use the findings and recommendations to enhance the accessibility and use of artificial intelligence tools in investigative journalism beyond Ghana.
Keywords: Investigative journalists, AI tools, adoption, challenges, thematic analysis.
Investigative Reporting on Life Support, in the Case of Ethiopia
by Ermias Mulugeta Alem, Senior Media and Communication Expert, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
The first Ethiopian newspaper, Aimro, was established in 1901. Historically, it was one of the continent’s first modern media outlets. Furthermore, over 60 years ago, the first journalism training center was established under the Ministry of Information, and was later defined under the renowned university, Addis Ababa University. Over the years, the school has produced several prominent journalists who have contributed to the advancement and development of the discipline despite all odds.
Even though sparks of investigative reporting have lit up at various times over the years, it is not as developed as it should be. Rather, investigative reporting is shrinking by the day, and the concept appears to be shrinking for various reasons. In Ethiopia, the problem with investigative reporting is deeply rooted, owing primarily to government pressure, a lack of protection and legal cover for investigative reporters, a lack of resources (financially, technically), technological illiteracy, and the country’s bumpy media landscape. One of the most significant gaps in the country is a lack of mentorship in investigative reporting.
Because investigative reporting is nimble as well as demanding, media organizations purposefully overlook the investigative reporting wing, if it has already been established. The public media (state/party-affiliated media) rarely assigns reporters to do investigative reporting on a single topic or produce documentaries. However, in most cases, the reporting is politically motivated and unbalanced. Private media, on the other hand, is hesitant to conduct investigative reporting for fear of repercussions from the government or other groups (oligarchies).
The cumulative effect of the aforementioned and unmentioned cases has put investigative reporting on the verge of extinction. Because investigative reporting is in free fall in the country, the concept requires immediate and unwavering support, or it will perish forever.
Journalistic Agency in Data Journalism Around the World
by Jason A. Martin, PhD, Associate Professor, DePaul University, Chicago, US; Lindita Camaj, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Houston, US; and Gerry Lanosga, PhD, Associate Professor, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, US
Research on data journalism has been criticized for sometimes failing to properly examine journalistic agencies due to overemphasis on the technical structuring of digital ‘tools’ (Wright et al., 2019). While recent studies have devoted more attention to the concept of journalistic agency in terms of the choices and decisions individual journalists make in the course of their work (Li, 2023; Tolz et al., 2021), there remains a need for more empirical evidence and systematic analysis of how data journalists exercise agency in their work routines.
This study addresses those concerns through analysis of in-depth interviews with data journalists from 34 countries (including 18 from the Global South) on their practices for data collection. With attention to the legal framework and journalistic culture in which they work, our analysis reveals the nuanced methods and innovative solutions data journalists use to obtain data.
From direct requests to scraping to sensors to hand-compiled paper records transformed into spreadsheets, we find a range of techniques that vary based on factors such as economic resources, technical affordances, and audience interests. Journalistic agency is revealed by how data journalists narrate their own work and how it is situated within the media and legal environment of the countries in which they operate. We then place those findings in comparative analysis to contribute to a stronger conceptual understanding of journalistic agency in data journalism work around the world. Our findings add to the conversation about unpacking epistemologies of data journalism (Ramsälv et al., 2023) and provide broader comparative context on journalistic agency in data journalism than previously available in the literature (Wright et al., 2019). The goal is to contribute to the dialogue among scholars and practitioners about how a better understanding of journalistic agency may help improve their work and its positive impact on society.
Partnerships and Social Networking Among Non-Profit Digital-Native News Organizations in Latin America: Influence Matters More Than Size
By Jairo Lugo-Ocando, PhD, University of Sharjah, U.A.E.; Jose Luis Requejo-Alemán, PhD, University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain
There has been a proliferation of digital-native investigative journalism organizations in Latin America. They have become increasingly influential in the region thanks to the depth of their work and the ability to scrutinize governments and private corporations. One of the reasons for this influence in setting the news agenda is the partnerships they have established with other institutional actors in society.
