%0 Journal Article
%T Enthusiasm for Making a Difference: Adapting Data Journalism Skills for Digital Campaigning
%A Glen Fuller
%J Asia Pacific Media Educator
%@ 2321-5410
%D 2018
%R 10.1177/1326365X18768134
%X Journalism is conventionally taught through a ¡®teaching hospital¡¯ type model involving a set of tacit professional skills largely developed through experience (Anderson, Glaisyer, Smith, & Rothfeld, 2011). This article reports on the approach taken to adapt data journalism pedagogy for a digital campaigning unit in a journalism course. The main focus is building confidence with developing relevant technical skills in what Davies and Cullen (2016) describe as ¡®quantitative literacy¡¯. Although there is a range of ways to approach the turn to ¡®data journalism¡¯ (Coddington, 2015), teaching aspects of data and computational journalism with students can be difficult as the focus on technical and math skills contravenes the self-identity of journalism students as writers or similar (Nguyen & Lugo-Ocando, 2015). Meyer and Land¡¯s (2005) pedagogical theory of the ¡®threshold concept¡¯ is used to think through the affective aspects of a practical exercise for developing ¡®data confidence¡¯. Journalism has long attracted students with a social justice orientation and who want to ¡®make a difference¡¯ (Vromen, 2016), and challenging students to appreciate the social change context of online engagement is often sufficient to enthuse a student into developing technical skills. The example explored here should be useful for journalism educators in other contexts approaching the common challenge of working with students to develop ¡®data confidence¡¯
%K Data journalism
%K threshold concepts
%K affect
%K enthusiasm
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1326365X18768134