Self-tracking and metric codification in digital infrastructures for scholarly communication. Issue 1 (1st January 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Andersen, Jack; Lomborg, Stine
• Is Part Of: Information society. Volume 36:Issue 1(2020)
• Page Start: 43
• Page End: 52
• Publication Date: 2020-01-01
• Subjects: Communication -- digital -- metrics -- media -- scholarly -- self-tracking -- theory; Technology -- Social aspects; Information storage and retrieval systems -- Social aspects; Information science -- Periodicals; Sciences de l'information -- Périodiques; 303.483
• DOI: 10.1080/01972243.2019.1685039
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0197-2243

Abstract

Abstract: We argue that the stakes of scholarly communication are changing as a result of technology-enabled ability to self-track and the enhanced provision and proliferation of instant metrics. These developments accentuate the role of the individual, and conversely underplay the collective effort, in the advancement of knowledge by focusing attention on metrics centered on the individual, professional performance, and communication directed at oneself. We suggest – in line with previous research – that metrics play an increasingly important role in configuring the scholarly communication system. But we also stress, unlike previous research, that metrics are embedded in larger communication contexts, or systems, that are already codified and ordered. Hence the discursive value ascribed to metrics must take into account these contexts. This has at least two benefits. One, we do not reduce scholarly communication to an issue of metrics and rewards, like scientometric studies and contemporary notions of the so-called quantified academic self, and two, a communication framework allows us to see new sorts of conversations going on and new modes of togetherness enabled alongside the digital nurturing of metric regimes.