This article explores the nature and extent of those partnerships across social media platforms. To do this, we have triangulated the content analysis of more than six thousand tweets with in-depth interviews with editors of CIPER and IDL-Reporters. The overall results indicate that beyond achieving wider dissemination, these partnerships are also used to foster legitimacy and trust around the news content, creating additional protections for the reporters and trying to provoke change.
Keywords: Nonprofit investigative journalism, Latin America, Twitter journalism, Twitter, CIPER, IDL-Reporters.
Tanzania’s Investigative Journalists: A Look at the Difficulties of Exposing the Truth
by Francis Nyonzo, Program Officer and Fact-Checker, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
This paper examines the challenges that investigative journalism encounters in Tanzania. It explores various factors that impact investigative journalism, such as laws and regulations, sources of media funding, political influence, and the absence of employment contracts for journalists. The study utilized open-source data to identify patterns of press freedom violations and evaluated the existing legal framework to demonstrate its failure to meet international standards. It investigated the response of the community when investigative journalists face injustices such as violence, disappearances, or arrests. The findings indicate that financial, legal, political, and communal factors impede investigative journalism.
Although the community’ s role in supporting investigative journalism is significant, there is insufficient widespread support for journalists facing injustices, disappearances, or arrests. While hashtags like #FreeMaxenceMelo, #WhereIsAzory, and #FreeErickKabendera have been employed to demand justice, their usage remains relatively low compared to the number of internet users in Tanzania. The article underscores the importance of safeguarding press freedom and emphasizes the necessity for journalists to operate without fear of retaliation.
Keywords: Press freedom, watchdog journalism, IJ, accountability, governance.
Threat Perception and Avoidance Among US Investigative Journalists
by Gerry Lanosga, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, US
Professional and academic discourses about journalism have increasingly turned to urgent matters of security as threats and actual violence or harassment faced by journalists grow. In a recent special issue of Media and Communication devoted to the topic, Orgeret & Tayeebwa (2020) noted that a journalist is killed every five days on average. And in a similar special issue of Journalism Practice, Waisbord (2022) summarized that the safety of journalists “is a global, multidimensional problem, that affects journalists and countries differently, is caused by multiple perpetrators, and has dramatically changed as a consequence of digital attacks” (p. 1950).
Much of the scholarship exploring these threats and attacks has focused on countries with autocratic governing systems or low levels of press freedom, but reports of increasing hostility to the news media are not limited to those settings. In either case, attacks on the press raise concerns about 1) the degree to which journalists choose to censor themselves to reduce risks to themselves or their families and 2) the resulting loss to democratic discourse (Kim & Shin, 2022).
While substantial attention in this area has been devoted to journalists as a whole, security is also a growing issue for investigative journalists, as the retaliatory killing of Las Vegas investigative reporter Jeff German in 2022 underscored. As Konow-Lund & Høiby (2021) asserted, “few journalistic practices come with more prospects for threats and intimidation than investigative journalism” (p. 2). Yet relatively few studies have examined the security concerns and practices of investigative reporters as a discrete subset of journalists. This working paper adds to the literature in this area, reporting preliminary results of an ongoing survey of the US-based investigative journalists. The survey explores their perceptions of the threats, abuse, or violence they have faced on the job as well as the ways such factors have affected their lives and work.
Using Big Data to Tackle Corruption in Public Procurement: an Auto-Ethnography of a Collaboration Between Academia, Institutions, and Journalism
by Alessio Cornia, School of Communications, Dublin City University, Ireland and Dimitri Bettoni, School of Communications, Dublin City University, Ireland
The increasing availability of public procurement data creates new opportunities for investigating corruption. New initiatives are now based on the collaboration between journalists, data experts, and anti-corruption agencies (Bradshaw, 2017; Carson, 2019; Stonbely and Siemazko 2022), although common efforts are sometimes hindered by the diverse aims, backgrounds, and expectations that characterize these different types of actors (Christensen et al., 2021).
