Netease DataBlog

2022

Country/area: China

Organisation: Netease DataBlog

Organisation size: Small

Cover letter:

As one of the pioneer columns in data journalism, Netease DataBlog has constantly provided data-driven stories for China’s readers in the past 10 years, committed to conveying multi-dimensional, comprehensive, and useful information.

We cover stories in variable aspects, including society, education, health, economy, culture and so on. Stories closely related to the lives of Chinese people will especially be our consideration. COVID-19, carbon emissions, rainstroms, shortage of medical resources, as well as education equality are the main concerns to most ordinary people and so to us.

In the past 2021, NetEase DataBlog had published more than 100 data-driven stories in articles, videos, reports, illustration and interactive diagrams. Not merely in amounts, we also achieved brilliant communication effects, receiving dozens of positive feedback. And We are the one with the most subscribers(17 million) among China’s data journalism columns.

With engrossing and informative content, impressive design style, and flexible use of SNS data mining, questionnaire survey on large scale, and other technique, NetEase DataBlog has gained a high reputation in the field of data journalism in China. And we have become a regular object in academic case studies.

As a small data journalism team, we hope to learn from the best data journalism projects globally by entering the Sigma Awards 2022 competition.

Description of portfolio:

Over the past few decades, China has achieved great economic success. The living conditions of most Chinese people have improved. However, success and improvement in the economy have not alleviated people’s anxiety. On the contrary, many people are under great pressure in life and work.

DataBlog aims to tell stories of the daily issues encountered by ordinary Chinese people on all aspects, with an approch of data.

Education is the most essential issue for every Chinese family. In “The New Anxiety of Chinese parents,” we discussed why Chinese parents are reluctant to send their children to vocational schools. Although more than 6 million junior high school graduates enroll in vocational schools each year, many parents feel that vocational schools have no promising future because of uncertainty in job prospects and unnecessary discrimination as well as neglect.

In the article “Divorce is surging among China’s rural young people”, we noted that China’s rural young people are experiencing a divorce tendency, which is led by women who have traditionally been weaker in their marriage relationships. We also found that the younger generation of Chinese women, who no longer regard forbearance as a virtue, are becoming less and less tolerant of disharmonious marriages.

In 2021, the haze caused by COVID-19 was yet looming globally. Although China had adopted a dynamic zero-out prevention and control strategy, there were still some local epidemic cases this year. For instance, the outbreak in Nanjing, which is an eastern city in China, spread to many cities nationwide in a short period through airports. NetEase DataBlog retraced the spread of the virus by rearranging the patient’s epidemiological investigation.

In addition to COVID-19, China’s Henan province also experienced an unusually extreme rainstorm during the same period. We lost at least 302 lives without appropriate disaster prevention. Less than a day after the rainstorm, Netease DataBlog arranged the detail of this disaster based on precipitation and other data.

In 2021, we also produced a lot of popular science stories in health, especially focusing on women’s perspectives. For example, in the article “Why is it so hard to get a lifesaving vaccine for Chinese women?” we found that the 9-valent HPV vaccine, which has been available for seven years, is still hard to access in China. In many areas, less than 5 percent of applicants received the lifeguarding vaccine. And it is the vaccine that can protect women from cervical cancer. At the same time, we also hope that Chinese women can get rid of the shame in menstrual period, using menstrual pad without any concerns.

In 2021, NetEase DataBlog also paid attention to many topics closely related to people’s livelihood in the society. Considering the amount limit, we can only share part of them selected below.

This is the introduction to the serises stories covered by DataBlog. We hope it will be of help for you to understand our work.