99 The Metric Mindset: Social Life in Datafied Media Landscapes Göran Bolin1 Abstract: In contemporary datafied media landscapes, metrics havebecome sonaturalised in thedigital environment thatmedia users no longer reflect on their visibility, nor on their operability. Nonetheless, metrics direct user attention in various directions in digital space, towards other users, advertising, promotional messages, political opinion, etc. However, in everyday life users rarely reflect on how metrics steer attention, perceptions, and mindsets, and, following from this, privilege behaviour. So, how can we research the ‘metric mindsets’ of users if metrics have become so natural to us as water to the fish? How can media us- ers be sensitised to the meaning of metrics and measurement? In this paper is, firstly, reflected on the meanings that metrics might have for media users, and secondly, how these meanings can be researched empirically. It is suggested that a combination of traditional methods (interviews) with software manipulation gives some insights into these questions. Keywords: Datafication. Media production. Cultural production. Capitalism M . etrics and technologies of measurement have become an increasingly important feature of our everyday ‘media life’ (DEUZE, 2012) in surveillance capitalism (ZUBOFF, 2015). Metrics, it is argued, have become ‘an environment in which we live [. . .] an “air” that we breathe, an atmospheric compo1 Professor inMedia and Communication Studies. Södertörn University, Stockholm, SE. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0216-8862. E-MAIL: goran.bolin@sh.se.
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