par Malcorps, Sylvain 
Référence Power, Institutions & Authority Conference (5: 29-08-2016: University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland)
Publication Non publié, 2016-08
Référence Power, Institutions & Authority Conference (5: 29-08-2016: University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland)
Publication Non publié, 2016-08
Communication à un colloque
| Résumé : | From newspaper’s circulation figure to web analytics, numerical audience-related data constitute for decades one of the main bargaining arguments for the newspaper industry to express how valuable the audience they attract is. Besides more qualitative audience understanding approaches (e.g. readership surveys), numerical data about media audiences behavior seem to prevail on the audience marketplace partly because of their low production cost. Philip M. Napoli (2011) also shows how control motivates this rationalization process: audience data appear to provide more control and predictability on audiences behavior as well as they confer legitimacy to their users. But how do this reliance on specific numbers emerge in the newspaper industry?This paper investigates how web analytics have gained commercial importance around 2000 in the Belgian publishing company “Mediafin”. Based on an ethnographic research within the company on the use of such data, first results show that the interest for these statistics has grown as the first Belgian online ad sales agency was created. Interviews reveal how web analytics started to play a key role in the company’s online business activities at the same time as other major actors interested in online audiences were establishing - mainly trade - relationships. This paper aims at tracing some of the power dynamics at stake between Mediafin and other specific actors on this issue in the early 2000s. Foster critical reflection on this process of rationalization of audience understanding is important because of its influences on how media actors perceive their audience and the types of content they consume. |
