TRACKING THE ONLINE AUDIENCE

Abstract

This research examines the way online journalists react to new ways of knowing about their audiences. Interviewing 19 online journalists in print, broadcast and net-native media, the research analyses emergent narratives on journalists’ use of tracking data from website servers. The study concludes that competing attitudes are at work in the way journalists react to server data about users and audiences. News and brand values influence journalists towards traditional behaviours, which are shown to form a strong counterweight to market pressure for growth in audience numbers. In addition, a vigorous narrative of change is evident. Online journalists are seen to claim a more reasoned and evidence-based method in choosing what to publish, which is less subject to “instinct” and whim. Tracking data are therefore directly revising the way “news values” are implemented in the respondent sample. Overall, social and organisational context rather than technology alone shape the way these online professionals react to their new tool.