‘Now we Know’: Quantified Epistemology in News Production and Outpowered Unions

The way digital data is increasingly governing journalistic work, not only towards what to write about, but also how to write, for whom, and when to publish, is currently hardly questioned by journalists’ trade union representatives at local level. Instead, great epistemic value is placed on data analytics-driven journalism in Norwegian newsrooms. This form of governance by a quantified epistemology, which promises to show and reveal what audiences ‘want’ in real-time, instantly, is directly linked to profit and financial sustainability. This chapter shows how the epistemic power of datafied knowledge is profound in the way it outpowers journalists by the management, tech companies, audience-generated data and algorithms. Digital technology seems to be defined out of social dialogue regarding reorganizational processes; digital data are viewed as merely neutral ‘knowledge’ and the trade unions are left with little to be said. This chapter describes how journalists come to know their readers while simultaneously becoming ‘known’ to themselves while losing the ability to question and challenge this epistemic shift in their work.