Audience editors: between metrics and journalistic routines

Abstract

Consumption measurement systems have become ubiquitous and disruptive in the news industry and in the work routines of its journalists. Faced with a new panorama of segmentation and content specialization, added to the appearance of a more active figure of the participative user, digital portals demand greater versatility and technological training. Based on this reality, this research focuses on the figure of audience editors, which are relatively new actors in the newsrooms of Argentine digital portals. We perform a qualitative análisis. Through semi-structured in-depth interviews with audience editors from the main national digital portals, the text sets out different objectives. With this objective, firstly we analyze the modifications in journalistic work routines based on the use of metrics and different measurement techniques that impact newsworthiness criteria and the decisions about the place of certain news in the media’s home page. Secondly, to account for the management strategies promoted by these media, the role of Google as information gatekeeping and the role of audiences. Finally, the article proposes a reflection aimed at transcending marketing and public opinion studies to try to elucidate the ways in which the figure of the audience editor articulates the tensions between content, metrics and journalistic practices.