ABSTRACT
The concluding chapter brings together the findings of the main chapters and makes five observations to provide an overall assessment about the future of investigative reporting and its role in democratic accountability in the digital age. It offers a relatively positive appraisal about how technology and journalism collaborations can regenerate the public sphere on a global scale, offering new ways to critique power and injustices through investigative journalism. It shows how reorienting the relations between political economy and liberal democratic theories can explain investigative journalism’s endurance and its ongoing capacity to inform the public sphere. There are limitations to investigative reporting this century, which are not ignored. The book concludes that the future for investigative journalism, despite the economic hardships faced by traditional newsrooms, is one of optimism.
