More than just shifting boundaries. Informative activism from a comparative perspective

This article sheds light on how the shifting boundaries between data journalism and data activism challenge the newsmaking practices and the main actors involved. To pursue this main aim the research focuses on two initiatives in which the contents’ production rests on two main «boundary objects»: open databases and data-driven platforms. These two non-profit foundations, in which data activism and data journalism overlap, are the Italian Openpolis and the Spanish Civio. The results converge in bringing out from a comparative perspective a new form of activism that captures the nature of collective actors constantly shaped by hybridity dynamics, labeled «informative activism». This concept represents a new lens able to broaden the rhizomatic approach to the media ecosystem applied to journalism, including more explicitly and systematically – but no less critically – the contribution of the data activism realm and contiguous fields of action to the news network