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Digital Journalism and Epistemologies of News Production
News is the result of news production, a set of epistemic processes for developing knowledge about current events or issues that draw upon a range of newsgathering techniques and formatting choices with the objective of yielding a publishable and distributable product designed to inform others. That process, however, has changed considerably over time and in parallel to broader economic, political, professional, social, and technological changes. Such changes have required scholars to revisit different theories that help explain how news is produced and with what consequences. Whereas the field of journalism studies draws on a rich history of multidisciplinary theorizing, epistemologies of journalism have received increased attention in recent years. An epistemological lens allows scholars to examine the production, articulation, justification, and use of knowledge within the social context of digital journalism. This article presents an analytic matrix of 10 dimensions—the epistemologies of journalism matrix—that helps scholars examine different forms of journalism through an epistemological lens. The matrix is appled to four emerging forms of journalism (participatory journalism, live blogging, data journalism, and automated journalism), demonstrating that digital journalism and news production are becoming even more heterogeneous in terms of their implicated entities, cultures and methods, and positionality in relation to matters of knowledge and authority. In short, history has shown that news production will continue to evolve, and an epistemological lens affords scholars a useful and adaptable approach for understanding the implications of those changes to the production of knowledge about news.