Abstract
This study investigates the epistemological implications of the appropriation of audience analytics in a data-driven news culture. Focussing on two central aspects of epistemology, epistemic value and epistemic practices, we ask two overall questions (1) How are audience metrics balanced and reconciled in relation to other standards in the justification of news as valuable knowledge? How are different practices of research and presentation, truth-seeking and truth-telling, prioritized in a news organization marked as a data-driven news work culture? The study presents a case study of a Scandinavian legacy news publisher that has pursued the embracing of a data-driven news work culture. It is based on a qualitative multi-method approach. The findings show how metrics are used as a superior standard in deciding on the epistemic value of news. This is expressed in strategies, guidelines and discussions in the newsroom, and put into practice in coaching, evaluations and rewarding of the performance of individual journalists. In the everyday news production, metrics are reconciled in relation to independent standards in journalism, related to the claims of news journalism to provide relevant and verified public knowledge about current events. Moreover, the study shows how the embracement of metrics radicalizes the focus on presentation, packaging and timing in the optimization of news material and in the valuing of professional practices. Efforts in research and truth seeking are more seldom explicitly valued. The work of fulfilling reasonable truth claims is mainly taken for granted.
Highlights
Data has become increasingly central to how contemporary organizations operate, and practitioners and academics have suggested that data is the new oil, required to remain competitive
In investigating the epistemological implications of audience metrics, we have focused on two organizational units inside Swedish Local Post’ (SLP): (1) the news desk; and (2) the reporter work
The aim of this article is to simultaneously contribute to two areas in journalism studies. It contributes to research into quantification of journalism through analytics and metrics (Carlson, 2018; Tandoc, 2019; Zamith, 2018), one of the more wellresearched areas in the field in recent years (Steensen and Westlund, 2021)
Summary
Data has become increasingly central to how contemporary organizations operate, and practitioners and academics have suggested that data is the new oil, required to remain competitive. Beer (2018) studied the data analytics industry and identified a data analytic imaginary where analytics and metrics are envisioned as being speedy, accessible, revealing, prophetic and smart. Such visions influence how their customers appropriate data into their organizations and practices. Previous research has analysed the impact of audience analytics and metrics on the understanding of audiences (Anderson, 2011; Nelson, 2021; Zamith, 2015); the organization and institutionalization of distinctive roles in the newsroom (Ferrer-Conill and Tandoc, 2018); editorial decision-making and news judgement (Anderson, 2011; Napoli, 2011; Vu, 2014); and tensions related to journalistic values and qualities (Costera Meijer, 2012; Usher, 2012). In advancing the concept of measurable journalism, Carlson (2018: 412) argues that a fundamental issue for future research concerns the implications of such development when it comes to the role of journalism in providing important and reliable knowledge about the world
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