Al Jazeera English Online

Al Jazeera English is the Arab world's largest purveyor of English language news to an international audience. This article provides an in-depth examination of how its website employs Web metrics for tracking and understanding audience behavior. The Al Jazeera Network remains sheltered from the general economic concerns around the news industry, providing a unique setting in which to understand how these tools influence newsroom production and knowledge creation. Through interviews and observations, findings reveal that the news organization's institutional culture plays a tremendous role in shaping how journalists use and understand metrics. The findings are interpreted through an analysis of news norms studies of the social construction of technology. Keywords: Al Jazeera Englishaudiencesnews economicsnews normsonline journalismWeb metrics Notes 1. Al Jazeera English does not report audience figures directly on company site information, though staff indicated that there have been internal studies. 2. Al Gore's Current TV, which has a cable slot on most carriers, was sold to Al Jazeera in January 2013 for $500 million. The implications are, as of publication, unclear. 3. Aljazeera.net is one of the top 200 most visited websites in the world according to Alexa.com (Al Jazeera 2012). 4. I do not investigate that here. 5. The New York Times is generally accepted as the largest daily newspaper Web traffic, and contests this point (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/25/daily-mails-website-traffic-new-york-times_n_1231795.html) 6. See https://twitter.com/chartbeat/status/236545346229116928