The Ethics of Web Analytics

When News Meets the Audience: How Audience Feedback Online Affects News Production and Consumption

“…For example, studies have referred to "greater audience engagement in the gatekeeping process" (Lee et al, 2014, p. 505), which turns agenda-setting online into a "reciprocal process" instead of originating only from the news media (Ragas et al, 2014, p. 57). However, considering that online audiences tend to click on celebrity and sports stories (Boczkowski, 2010), efforts to give news audiences what they want, rather than what they need, may marginalize public affairs stories and potentially jeopardize social functions of journalism, such as informing the public and bridging communities (Tandoc & Thomas, 2015). For example, after Facebook replaced its trending topics editors with an algorithm that relies on web analytics, the algorithm started pushing out fake news stories (Thielman, 2016).…”

Through a different gate: An automated content analysis of how online news and print news differ

“…In online news websites, journalists have a wide set of website metrics which enable them to see exactly which stories are read a lot and which are not (Karlsson and Clerwall, 2013;Tandoc and Thomas, 2014;Tandoc and Vos, 2015). Accordingly, several studies suggest quite a strong influence from audience clicks on the gatekeeping process (Anderson, 2011;Jacobi et al, 2015;Lee et al, 2012;Welbers et al, 2015).…”

“…One example for this is journalists who try to reach as large an audience as possible to attract advertisers and investors. By analyzing website metrics, journalists have detailed insights into the preferences of the readers of their online content (Anderson, 2011;Tandoc and Thomas, 2014;Welbers et al, 2015), which makes it comparatively easy to strive to maximize their audience. To gather similar information about their print audience, journalists have to rely on occasional surveys or focus groups, which provide a much less fine-grained picture.…”

Towards nuanced universality: Developing a concept bible for public service online news production

“…As media companies have become enterprises, the pressure to make profits for shareholders may sometimes be in contrast with the traditional duties of journalism. According to Tandoc and Thomas (2015), editorial autonomy is diminished by audience analytics, as the editorial choices are increasingly made according to the most-read stories, highlighting the popularity of, for example, celebrity stories or traffic news. The PSM companies, for their part, may be in danger of biased journalism in favour of the government that makes the decisions on their budgets.…”

“…On the level of daily decisions, the obligation to inform and educate people may increasingly rest on the morals of individual journalists who are very well-aware of the 'most read topics'. Tandoc and Thomas (2015) have suggested that the problem of liberal media market, including audiences who click 'wrong' stories and journalists who try to produce as many clicks as possible, should be solved by bringing back the attitude of journalists as experts who decide what people should know, and in this way, provide the 'sense of belonging' to society. This 'expert attitude' strongly resembles the traditional understanding of the role of PSM.…”