Counting Clicks: Quantification and Variation in Web Journalism in the United States and France

Abstract

Sociological studies often emphasize the role of metrics in broader processes of convergence and homogenization. Yet numbers can take on different meanings depending on their contexts. This article focuses on the case of journalism, a field transformed by quantification in the form of “clicks.” Drawing on ethnographic material gathered at two news websites—one in New York, the other in Paris—it documents important differences in the uses and meanings assigned to audience metrics in the United States and France. At the U.S. website, editors make significant decisions based on metrics, but staff journalists are relatively unconcerned by them. At the French website, however, editors are conflicted about metrics, but staff writers fixate on them. To understand these differences, this article analyzes how the trajectories of the U.S. and French journalistic fields affect newsroom dynamics. It shows how cultural differences can be reproduced at a time of technological convergence.