The emergence of the internet has led to fundamental changes in all areas of public communication, referred to as the digital turn. At the intersection of journalism and technological development, new trends have emerged that affect every aspect of journalism, from news gathering and processing to news distribution. At the end of the 1990s, there were still many utopian or even dystopian expectations about the anticipated digital transformation of journalism. Some researchers expected that increasingly digital journalism would not only serve citizens’ information needs more effectively through customized and interactive solutions, but would also foster the building of communities of shared interests and concerns. Others have assumed that digital technology can dramatically improve the relationship between journalists and their audiences, and thus help professionals to better fulfil the press’ social duty. At the same time, however, views have also been expressed that digital technology is destroying traditional forms of journalism and thus harming democracy.
Today, based on the experience of the advanced digitalization of journalism, there are several definitions of exactly what digitaljournalismis. These often include references to the use of digital tools in journalism, the shift of news dissemination to digital platforms, the transformation of journalistic genres, and the complex, multimedia forms of journalistic storytelling that are made possible in the digital space. Issues of digital news archiving, challenges around media business models, and the role of online platforms in misinformation and algorithmic distribution are often at the heart of the digital journalism discussion. Challenges of citizen journalism are also frequently raised, including the risks and consequences of not knowing professional and ethical standards.
Providing a comprehensive understanding of the role and status of digital journalism, Burgess and Hurcombe point out the complex relationship between journalism and the digital media, highlighting that journalism not only reflects, but also adapts to and influences the changing media environment. According to their definition, the notion of digital journalism covers “those practices of newsgathering, reporting, textual production and ancillary communication that reflect, respond to, and shape the social, cultural and economic logics of the constantly changing digital media environment”.
Today, doing journalism digitally includes journalistic use of digital and data-driven investigative and reporting methods as well as using new genres and modes of journalistic storytelling that exploit the interactive multimedia possibilities. The digital transformation of journalism provides journalists with more analytical tools to gather data on their audiences (demographics, attitudes, interests and tastes) and the popularity of a piece of content (the number of clicks and shares of an article or video in real time). In practice, digital journalists need not use only digital databases and other digital resources when gathering information, and use digital devices (above all, a smartphone) when reporting, but can also improve their online persona and personal brand.
The impact of digitalization on the professional expectations of journalists is now clearly visible: job advertisements include mobile and social media skills and skills of storytelling across multiple platforms (mobile, social, website and print) as key elements of the job description.
