Storytelling in the Age of Big Data: Hong Kong Students’ Readiness and Attitude towards Data Journalism

This exploratory study identifies journalism students’ attitudes, level of cognition and proficiency in data journalism (DJ). A survey of 121 college journalism students in Hong Kong, combined with in-depth interviews, found that: (a) while journalism students are eager to understand what is DJ and its practice, they do not have comprehensive knowledge of data collection, data analysis and interpretation; (b) computational tools are absent from current journalism curricula, which leads to students’ misperception about data usage in news reporting; (c) while students have high willingness for learning DJ, about half of those surveyed expressed a dislike of data work. Gender, year in school and major course of study play a role in the students’ varied perceptions of DJ. Male students mastered more DJ-related knowledge than their female counterparts. Those majoring in Chinese journalism show the least interest in DJ or learning its substance.