1st Edition
Measurable Journalism Digital Platforms, News Metrics and the Quantified Audience
This book explores ways in which the increasingly ‘measurable’ news audience has had an impact on journalistic practices, in an era when digital platforms provide real-time, individualizable, quantitative data about audience consumption practices.
Considering the combination of digital technology that makes measurable journalism possible, the contributors to this volume examine the work of various actors involved in aspects of measurable journalism both inside and outside the newsroom and confront the normative implications of the data-centric trends of measurable journalism. Including examples from across the globe, the book balances hopes for increased engagement or impact with fears that economic prioritization will hurt journalism’s standing in the public sphere.
This book will be of interest to those studying journalistic practices in the modern world, as well as those studying media consumption and emerging digital technologies. This book was originally published as a special issue of Digital Journalism.
Introduction: Confronting Measurable Journalism
Matt Carlson
1. Quantified Audiences in News Production: A synthesis and research agenda
Rodrigo Zamith
2. The Audience-Oriented Editor: Making sense of the audience in the newsroom
Raul Ferrer-Conill and Edson C. Tandoc Jr.
3. Selecting Metrics, Reflecting Norms: How journalists in local newsrooms define, measure, and discuss impact
Elia Powers
4. Dimensional Field Theory: The adoption of audience metrics in the journalistic field and cross-field influences
Qun Wang
5. Boundary Work, Interloper Media, and Analytics in Newsrooms: An analysis of the roles of web analytics companies in news production
Valerie Belair-Gagnon and Avery E. Holton
6. Analytics-Driven Journalism? Editorial Metrics and the Reconfiguration of Online News Production Practices in African Newsrooms
Dumisani Moyo, Admire Mare and Trust Matsilele
7. Engineering Consent: How the design and marketing of newsroom analytics tools rationalize journalists’ labor
Caitlin Petre
8. The Elusive Engagement Metric
Jacob L. Nelson
Biography
Matt Carlson is Associate Professor in the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota, USA. His most recent book is Journalistic Authority: Legitimating News in the Digital Era (2017). He is the author of over 50 journal articles and book chapters.
