Interacting, but not contributing: Fruitless news crowdsourcing in Spain

Abstract

Trusting the audience to contribute data, a practice called crowdsourcing, is one of several procedures of contemporary data journalism. While previous research has embraced the idea of crowdsourcing as a transparent way of engaging the audience, the journalistic practice of crowdsourcing is currently still limited. The Spanish case is particularly illuminating of the gap between theoretical expectations and reality. Although online news media in Spain stands out because of its commitment to exploring interactive possibilities, and its audience is especially prone to comment on news, this qualitative study presents evidence that Spanish data journalists remain quite reluctant to embrace crowdsourcing as a research method. Based on semi-structured interviews with five Spanish data journalists, this paper explains the motivations behind this reluctance as well as the challenges of activating the audience.