ZURb1221 Data in journalism

Faculty of Social Studies
Autumn 2021
Extent and Intensity
2/1/0. 3 credit(s). Type of Completion: z (credit).
Teacher(s)
Mgr. Jan Boček (lecturer)
Mgr. Štěpán Žádník (seminar tutor)
Guaranteed by
doc. Mgr. Lenka Waschková Císařová, Ph.D.
Department of Media Studies and Journalism – Faculty of Social Studies
Contact Person: Ing. Bc. Pavlína Brabcová
Supplier department: Department of Media Studies and Journalism – Faculty of Social Studies
Timetable
Wed 10:00–11:40 PC25
Prerequisites (in Czech)
ZURb1113 Methods of journalistic work
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
The capacity limit for the course is 20 student(s).
Current registration and enrolment status: enrolled: 2/20, only registered: 0/20, only registered with preference (fields directly associated with the programme): 0/20
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
Course objectives
Students will learn how to regard quantitative data as the inspiration and the source of news stories. In the seminars they will learn about the sources of publicly available data, they will learn the practical basics of data analysis and visualisation. The complexity of the course is based on the requirements of the application sphere, as elaborated in the market analysis.
Learning outcomes
Students will learn basic principles of data journalism, data visualization and analysis. (1) They will learn to obtain publicly available data; (2) They will try to work with tools for analysis of different types of data (Excel, QGIS, Gephi, R); (3) They will test the procedures and tools for data visualization (Highcharts.js).
Syllabus
  • Structure 1. Course organization, syllabus and requirements. 2. Data journalism. History, specifics, phases, types, editorial. 3. Where to get source data. Publicly available data, registers, info request, scrapping. 4. Basics of data analysis and visualization. Excel and accessories. 5. Data visualization. History 6. Data visualization. Principles of perception. 7. Manipulative visualization. Examples. 8. Theory of map visualization. 9. Practice of map visualization. Geodata analysis. QGIS. 10. Analysis of social networks. Gephi. 11. Data visualization. Highcharts.js. 12. Introduction to programming. The R Project. Assignment of the final project.
Literature
  • Knaflic, C. N. (2015). Storytelling with data: A data visualization guide for business professionals. John Wiley & Sons.
  • VALLANCE-JONES, Fred and David MCKIE. The data journalist : getting the story. Edited by William Wolfe-Wylie - Glen McGregor. Ontario: Oxford university press, 2017, xiii, 266. ISBN 9780199020065. info
  • The SAGE handbook of social media research methods. Edited by Luke Sloan - Anabel Quan-Haase. Los Angeles: SAGE Reference, 2017, xxvii, 679. ISBN 9781473916326. info
  • KIRK, Andy. Data visualisation : a handbook for data driven design. First published. Los Angeles: Sage, 2016, xiv, 347. ISBN 9781473912137. info
  • USHER, Nikki. Interactive journalism : hackers, data, and code. Urbana: University of Illinois press, 2016, xv, 252. ISBN 9780252081989. info
  • Social media, sociality, and survey research. Edited by Craig A. Hill - Elizabeth Dean - Joe Murphy. Hoboken: Wiley, 2014, xxv, 334. ISBN 9781118379738. info
  • The data journalism handbook. Edited by Jonathan Gray - Liliana Bounegru - Lucy Chambers. 1st ed. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly Media, 2012, xvii, 220. ISBN 9781449330064. URL info
Teaching methods
Seminar.
Assessment methods
To obtain the credit, students must submit a final project - a text based on the analysis of real data. Prerequisite for obtaining credit is participation in at least 9 of 12 seminars.
Language of instruction
Czech
Further Comments
Study Materials
The course is taught annually.
Listed among pre-requisites of other courses
The course is also listed under the following terms Autumn 2020, Autumn 2023.
  • Enrolment Statistics (Autumn 2021, recent)
  • Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/fss/autumn2021/ZURb1221