The use of metrics and analytics is becoming pervasive in newsrooms the world over. However, ethnographic research in six newsrooms in three different countries revealed a dearth of distinctive terminology in scholarly literature in regards to such practice that limits understanding of how audience data are being used on the newsroom floor. This issue is addressed with the development of a new participative gatekeeping model that shows three previously unidentified channels of gatekeeping specifically related to the use of audience data: promotional, for the type of short-term gatekeeping done on news site homepages that involves tracking real-time metrics to position content, often tied to traffic targets; developmental, for longer-term use of analytics to discern how the audience consumes information that leads to hypotheses of audience behaviour, shaping future coverage; and a third more porous channel of experimentation where such hypotheses are tested. These channels were observed in newsroom practice and elucidated through interviews at Norway’s public broadcaster, NRK; Canada’s subscriber-based national news agency, The Canadian Press (CP); and two local newsrooms working within larger media organizations, The Hamilton Spectator in Canada, and The Bournemouth Daily Echo in England.

1. Participative
Gatekeeping
The Intersection of News, Audience Data, Newsworkers,
and Economics
Dr. Nicole Blanchett Neheli
Sheridan College
@NicoleBlanchett
redefiningjournalism.wordpress.com

2. Ethnographic Design
• 69 participants: editorial, digital, sales, technologists, analysts, variety of levels of
experience/rank
• More than 43 hours of open-ended interviews
• Multi-national participant observation January 2017-February 2018: NRK, Norway;
The Canadian Press, Canada; The Hamilton Spectator, Canada; The
Bournemouth Daily Echo, England
• Thematic, recursive, reflexive analysis of interview and observation data/use of
research journal
• Rudimentary content analysis
• Rudimentary analysis of analytics data
• Particularly for this paper, answering the call for more ethnographic work examining
the impact of new technologies on newsroom practice (Cottle 2000; Tandoc & Jenner
2016) from a “social-organizational perspective” (Boczkowski 2004, p.209)
©Nicole Blanchett Neheli

3. ©Nicole Blanchett Neheli

4. Sociological Bricolage
• Field theory to establish sites of study within the field of the
newsroom and reflect on efforts within that field to retain
editorial autonomy (Bourdieu 1996;2005; Schultz 2007; Neveu 2005; Willig 2013; Willig et al. 2015; Moyo et al. 2019)
• Gatekeeping to examine specific functions of metrics and
analytics in terms of story selection, development, and
promotion (White 1950; Shoemaker & Vos 2009; Tandoc 2014; Heinderyckx 2015; Reese & Shoemaker 2016; Wallace 2017)
• Boundary work to examine the struggles to define journalism
and journalistic standards in the newsroom field (Gieryn 1983; Carlson 2015;
Björkman & Franco 2017; Duffy et al. 2017; Bunce 2017; Deuze & Witschge 2017; Belair-Gagnon & Holton 2018)
• Role negotiation mechanisms—assimilation, appropriation,
and exit (Hanitzsch & Vos 2017)—to identify journalists’ acceptance or
rejection of changing boundaries
*Just a sample of references

5. What’s impacting
transferability?
• Narrated versus actual practice
• One participant per site studies—due to stark differences in practice/importance
placed on metrics & analytics within organizations based on individual
roles/habitus
• What is journalism? Differing views on aggregation versus creation, but studies
based on aggregation used as evidence of “journalistic” practice and/or the roles
of participants are not clearly identified, e.g., “editor”
• Focus on the homepage without understanding goals on the newsroom floor
(e.g., differing methodologies in curation of most views, loyal reader vs volume)
• The “gap” between audience and journalists based on most views versus real-
time decision making/decisions based on longer-term data
• Using the terms metrics and analytics interchangeably
©Nicole Blanchett Neheli

6. Clarification of Terms
Metrics are units of measurement that reflect a specific
element of audience behaviour
Analytics encompass the analysis of audience data as
a means of performance appraisal on existing content
and the development of hypotheses to improve
audience engagement in the future
Analytics systems are platforms specifically designed
to aggregate, display, and assist in the reporting and
analysis of audience data
(Blanchett Neheli 2018; 2019a)

7. Media Logic
Format over function, eyeballs over information sharing,
narrowed frames of reference, impact on public
discourse (Altheide & Snow 1979;1991)
Ecology of Communication
“…the impact of information technology and communication
formats on established institutional, cultural, and everyday life
activities” (Altheide 2019).

