社交共享是評判新聞的好標準嗎？

????我在上期專欄中曾經指出，社交共享（一篇文章在Facebook和Twitter等社交網站上被分享的次數）是評判一篇文章的通用、且可以公開獲取的量化標準，因為只有它是唯一一個通用、且可以公開獲取的量化標準。

????這并不是一個很有爭議性的立場，但我猜許多人會攻擊這個事實。我承認：“任何新的衡量指標勢必將引發一場涉及其完善程度的激烈爭辯——頁面瀏覽量的價值就被激烈爭論了逾10年之久?！缃还蚕怼斎灰沧杂兴膬烖c和缺點。我將在下篇專欄文章中對此進行分析?！?/p>

????一位記者同意我的看法，他在Twitter上說：“盡管令人煩惱，但自我推銷現在是必不可少的?！绷硪晃挥浾吒阈κ降匮a充道：“請轉發?！鄙除埦W（Salon.com）則發起了攻擊：“干媒體這行可以帶來許多世俗的、但正在迅速消失的樂事。不說別的，加蘭特先生顯然沒有聽說過薪酬支票、工作、宴會邀請、演講、獎品、出席電視節目，簽訂出書合同等等這些好事?！表槺阏f一下，沙龍網每一個文章頁面都在顯示相關文章被十幾家社交媒體轉發的數量。

????當然，這些指標沒有一項是公開的，可量化的。如果薪水是公開的，這項指標肯定會被重視。當初自由職業者諾亞?戴維斯在《錐子》雜志（The Awl）上透露了出版商支付給他的稿酬之后，他的文章被分享了3,000多次，其中包括來自大約100名記者的分享轉發?！跺F子》雜志給這篇文章支付了250美元的稿費。雖然薪酬數據如果公開的話，肯定是一個備受歡迎的衡量指標，但它或許并不是一個非常好的指標。聲譽不大好的新聞工作往往可以獲得更高的報酬。就總體而言，薪酬反映的是過去的表現，而不是目前的成就。

????所有這一切都引導我們重新回到眼前這個問題：社交共享是一個用來評判新聞的好指標嗎？

????我詢問了一些精明的記者和社交媒體編輯對社交共享的看法，從而進一步確定了關于這個問題的爭論。首先，讓我們審視一下業內人士針對社交共享最大的反對意見和這種衡量尺度的弱點：

????人們可能沒有閱讀就分享，或者讀了但沒有分享。每個人都非常關心自己在社交媒體上的形象。一些人喜歡分享來自《經濟學人》（The Economist）和《哈佛商業評論》（Harvard Business Review）等高端出版物的文章，以顯示自己的睿智，或者分享來自《洋蔥新聞》（The Onion）的文章，以顯示自己的幽默感，但他們其實并沒有閱讀相關文章。正如艾米?弗農在我上篇專欄文章下面所寫的評論，“所謂的瀏覽量，只能說明某個人在看這個頁面，最起碼停留了一會?！边@是一個很公允的看法。

????社交共享僅僅是一場競賽，比拼的是受歡迎程度。與瀏覽量、獨立訪問量、發行量、圖書銷量或民主選舉相類似，社交共享在一定程度上能夠衡量一篇文章的受歡迎程度。這種反對意見似乎相當反動。我們已經使用大量與受歡迎程度相關的指標來評判新聞的影響力，甚至用這類指標來選舉一個國家的領導人。不同于學術研究，新聞的使命之一就是讓公眾獲得知情權。試問，如果沒人閱讀新聞報道，或者說根本就不想討論它，辛苦了大半天的記者們會滿意嗎？

????In my last column I pointed out that social shares (the number of times an article is shared on social media services like Facebook and Twitter) is the universal and publicly accessible metric for judging an article, simply because it's the only universal and publicly accessible metric for judging an article.

????Not exactly a controversial stance, but I suspected many would take offense at this fact. I acknowledged "Any new metric invites a vigorous debate on how healthy it is -- the value of the pageview has been hotly debated for over a decade -- and the social share has its pros and cons. I'll leave that analysis for another column."

????One journalist agreed with me and tweeted "Self-promotion now annoyingly essential." Another rwryly added "(Please RT :/)." Salon.com, a site that displays over a dozen social media counts on a single article page, took offense: "Apparently Galant has never heard of paychecks, jobs, party invitations, speaking gigs, prizes, television appearances and book deals to mention only a few of the earthly, though rapidly vanishing, delights of a media career."

????Of course, none of those metrics are public and quantifiable. If paychecks were public, they'd certainly be paid attention to. When freelancer Noah Davis revealed in The Awl what publications paid him for his work his article was shared over 3,000 times, which included shares from about a hundred journalists. The Awl paid him $250 for the piece. While pay data would certainly be a popular metric if it were public, it probably wouldn't be a very good metric. Often the pay is higher for less prestigious journalism work, and in general compensation reflects past performance rather than current achievements.

????All this leads us back to the question at hand: Are social shares a good metric to use to judge journalism?

????I asked a number of savvy journalists and social media editors what they thought of social shares, which helped define the issues. Let's start by examining the biggest objections to and weaknesses of the social share:

????People may share a link without reading it, or read without sharing. We all care how we're perceived on social media. Some people share articles from publications like The Economist andHarvard Business Review just to look smart, or from The Onion to appear to have a sense of humor, without actually reading them. As Amy Vernon commented on my last post, "with pageviews, you actually know someone looked at the page, for at least a brief moment." Fair point.

????Social shares are just a popularity contest. Similar to pageviews, unique visitors, circulation numbers, book sales or democratic elections, social shares to some degree measure how popular something is. This objection seems to be rather reactionary. We already use plenty of metrics related to popularity to judge the impact of journalism and even to choose leaders for our nation. Part of the mission of journalism, as opposed to academic research, is to inform the public. What journalist would be satisfied if no one read their work or cared to talk about it?