Data Journalism: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the conceptual, theoretical, and methodological trends and gaps in data journalism research by conducting a systematic literature review of 102 articles published in English in SSCI-indexed communication journals. The review revealed that the majority of the literature focused on empirical investigations of data journalism practice, with weak conceptual and theoretical foundations and limited methodological diversity. Additionally, the authors and topics examined were predominantly from the Global North, which makes it challenging to generalize the findings to different contexts and scales. However, recent larger-scale studies incorporating the Global South offer hope for deepening the data journalism discussion.