ABSTRACT
Building on Bourdieu’s field theory, this study proposes a dimensional model to understand the journalistic field and its adoption of audience metrics as a trend. To trace the cross-field influences that have shaped the trend, this study first examines changes in neighboring fields, such as the online advertising and online audience research fields, and the intermediate field, i.e. web analytics services that work with newsrooms. This study then identifies and examines three axes of the journalistic field, i.e. the techno-economic means of journalism, the subject of journalism, and the object of journalism. The goal of this study is to contextualize, through a sociological lens, the adoption of audience metrics in relation to the dynamics and struggles inside and outside the journalistic field, and to understand the origin, driving forces, and implications of this trend.
