HIOK03461U HIO; CANCELED Data-driven Journalism (Specialization 1)

We introduce data-driven journalism based on analyzing and filtering large data sets for the purpose of creating news stories. Examples of data-driven journalism include http://fivethirtyeight.com/ and http://www.theguardian.com/data. The course introduces simple (Python) technologies for doing data-driven journalism in practice, enabling students to harvest, filter and statistically analyze data, as well as to visualize their analyses. We also critically examine published news stories based on statistical analyses, discussing the most common statistical fallacies, as well as the influence of data-driven journalism on public opinion. The course is offered conditional on at least 30 registered students.