Opting out of analytics: The tacit compliance of journalists in datafied newsrooms

Presenting audiences and journalistic work in quantitative terms has become an established practice in news organisations. The use of audience-generated data as a measurement for journalistic performance is not without problems as questions arise about the extent to which datafied logics generate accurate representations of qualitative, complex, and pluriform journalistic work. In this article, we examine how journalists in a public service media organisation approach analytics by looking at the extent to which they engage in what we call data-related job crafting. We also study how their level of engagement with job crafting relates to their perceptions of their work environment and occupational well-being. The study is based on a survey with 121 journalists working for a Nordic public-funded media organisation. We show that in today’s datafied news media environment, opting out of the use of analytics manifests itself as a kind of private, tacit compliance; it is connected to work-related malaise but not related to the avoidance of analytics extensively at an organisational level. We argue that this reflects the institutionalisation of audience analytics in news organisations, which has made opting out more of a gesture than a real possibility. We conclude the article with a reflection on how the institutionalisation of analytics is challenging the central social justification of public service media.