Abstract
How do workers make peace with performance metrics that threaten their professional values? Drawing on Viviana Zelizer’s concepts of relational work and “good matches,” we focus on the case of online news production and analyze efforts to align audience metrics with journalistic values. Whereas existing research on web metrics tends to frame editorial production and audience data as “hostile worlds” of professional and market forces that cannot be reconciled, we show that journalists rely on relational work to make metrics acceptable within organizations. Drawing on ethnographic material, we identify five key relational strategies: moral boundary-drawing between good and bad metrics, strategic invocation of best-case scenarios, domestication through bespoke metrics, reframing metrics as democratic feedback, and justifying metrics as organizational subsidies. We then turn to cases of failure and document a process that we call overspelling, which can coincide with organizational breakdown. We conclude by discussing the concept of “failed matches” and the indirect relationship between metrics and markets in online news production.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
