CfP Journalism Practice: Journalism, Platforms, and Public Interest Technologies

That should not be a surprise. Journalism’s focus on holding the powerful accountable has historically been positioned as fundamental to democracy (Helberger, 2019). However, this mission is currently facing significant challenges. The evolution of privately owned digital infrastructures, platform architectures, metrics-centric paradigms (Dodds et al., 2023a), and the rapid advancement of automation systems in the newsroom are reshaping the operational landscape in which journalism can effectively fulfill its role for the public (Sevignani et al., 2025).

Additionally, the proliferation of dis-/misinformation across different media, hate speech, and affective polarization coincides with a steady decline in sustainable business models for local journalism, a trend that has contributed to the emergence of ‘news deserts’ documented in both the EU and the US (Gulyas et al., 2023). At the same time, this widening gap has prompted a range of counter-initiatives by public actors—particularly in the wake of the withdrawal of platform funding and the downstream effects of shifts in international donor support (including USAID). This phenomenon is further exacerbated by the targeting and harassment of reporters (Dodds et al. 2023b). All within an increasing reliance on privately owned digital platforms. As a result, the democratic function and public service orientation of journalism are significantly undermined.

These challenges affect journalism globally but are particularly acute in the Global South and peripheral and marginalized media ecologies. In these contexts, structural inequalities, limited resource availability, and reliance on digital platforms exacerbate the precariousness of the media landscape. These very conditions also catalyze innovation, creative problem-solving, and the emergence of alternative media models.

Adopting a PIT perspective deepens and enhances journalism’s role as a steward of the public interest amid digital advancements. It positions journalism as a facilitator and mediator of the socio-technical and organizational infrastructures that foster public knowledge, accountability, participation, and deliberation.

Consequently, many questions arise: What becomes possible when we explore the relationship between journalism and Public Interest Technology? This special issue invites reflection on the role PIT can play for journalism—how its methods, tools, and infrastructures might intersect with and support journalism’s normative functions. In doing so, we aim to encourage contributions that theorize and conceptualize this intersection.

What is working, what is changing, and what tensions emerge as journalism adapts its public mission through design, data, and delivery? And how might this vision reshape journalistic practices, media organizations, platform relationships, and collaborative models within newsrooms, across media systems, with platforms, and alongside publics and civic actors?

Themes & Areas of Contribution

In this Special Issue, we welcome theoretical and empirical contributions, whether computational, ethnographic, comparative, historical, or case-based works.

Proposed Topics:

• Journalistic practices, in a broad sense, include fact-checking, open-source investigations, data journalism, visual investigations, and others, particularly when they advance the public interest.

• New theorizations of the intersection between journalism, technology, (digital) infrastructure, power, and publics.

• Experimentation in newsrooms (investigative collaboration, innovation labs, participatory and community-centered design, alternative distribution models) that reflects journalism’s evolving role as an architect of public-interest infrastructures.

• The integration of AI and automation generates tensions between platform-driven technological logics and public-oriented visions of journalism grounded in equity, accountability, and good public outcomes.

• New organizational, financial, technological, and collaborative models that are reshaping possibilities for journalism oriented to design, data, and delivery for the public.

• Platform governance, algorithmic visibility, content moderation, and data control that directly influence journalism’s capacity to function in the public interest.

• Publics and communities emerging as co-designers, co-producers, and evaluators of journalistic knowledge and delivery systems, redefining trust, legitimacy, and shared meaning.

• Global South and peripheral media ecologies, which illuminate vulnerabilities and innovations that help rethink journalism’s future beyond Western-centric assumptions.

• The political economy of the infrastructure and technology ecosystem within which PIT and journalism operate, including relations of dependence that influence their capacity to serve the public interest.

• New forms of data governance, openness, and interpretations that are allowing critique of traditional journalistic (or news) structures and opening avenues for alternative and innovative organizations, processes, and partnerships.