RESEARCH_FILE
Angèle Christin
Stanford University
Known for:Ethnographic research on how audience metrics reshape journalism differently depending on institutional and national context
SEE THE PRACTICE
Turn a thought this research explains into one clear move.
THE THOUGHT
“Journalism is dying and I’m going down with it”
YOUR RECORDED RESPONSE
“The industry shrinking is real. My reporting skill is real too, and it travels with me.”
ONE PRIVATE MOVE
Open a notes app or scrap paper and write one headline idea, one source you would want, and one reason the angle matters. Then close it without sending anything.
Key findings
- 2018
Comparing newsrooms in the U.S. and France, the psychological grip of audience metrics depended on institutional context, not the numbers themselves: American writers who claimed to ignore traffic still checked it constantly, while French writers who called metrics vulgar organized their days around them. Counting Clicks: Quantification and Variation in Web Journalism in the United States and France ↗
- 2020
Across four years of newsroom fieldwork, American journalists routinely downplayed traffic numbers in favor of peer judgment about quality, while French journalists fixated on traffic as a sign of resonance with the public — showing the same metrics tools produce very different newsroom cultures. Metrics at Work: Journalism and the Contested Meaning of Algorithms ↗