2025 Theses Doctoral

Just Curious: Curiosity as felt and performed in feature journalism production

Flammia, Christine A.

Journalism has long assumed curiosity is integral to the work, but there has not been a systematic study that engages psychological or sociological curiosity theory in the journalistic process. This dissertation develops a framework showing how journalists do not only identify as or feel curious but actively use curiosity as a tool to find story ideas, report, and interview. It reframes curiosity in reporting as a multilayered concept with cognitive, emotional, and social dimensions.

This study relies on two qualitative methods—semi-structured interviews and retrospective reconstruction interviews—to examine how curiosity operates in U.S. feature journalism and how journalists make often-invisible reporting decisions. In the first set of interviews, I spoke with 18 journalists about their roles, routines, and identities. In the second, I followed up with four participants for in-depth, story-specific retrospective interviews, reconstructing a single feature story from pitch to publication. I observed how curiosity showed up as a behavior through surprise, question-asking, and persistence. My dual role as both researcher and journalist shaped my access, interview style, and interpretation.

Feature journalism’s flexible, definition-resistant nature opens space to study softer, process-oriented skills—the ones feature norms allow—not as an afterthought but as the heart of the feature journalism project. Its broad but real boundaries make it a useful genre for studying curiosity in practice. Journalists self-identified as curious people but also described distinct curious expressions: wondering about people, eavesdropping on conversations, feeling unsettled not knowing something, and possessing a general wonder about the world that has followed them all their lives. A curious personality alone does not explain when or why they act on it while reporting. This study shows that curiosity is a primary motivator in journalists’ work, not just as a feeling or personality trait but as a strategic reporting tool—one that can be articulated, practiced, and taught.