Abstract
Data metrics is a crucial component of journalism. It enables the media house to determine the reachability of their publication to their audience and whether the audience is groin got not. With the advent and rise in the number of social media outlets, data metrics would enable a media outlet to determine the platforms that are referred by their readers to access the content that they share and the content that the audience would prefer. Kuwait Times utilizes web metrics in their operations with the key intention of shaping their editorial policy.
Introduction/background on Kuwait times
Kuwait Times is an Arab Gulf English language daily that publishes six times a week. The initial publication of the media house was on 21st September 1961 and has run successful till the present date. However, during the Iraqi invasion the media house had to halt their operations owing to the military activities that were in the Kuwait region. There are diverse areas to which the media outlet publishes. They include sports, education, local and business, entertainment and fitness. Technology and regional and international news are also part of the content that Kuwait Times offers to its audience. Kuwait Times is one of the most known media outlets within the gulf region. The diversification of channels through which its audience accesses its content affirms its alignment to the changes brought about by disruptive technology. The channels that it often utilizes to share it content are both in print and digital. Digital platforms include its website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
Literature Review
According to Tandoc Jr and Thomas (2015), web analytics is shaping the way through which media houses construct their news. Web analytics is shaping the paradigm shift from the obsession that the journalists have with publishing public interest stories to the publication of what the public is interested in. In another article by Webster and Ksiazek (2012), network analytics metrics is utilized in the examination of fragmentation of the audience in relation to the content that is created by the media houses. Furthermore, the existence of the social media platform such as Facebook and Twitters enhances the capability of the media houses to share information to a wider audience. Loosen and Schmidt (2012) also advances the view that technological and institutional changes are changing the manner upon which the media houses would interact with their target audience. Therefore, the determination of level of type of engagement that needs to exist between the media house and the audience is determined through web analytics, thus, the key role of analytics in media.
Method
Interviewing the managing editor and editor in chief of Kuwait Times is the key method that was sought in examining the extent to which the media house integrates data analytics in its operations. The questions are open ended to enhance the capability of the readers to provide extensive information on the questions. The data that is collected through the process is, thus, qualitative. The feedback that is realized from the interview is descriptive, thus, facilitating the writeup of the findings section of this paper.
Findings
Web analytics is the major form of data analytics that Kuwait Times often utilizes in reaching out to their target audience. The purpose of the web analytics is to enable the target audience to determine the number of visitors into their social media and website visits. The number of visits into a website is crucial in determining the extent to which the target audience is drawn into the content shared by the publication firm. While analytics is recognizes as being crucial to the management, the information that is drawn from the analytics are often not used in shaping the editorial decisions that are made by the media outlet. Neither, it does not determine the stories that the media house publishes to its target audience. However, the digital media editors has the capability of examining the data analytics and ensuring that there is effective interaction between the readers and media house including issuance of feedback on the activities that are run by the organization.
The management uses the metrics that are important to the readers of the media house. Notably, there is an understanding that the management often suggests to the journalists working for the firm to seek stories that are of relevance to what the target audience will require based on the feedback that they draw from their target audience. However, the benefit of metrics to Kuwait Times is enhancing the reach that the media house has to their target audience. Web analytics have also been crucial to the determination of the audience’s age that prefers to rad out the publication. Such tends to shape the content that the media house makes available to them. While the readership of the publication ranges from those of preteen age to the baby boomers in their 60s, the core audiences are those within the age brackets of 18-35 and 36 to 60.
Conclusion
Web analytics are used by the management in strategic planning for the activities that are set to be run by Kuwait Times. The capability of the audience to interact with the media house is one key way through which the media house receives information from their audience. Importantly, editorial decision making tend to be based on the feedback that they receive from both the print and the social media platforms and such would affirm the extent to which they are ethical or the changes that should be made by the company in their editorial policy.
- Loosen, W., & Schmidt, J. H. (2012). (Re-) discovering the audience: The relationship between journalism and audience in networked digital media. Information, Communication & Society, 15(6), 867-887.
- Tandoc Jr, E. C., & Thomas, R. J. (2015). The ethics of web analytics: Implications of using audience metrics in news construction. Digital journalism, 3(2), 243-258.
- Webster, J. G., & Ksiazek, T. B. (2012). The dynamics of audience fragmentation: Public attention in an age of digital media. Journal of communication, 62(1), 39-56.
