This article takes the tension between the “information model” and the “story model” in mainstream journalistic epistemology as its point of departure, and offers a systematic and persuasive argument about the role of storytelling in the historical development of journalism and its inevitability in the digital age. Rather than treating “storytelling” merely as a writing technique or a stylistic innovation, the author conceptualizes it as an alternative logic of news production and professional culture, a perspective that is particularly important for understanding the theoretical turn in contemporary digital journalism studies.
One of the most illuminating contributions of the article lies in its critique of dominant journalistic epistemology. For a long time, “news as information” has been regarded as the foundation of journalism’s legitimacy, while “news as story” has been relegated to the margins and often equated with tabloidization, entertainment, or the erosion of professionalism. By revisiting Schudson’s work, New Journalism, and the nonfiction tradition, the author clearly demonstrates that the dominance of the information model is not historically inevitable, but rather a product of specific industrial and commercial conditions. This argument effectively destabilizes the assumed naturalness of journalistic objectivity and opens up theoretical space for rethinking journalism’s social role.
In outlining the three core dimensions of news storytelling, the article treats storytelling as a general practice of information and value transmission. This point is methodologically significant, as it suggests that stories are not the opposite of information, but rather a fundamental way in which humans understand the world and organize experience. Excluding storytelling from “legitimate” journalism is itself an elitist and a priori theoretical assumption. In the digital age, this assumption becomes increasingly untenable: as algorithms, databases, and automated systems approach or even surpass human journalists in terms of “objectivity,” storytelling emerges as precisely the capacity that remains uniquely human and irreplaceable in news production. The discussion of New Journalism and nonfiction writing also reshapes my understanding of their place in journalistic history.
These practices should not be seen as occasional deviations or boundary-crossing experiments, but as recurring “transformative genes” that surface whenever journalism encounters crisis. Whether in American New Journalism, Chinese reportage literature, or contemporary digital nonfiction practices, storytelling represents journalism’s ongoing effort to break free from rigid information-centered models and to reconnect with lived experience and emotional structures.
Crucially, the article links storytelling to participation, mobilization, and affective publics in the digital news ecosystem. Storytelling, in this sense, is not merely about making news more engaging or readable; it fundamentally reshapes the relationship between journalism and its publics. Within this framework, journalism is no longer just an institutional mechanism for informing audiences, but a cultural practice that forges emotional connections and facilitates collective action. This insight resonates strongly with recent discussions in digital journalism studies on the “affective turn” and interventionist professionalism.
Overall, the article’s greatest contribution lies in forcing us to confront a long-avoided question: the essence of journalism may not be information alone, but stories about human beings. In the digital age, continuing to understand journalism primarily through the information model is not only insufficient in explanatory power, but also risks obscuring journalism’s value as a humanistic practice. Reorganizing journalism theory around the concept of “news as story” is neither a capitulation to reality nor a rejection of professionalism; rather, it is a theoretical effort to enable journalism studies to once again engage meaningfully with human experience and social transformation.
Reference 常江,王雅韵.作为故事的新闻：观念、实践与数字化[J].新闻大学,2023(1):16-27.
#Digital Journalism TheoryLast modified on 2023-05-31