Realizing the democratic functions of journalism in the digital age: New alliances and a return to old values

Abstract

In journalism, we have observed a multitude of innovative forms in recent years: new forms of presentation (multimedia story-telling, immersive journalism), new ways of involving the audience (participatory journalism), new ways of addressing issues and highlighting solutions (constructive journalism), and new forms of automation (robot journalism) and data journalism. Fascinated as we all are by the new possibilities, a key challenge of contemporary journalism threatens to fade into the background. Namely, the question of how we ought to think ahead about the democratic functions of journalism under these new conditions is broached.