Collaboration in Making Investigative News: A Social Network Analysis of Investigative Journalists in China

Caught between political censorship and market pressure, investigative journalism in China has nevertheless exhibited persistent vibrancy over the past three decades. The primary objective of this study is to understand the social processes and mechanisms of investigative news production in China through a social network analysis perspective. The project highlights the functions of social network and collaborative behaviors. Cross-institutional collaboration is a spontaneously formulated habitual action that sustains the production of in-depth news in the context of China’s news regulation. By using structuralized questionnaire and in-depth interview, this project seek the answers to the following questions:how does the social network of investigative journalists look like in terms of its density, connectedness, and clustering?how frequently do investigative journalists use cross-institutional collaboration to conduct reporting?what are the professional values held by investigative journalists and how these values contribute to the formation of subgroups?how investigative journalists’ informal network facilitate their work?what are the political and social implications of cross-institutional collaboration in conducting investigative journalism in China?Because of its inherently confrontational nature, watchdog journalism is at the forefront of catching an audience’s attention through sensationalism and thereby receiving pressure and penalties from the state. The study can help reveal the dynamic interactions and intricacies between politics, journalism, and grass-root civic involvement in contemporary China.