October 22, Caitlin Petre Book Launch: All the News that’s Fit to Click

caitlin_petre

Book launchAll the News that’s Fit to Click: How Metrics are Transforming the Work of Journalists

Caitlin Petre, Rutgers University

With Discussants:

Jeffrey Lane, Rutgers University

Angèle Christin, Stanford University

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All the News that's Fit to Click: How Metrics are Transforming the Work of Journalists

Journalists today are inundated with data about which stories attract the most clicks, likes, comments, and shares. These metrics influence what stories are written, how news is promoted, and even which journalists get hired and fired. Do metrics make journalists more accountable to the public? Or are these data tools the contemporary equivalent of a stopwatch wielded by a factory boss, worsening newsroom working conditions and journalism quality? In All the News That’s Fit to Click, Caitlin Petre takes readers behind the scenes at the New York Times, Gawker, and the prominent news analytics company Chartbeat to explore how performance metrics are transforming the work of journalism.

Drawing on months of ethnographic observation and dozens of interviews, Petre describes how digital metrics are a powerful but insidious new form of managerial surveillance and discipline. Yet this is not a simple story of managerial domination. Contrary to the typical perception of metrics as inevitably disempowering, Petre shows how some journalists leverage metrics to their advantage, using them to advocate for their professional worth and autonomy.

An eye-opening account of data-driven journalism, All the News That’s Fit to Click is also an important preview of how the metrics revolution may transform other professions.

_________________________________________

Sponsored by

Rutgers Digital Ethnography Working Group

Co-Sponsor

Stanford Ethnography Lab

Book launchAll the News that’s Fit to Click: How Metrics are Transforming the Work of Journalists

Caitlin Petre, Rutgers University

With Discussants:

Jeffrey Lane, Rutgers University

Angèle Christin, Stanford University

_________________________________________

All the News that's Fit to Click: How Metrics are Transforming the Work of Journalists

Journalists today are inundated with data about which stories attract the most clicks, likes, comments, and shares. These metrics influence what stories are written, how news is promoted, and even which journalists get hired and fired. Do metrics make journalists more accountable to the public? Or are these data tools the contemporary equivalent of a stopwatch wielded by a factory boss, worsening newsroom working conditions and journalism quality? In All the News That’s Fit to Click, Caitlin Petre takes readers behind the scenes at the New York Times, Gawker, and the prominent news analytics company Chartbeat to explore how performance metrics are transforming the work of journalism.

Drawing on months of ethnographic observation and dozens of interviews, Petre describes how digital metrics are a powerful but insidious new form of managerial surveillance and discipline. Yet this is not a simple story of managerial domination. Contrary to the typical perception of metrics as inevitably disempowering, Petre shows how some journalists leverage metrics to their advantage, using them to advocate for their professional worth and autonomy.

An eye-opening account of data-driven journalism, All the News That’s Fit to Click is also an important preview of how the metrics revolution may transform other professions.

_________________________________________

Sponsored by

Rutgers Digital Ethnography Working Group

Co-Sponsor

Stanford Ethnography Lab

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