This report explores the industry of Internet measurement and its impact on news organizations working online. It investigates this landscape through a combination of documentary research and interviews with measurement companies, trade groups, advertising agencies, media scholars, and journalists from national newspapers, regional papers, and online-only news ventures.
Project leads: Lucas Graves, John Kelly
Team member: Marissa Gluck
This study examined how journalistic organizations manage for impact and the challenges and opportunities that arise when newsrooms apply impact thinking to journalistic practice. This project presents a history of impact theory, and features a study of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ)’s approach to story choice, production, and distribution. While measuring the impact of individual organizations or projects can be incredibly difficult, the study found that reporters can keep the spotlight on the issues of the journalism by sticking with their stories long after the initial publication. The final report was published in spring 2017.
Project leads: Lindsay Green-Barber, Fergus Pitt
Based on survey research and interviews with newsrooms regarding current impact measurement practices, researchers designed and built a new analytics platform to measure the quantitative and qualitative impact of news stories and to add qualitative information that was previously nonexistent in such tools.
Project leads: Brian Abelson, Michael Keller
This project featured an ethnographic study of the role of metrics in contemporary news via three case studies (Chartbeat, Gawker Media, The New York Times) to evaluate the assumptions and values that underlie audience measures, the effects of metrics on journalists, how metrics interact with organizations’ culture, and how metrics are utilized by companies. The report found that traffic-based rankings can drown out other forms of evaluation and can exert a powerful influence over journalists’ emotions and morale. Additionally, the report outlines how news organizations can benefit from big-picture, strategic thinking about analytics and selecting analytics services.
Project lead: Caitlin Petre
An investigation of the unexplored territory of analytics, impact, and engagement in the 3D journalism space, using virtual and augmented reality technology to empirically prove their alleged merits.
Project lead: Dan Archer