Navigating the terrain: a typology of mapping in journalism studies

Abstract

There is increasing scholarship marking a geographic turn in journalism studies. It focuses on examining the digital and physical terrain that audiences, sources and newsmakers traverse, and emphasises the spaces and places of news and knowledge production. This paper complements the trend by exploring how journalism scholars have adopted the idea of ‘mapping’ in this contemporary research. We present a four-part typology of mapping within the journalism field: cartographic, network, spatial cognitive and metaphorical. The paper argues for the importance of journalism scholars being able to more strongly align and justify the use of mapping in their work, and explores the complexities and opportunities that maps may present to enrich their research.