8. Audience Participation in the
News Process…
“Things have been changing in much of the
media industry from back in the day when
people who were working in news were not
really that interested in the audience and their
preferences to the point where absolutely
everything is interesting” (NRK data analyst).
“We might chase something now because…it’s just something
that people are very interested in that in the past you might
have just ignored” (CP news editor).
©Nicole Blanchett Neheli

9. Cross-cultural
Commonalities
• “Doing well” — the importance of volume metrics, but recognition
traffic doesn’t, necessarily, reflect quality or relevance
• Pressure to meet targets/quotas
• Acknowledgement some stories must be shown/told regardless of
potential views (but differing methodologies on what this means)
• A desire to cover what the audience wants, what people are
“talking about,” a broadening of the “menu,” but more direct
interaction with the audience needed for better interpretation of
data: “I don’t know what our followers want to read this day” (N11
personal communication, 2 August 2017)
©Nicole Blanchett Neheli

10. • The need for pictures to “enhance” and promote stories on the
web, specific use of formats based on audience data
• Dayparting and platform-parting (see also Hanusch 2017), and
“de-selection” (Tandoc 2014), news processes based on
designated formats e.g. NRK’s word count
• Reliance on social media: particularly Facebook for
reach/community building, Twitter as tool to live stream/take
notes, “shareability” as a factor in story development (see also
Harcup & O’Neill 2017; Ekström & Westlund 2019)
• Differing ranges of acceptance/definitions re changing roles of
newsworkers/journalists, often based on individual roles, but
agreement on ideals/values, regardless if ideals can be met—a
spectrum of practice (Blanchett Neheli 2019b)
Commonalities Con’t
©Nicole Blanchett Neheli

11. • Relentless pace in short-staffed newsrooms, “assembly-line”
or “factory-like” production, continual addition of tasks to
meet digital demands, uncertain futures (see also Cohen
2015; 2018)
• Acceptance/belief in value of metrics and analytics directly
related to consistent message from top down re their
importance, along with how use of data is embedded into
routines/shared within the organization
• Exemplified at The Spectator: moved from “water cooler”
format with focus on page impressions, digital divide
between goals of print and web, and different supervisors
for web and print to single supervisor, focus on local, more
of a “subscription” model in “top-down” initiative
©Nicole Blanchett Neheli
Commonalities Con’t

12. “…if they were finding a way to
make it feed me and my family at
the end of the day then I’m not
sure I’m having a complaint.”
Individual Economics
©Nicole Blanchett Neheli

13. ©Nicole Blanchett Neheli

14. ©Nicole Blanchett Neheli

15. Promotional Gatekeeping
(real time/short term)
• What’s charting/trending/popular
• Ability to enhance
• Breaking news
• Previous popularity
• Relevance to community
• Benefit to social/economic capital
Developmental Gatekeeping
(long term/longer view)
• Proven format
• Previous popularity
• Relevance to community
• Effort/expense to develop
• Reliance/belief in use of analytics
• Benefit to social/economic capital
Participative Gatekeeping:
The Influence of Audience Data
Fluid Factors & Forces:
ECONOMIC + Organizational + Routine
©Nicole Blanchett Neheli

16. Fundamental Research
Questions
• What goals do the use of metrics and
analytics support?
• What values do the use of metrics and
analytics support?
• How does audience data influence the
creation of goals and values?
©Nicole Blanchett Neheli

17. Strategies for Rapidly
Changing Areas of Study
• Temporal analysis: e.g., 70’s television compared to
modern digital newsworkers (Altheide 1976; 1980; see also Carlson &
Lewis 2018 re. temporal reflexivity)
• Compressed ethnography/multi-sites versus intensive
observation at one site (see also Burrell 2009; LeCompte & Schensul 2010;
Christin 2017)
• Equal consideration for interviews and observation (see also
Gerard Forsey 2010)
• The need for reciprocity and reflexivity/keeping in touch
with key participants (see also Altheide 1980; Shaffir et al. 1980; Cottle 2000;
Delamont 2007)
©Nicole Blanchett Neheli

18. For references:
Blanchett Neheli, N., 2018. News by Numbers: The evolution of analytics in journalism. Digital
Journalism, 6(8), p.1041-1051. Available from
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21670811.2018.1504626
Blanchett Neheli, N., 2019a. Metrics and analytics in the newsroom: An ethnographic study
exploring how audience data are changing practice. Thesis (PhD). Bournemouth University.
Available from http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/31683/
Blanchett Neheli, N., 2019b. Here’s how metrics and analytics are changing newsroom practice.
J-source [online] 19 February 2019. Available from https://j-source.ca/article/heres-how-metrics-
and-analytics-are-changing-newsroom-practice/
Blanchett Neheli, N., 2019c. Can analytics save local newspapers? In New journalisms:
Rethinking practice, theory and pedagogy. Routledge: London
https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429487477
Blanchett Neheli, N., forthcoming. Participative gatekeeping: The intersection of news, audience
data, newsworkers, and economics (email me for a copy
nicole.blanchettneheli@sheridancollege.ca)