Audience-metric continuity? Approaching the meaning of measurement in the digital everyday

This article argues for an expansion of existing studies on the meaning of metrics in digitalenvironments by evaluating a methodology tested in a pilot study to analyse audienceresponses to metrics of social media profiles. The pilot study used the software toolFacebook Demetricator by artist Ben Grosser in combination with follow-up interviews.In line with Grosser’s intentions, the software indeed provoked reflection among theusers. In this article, we reflect on three kinds of disorientations that users expressed,linked to temporality, sociality and value. Relating these to the history of audiencemeasurement in mass media, we argue that there is merit in using this methodologyfor further analysis of continuities in audience responses to metrics, in order to betterunderstand the ways in which metrics work to create the ‘audience commodity’