Journalistic innovation: how new formats of digital journalism are perceived in the academic literature

Abstract

The news media are constantly introducing innovations in their presentation formats, transforming as they do journalistic genres and creating entirely new ways of telling and consuming news. These changes are also closely reflected in academic research on journalism. This article carries out a systematic review of the literature analyzing the following new journalistic formats: structured journalism, immersive journalism, 360° video reports, virtual reality and augmented reality applied to journalism, newsgames and docugames. To do so, the scientific production examining these formats is first analyzed to determine the academic impact of these studies, while identifying their characteristics and tracking their evolution over time. Second, the leading researchers in this field are identified and interviewed to ascertain their opinion about the future of journalism and changing trends in journalistic formats. The results show that the number of academic publications about journalistic innovation peaked in 2019, above all in the three journals – Digital Journalism, Journalism Practice and Profesional de la Información – that lead the way in this discipline. The 23 academics interviewed reported that innovation impacts primarily on four aspects of journalism: information and content; audience; methods and resources and news media companies.