Abstract
‘Clicks, likes, and shares are part of the background noise of our digital lives’ (p. xii), but most of us do not necessarily pay too much attention to them because as Angèle Christin points out in her book, Metrics at Work: Journalism and the Contested Meaning of Algorithms, they ‘have become so ubiquitous that we often take them for granted’ (p. xii). In the book, she explores journalists’ reactions to metrics by focusing on two websites – one based in Paris – LaPlace, and another one in New York – TheNotebook. The author examines ‘how this multiplication of digital metrics, analytics, and algorithms is reconfiguring work practices and professional identities’ by focusing on journalism – ‘a field that has been profoundly changed by digital technologies’ (pp. 1–2). Christin argues that ‘metrics are transforming journalism in unintended and sometimes paradoxical ways’ (p. 2). Her study is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2011 and 2015, including more than 100 semi-structured interviews with journalists. Her findings demonstrate how metrics ‘can be put to strikingly different uses depending on their institutional contexts – here, the national settings, professional fields, and organizational structures in which journalists were embedded’ (p. 12). In Christin’s view, it also tells a wider story beyond the field of journalism by providing ‘a new framework for understanding the contested meaning of digital metrics and what they entail for work practices and professional identities in the algorithmic age’ (p. 2). The book consists of Introduction, six substantive chapters and Conclusion. Chapter 1, ‘From circulation numbers to web analytics: journalists and their readers in the United States and France’, provides the historical and structural background for the book. Chapter 2, ‘Utopian beginnings: a tale of two websites’, focuses on the early years of the two websites. Chapter 3, ‘Entering the chase for clicks: transatlantic convergences’, ‘examines how the two websites entered the chase for traffic’ (p. 13). Chapter 4, ‘The multiple meanings of clicks: journalists and algorithmic publics’, then explores the uses and interpretation of web analytics from the perspective of the two websites. Chapter 5, ‘The fast and the slow: producing online news in real time’, and Chapter 6, ‘Between exposure and unpaid work: compensation and freelance careers’, ‘explore the consequences of these distinct understandings of metrics on two key aspects of the daily life of news organizations: editorial production and compensation systems’ (p. 14). All in all, the book offers a welcome ethnographic investigation into a topic frequently explored through quantitative lens.