This project has gained great insight from its fieldwork at innovative start-ups and local/national organizations such as the cooperative Bristol Cable and the Bureau for Investigative Journalism/the Bureau Local, as well as its access to the global technology company BuzzFeed and the legacy global media organization The Guardian.
• Data demonstrates how investigative journalists organize themselves and use technology in relation to collaborative practice, while working across organizations, across borders, or in an interdisciplinary manner. While some non-profit organizations prioritize the ways in which new technology can impact effective investigative journalism, others try to engage citizens themselves in this work. The tech company BuzzFeed prioritizes the search for sources who can share information directly. The Guardian, a British legacy media company that has transitioned to global media success, uses digital technology in tandem with investigative journalism. SCOOP empirical articles investigating Bristol Cable, the Bureau Local, the Guardian and BuzzFeed address the academic research gap concerning how start-up organizations, aiming to do investigative journalism and hold power to account, can adjust their practice and actors to capitalize upon collaboration.
• Data demonstrates how the traditional role of the investigative journalist has grown to encompass other roles, including data journalist, web developer, community strategist, and social media engager. While investigative reporting remains the very essence of journalism, the digital era has brought with it the need for extensive and purposeful interdisciplinary collaboration. When organized crime, for example, is networked via encrypted platforms around the globe, journalists must keep up with this technological change by enlisting web developers, data journalists, bloggers, and others to their investigative cause. In this way, journalism has moved into an experimental and entrepreneurial phase of its development. These findings address the academic research gaps concerning new and emerging roles within watchdog journalism, collaborations between journalists and actors who are non-professional journalists, and the new ecosystem’s possibilities for local, national, and global impact.
All publications resulting from the project have been published in open access (2 in green and 2 in gold open access). The fifth publication is about to be submitted (February 2020) “Cross-Border Investigative Collaboration on the Surviving Stories» will be available in green access. The first gold open access publications has been accepted for publication in Journal of Media and Innovation which is a gold open access journal. The Journal of Media Innovations “provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.” The second one has been published in Journal for Media and Communication which is also a gold open access journal (https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/2401/0 ).
The publications and other dissemination of results acknowledge the funding received from the Marie Sklodowska-Curie programme under Horizon 2020. All future publications will also comply with these obligations.