This paper presents the lessons learned from an ongoing collaborative, cross-border (Heft 2021), and cross-field (Stonbely and Siemazko 2022) research project, CO.R.E., aimed at creating new indicators of corruption risk in emergency periods. The study focuses, first, on how the new indicators and the online visualization dashboard developed within the project can benefit investigative and data journalists, as well as NGOs, institutions, and academics. Second, by taking advantage of the authors’ participation in the project and by adopting a self-reflective (Pezalla et al. 2012) and auto- ethnographic (Chang 2016) approach, the study analyses the main challenges and opportunities associated with collaborative, multi-stakeholder, and interdisciplinary research projects.
The findings show that each actor involved develops its own initial expectations and strategies, which can either be collaborative or more self-referential, to achieve common goals. Differences are due to the main features and aims of the organizations involved, but also time affects the process, as positions change during the collaboration and compromises are often reached. The actors’ role and the type of expertise offered also affect the negotiation, with scientific and technical expertise playing a key role.
This study acknowledges and promotes the importance of cross-field collaborative initiatives, and we believe that sharing the lessons learned from the collaborative project CO.R.E. and analysing the main challenges associated with the cross-field nature of the project consortium could benefit journalistic, civil society and academic organizations, as this can inform the development of their own strategies in future cross-field and cross-border collaborative projects. Future collaborative initiatives aimed at tracking corruption and enhancing data and investigative journalism action can benefit from both the project results and its lessons learned.
In the first part of the paper, we briefly review the scholarship on the relationship between journalism and corruption and we discuss the role of investigative and data journalism in the development of cross-border and cross-field collaborative projects aimed at countering corruption by involving journalists and other types of actors. Then, we illustrate the methods adopted in this study and its main findings, providing, first, a description of the main project results and addressing how they can support the work of data and investigative journalists. Second, we analyse the main challenges and opportunities associated with the collaborative cross-field and cross-border nature of the C.O.R.E project. Finally, in the conclusion, we review the main findings of this study.
Keywords: collaborative journalism, data journalism, investigative reporting, interdisciplinarity, corruption.
Valiant or Vulnerable Press: The Discourse Analysis of Investigative Journalism Dichotomy in Nigerian ‘Autocratic-Cemocracy’
by Olunifesi Adekunle Suraj, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Mass Communication, University of Lagos, Nigeria
This paper addresses the concern of the Nigerian Press, once adjudged as one of the most valiant press in Africa (Seng and Hunt, 1986; Oso and Pate, 2011) in respect of its investigative journalism, even when military decrees were the norm of governance and how it has become passive and vulnerable in a democratic setting where constitutional laws and rule of law ought to be the norm. From valiant for truth to being vulnerable, it appears the Nigerian press has shed its once-decorated outfit of non-conformist. This abnormal dichotomy becomes worrisome in the light of the fact that investigative journalism ought to thrive better in the present Nigerian democratic setting that allows for constitutional press freedom, enhanced by Nigerian Freedom of Information Act, rule of law, media pluralism and independent media. Hence, the paper focuses on the main concern of this development by asking the central question: What went wrong with Nigerian press investigative Journalism? And what should be made right to revive investigative journalism in Nigeria that was once its thriving legacy? Adopting the social responsibility theory of the press, the paper explores discourse analysis of focus group discussions and key informant interviews of journalists in major Nigerian media with national outlook including relevant associations such as the Nigerian Guilds of Editors, Nigerian Union of Journalists, and selected Civil Organizations.
The expected results intend to catalog the constraints of doing investigative journalism in Nigeria, the respondents’ perception of militating factors such as the role of Government including the judiciary arm, the media ownership influence, funding, the safety of journalists among others. From the respondents’ responses, the study will inductively infer effective measures that could help in rejuvenating investigative journalism in Nigeria.