Web analytics and the functional differentiation of journalism cultures: individual, organizational and platform-specific influences on newswork

Hanusch, Folker

doi:10.1080/1369118x.2016.1241294

Cited by 102 publications

(110 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…The above results were reasonable, given that Google Analytics is deemed globally as the most popular web analytics software and a leading tool for sales and marketing purposes [71,72]. Moreover, the high degree of web analytics use can be characterized as unsurprising, given the growing importance of internet metrics in the journalism profession in recent years across different types of newsrooms [67,73]. Based on the data from the interviews, in three out of the four newsrooms under study, the traffic coming from search engines was around a third or more (30-40%) and in another news outlet was between 10-20%.…”

Section: Online Traffic Reports and Main Traits (Rq3)mentioning

confidence: 80%

SEO inside Newsrooms: Reports from the Field

2019

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The journalism profession has changed dramatically in the digital age as the internet, and new technologies, in general, have created new working conditions in the media environment. Concurrently, journalists and media professionals need to be aware and possess a new set of skills connected to web technologies, as well as respond to new reading tendencies and information consumption habits. A number of studies have shown that search engines are an important source of the traffic to news websites around the world, identifying the significance of high rankings in search results. Journalists are writing to be read, and that means ensuring that their news content is found, also, by search engines. In this context, this paper represents an exploratory study on the use of search engine optimization (SEO) in news websites. A series of semi-structured, in-depth interviews with professionals at four Greek media organizations uncover trends and address issues, such as how SEO policy is operationalized and applied inside newsrooms, which are the most common optimization practices, as well as the impact on journalism and news content. Today, news publishers have embraced the use of SEO practices, something that is clear also from this study. However, the absence of a distinct SEO culture was evident in newsrooms under study. Finally, according to results, SEO strategy seems to depend on factors, such as ownership and market orientation, editorial priorities or organizational structures.

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Section: Online Traffic Reports and Main Traits (Rq3)mentioning

confidence: 80%

SEO inside Newsrooms: Reports from the Field

2019

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“…User emancipation and audience gatekeeping turned out to be less desirable than imagined. Audience metrics revealed that, left to their own devices, audiences tend to make societally suboptimal choices about what news or information they consume, especially if technologies are deployed to exploit human weakness in order to turn a profit (Webster 2010;Boczkowski and Mitchelstein 2013;Bucher 2017;Hanusch 2017;Wendelin, Engelmann, and Neubarth 2017). In response, journalists and editors began to build up their competences and started to develop ways to use and control personalization technologies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Audiences seem to prefer content that is usually associated with print tabloid media (Wendelin, Engelmann, and Neubarth 2017). Empirical studies showed that editorial decisions are affected by audience metrics, resulting in the pushing of stories that already do well (Lee, Lewis, and Powers 2014;Vu 2014;Christin 2015;Welbers et al 2016;Tandoc 2015;Cherubini and Nielsen 2016;Schlemmer 2016;Hanusch 2017;Hindman 2017;Wendelin, Engelmann, and Neubarth 2017) and the deselection of poorly performing articles (Tandoc 2014). Algorithmic news personalization automates the process of turning audience metrics into editorial decisions.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Selling News to Audiences – A Qualitative Inquiry into the Emerging Logics of Algorithmic News Personalization in European Quality News Media

Bodó

2019

Digital Journalism

112

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How do news organizations design and implement algorithmically personalized news services? We conducted 16 in-depth interviews with professionals working in European public service broadcasting and commercial quality news media to answer this question. The news business is undergoing rapid transformations regarding how news production is financed, how news is produced and delivered to audiences and how citizens consume news. In all of these changes algorithmic recommender systems play a role. We focus on news organizations' own personalized news services, and analyze how they define the role of personalization in contributing to the financial success of the organization, in reaching and retaining audiences, and in fulfilling their editorial mission. We interviewed editors, journalists, technologists and business intelligence and publishing professionals to gain a structural understanding of the often conflicting goals of personalization. We found that rather than focusing on increasing short-term user engagement, European quality news media try to use news personalization to increase long-term audience loyalty. In distinction to the "platform logic of personalization", which uses personalization to produce engagement and sell audiences to advertisers, they have developed a "news logic of personalization", which uses personalization to sell news to audiences.

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“…Traditionally, gatekeeping is a term used to describe journalistic practices involved in the selection of content for public consumption based on the subjective criteria of the individual journalist, or gatekeeper (White 1950)-a theory modernized by scholars including Shoemaker and Vos (2009). In contemporary newsrooms, analytics and metrics identify audience likes and dislikes and are used to varying degrees as a form of gatekeeping (Vu 2014;Tandoc 2014;Le Cam and Domingo 2015;Hanusch 2017;Christin 2018), along with other measures of popularity such as audience comments and social media shares (Chin-Fook and Simmonds 2011; Tandoc and Vos, 2016;Duffy, Ling, and Tandoc 2017). Metrics and analytics are also used by newsworkers as a measure of success (Petre 2015).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

News by Numbers

Blanchett

2018

Digital Journalism

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Analytics are now embedded in newsroom practice. In a form of participative gatekeeping, the ability to track how the audience absorbs information is shaping editorial content. Although there is much discussion that engagement metrics, like time spent, are more important than pageviews, many advertisers are still more interested in clicks than counting time, some newsrooms still have pageview targets, and the pageviews metric is often used as a simplistic measure of reach. As such, digital editors sit cemented to monitors, working to decipher what stories have or are gaining traction. Using this information, they choose placement of content, enhance stories, and share stories via social media to build traffic, then repeat this frenetic cycle in a seemingly endless loop. But at what cost? How does the focus on metrics affect best practice in the newsroom and, potentially, information sharing in the public sphere? This article examines the impact of audience data on practice at The Hamilton Spectator, a local newsroom in Canada, to explore whether traffic-based metrics and the use of analytics impede the ability to meet journalistic standards, and/or build bigger, more informed and engaged audiences.

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Web analytics and the functional differentiation of journalism cultures: individual, organizational and platform-specific influences on newswork

Cited by 102 publications

References 32 publications

SEO inside Newsrooms: Reports from the Field

SEO inside Newsrooms: Reports from the Field

Selling News to Audiences – A Qualitative Inquiry into the Emerging Logics of Algorithmic News Personalization in European Quality News Media

News by Numbers

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