Datafication and Transdisciplinarity in Literacy Studies: Data Journalism as a Research Context

Abstract

The concept and practice of data literacy is approached in order to characterize it as an instantiation of the transdisciplinarity of literacy (s) in a more general sense, and, based on this characterization, questions and hypotheses are presented of a research project focused on data journalism. We place the discussion in the context of the digitized datafication of social activity, arguing that it affects the formulation of opinions and arguments based on journalistic texts that characterize the exercise of citizenship in the public sphere. Our bibliographical research has shown that, although the conceptualizations of data literacy are predominantly functional and/or skills-based, there are also proposals based on the ideological/sociocultural model of literacy. We conclude by hypothesizing that, in data journalism practices, there would be a tendency for qualitative interpretations to be subordinate to quantitative knowledge, but it may be possible to create situations in which disciplinary shortcomings show the transdisciplinary nature of the texts and the events for the producers and readers themselves.