Journalism of Things (JoT) is a new paradigm in digital journalism where journalists co-create sensor technologies with citizens, scientists, and designers generating new kinds of data-based and community-driven insights to provide a novel perspective on matters of common concern. This study locates Journalism of Things in existing theory and elaborates on innovation practices with the analytical lenses of boundary work and objects of journalism. Three case studies on recent award-winning journalism projects in Germany include interviews, media content analyses, and observations. The findings suggest four typical phases in JoT projects: formation, data work, presentation, and ramification. Blurred boundaries of journalism towards science and activism become apparent when co-creative JoT teams apply scientific methods and technology design while mobilizing communities. The article discusses how things (or objects) of JoT have implications on the configuration for collaborative arrangements and audience relations. By creating and disseminating new local knowledge on matters of common concern, JoT is contributing to empowering both journalism and citizens.

Unmanned and unwomaned aerial vehicles (UAV), or drones, are breaking and creating new boundaries of image-based communication. Using social network analysis and critical discourse analysis, we examine the 60 most popular question threads about drones on Zhihu, China’s largest social question answering platform. We trace how controversial issues around these supposedly novel tech products are mediated, domesticated, visualized, or marginalized via digital representational technology. Supported by Zhihu’s topic categorization algorithm, drone-related discussions form topic clusters. These topic clusters gain currency in the government-regulated cyberspace, where their meanings remain open to widely divergent interpretations and mediation by various agents. We find that the largest drone company DJI occupies a central and strongly interconnected position in the discussions. Drones are, moreover, represented as objects of consumption, technological advancement, national future, and uncertainty. At the same time, the sense-making process of drone-related discussions evokes emerging sets of narrative user identities with potential political effects. Users engage in digital representational technologies publicly and collectively to raise questions and represent their views on new technologies. Therefore, we argue that platforms like Zhihu are essential when studying views of the Chinese citizenry towards technological developments.

The design of civic tech is often confronted with impediments, barriers, and a lack of resources. These and other causes may lead to the discontinuation and even abandonment of initiatives. Since seemingly failed projects are much more difficult to publish as articles, this workshop will provide academics and practitioners with a rare opportunity to exchange experiences and insights on discontinued civic tech initiatives. The goal of the workshop is to develop a better understanding of why some civic tech initiatives fail and ask whether discontinued initiatives may still somehow contribute to social change and the growth of digital civics. A variety of sub-questions around discontinued civic tech will be addressed in the workshop, including matters of participation, citizen science, public management, power structures and biases, and communication.