How is the fuzzy notion of audience engagement shaped within the meta­journalistic discourses about online journalism ?

Understanding and measuring “audience engagement” within the context of online news platforms has become something the sector is struggling with, especially in a context where traditional metrics such as unique visitors have proved insufficient to monetize their publics. Perceiving their audience as an active entity and encouraged by a range of research tending to show the economic relevance of the concept, online newsroom staffers are now expected to consider web analytics as a support to take decisions: those audience metrics are now interpreted as engagement indicators. But which data to look at? How to interpret them? There seems to be no consensus about those questions. Moreover, not even about the definition of “engagement” itself. This paper offers a preliminary socio-historical analysis of the evolution of the notion of “engagement” within the media sector. Actually, we can find the roots and the first uses of this notion years ago within the print media sector, where “engagement” seemed to be closely related to advertising issues. Mostly interested in the journey of the notion within the online journalism ecosystem, specific attention is devoted to meta-journalistic discourses contributing to the appraisal of this notion. To achieve this goal, a corpus of articles focusing on audience engagement was gathered from four professional publications specialized in online journalism: Nieman Journalism Lab, Poynter, Columbia Journalism Review and Journalism.co.uk. Through content analysis, the intention is learning from the actors themselves, through their own words, how the notion of “engagement” has developed. At a time when “audience engagement” has become one of the most powerful buzzwords in the online journalism ecosystem, it is important to foster critical reflection about its use and implications for both business and journalistic decisions.