Nature and Altmetric secure Google funding to measure the impact of journalism
Science journal Nature and Altmetric, a data science company, have received funding from the Google Digital News Innovation Fund to build an innovative tool that will measure the real-world impact of journalism. This funding is part of Google’s Digital News Initiative in Europe to provide technological innovation and support to journalistic activities.
According to the Altmetric’s press release, news articles can influence major policy decisions, lead to the launch of a new field, and even kick start interesting social media conversations. However, the impact of news articles is mostly measured in terms of the number of readers they attract using analytical tools and their “real world impact” gets largely ignored.
Altmetric and Nature plan to overcome this shortfall by launching a digital tool called ‘change the world impact tracker,’ which will allows various stakeholders like the readers, the publishers, and the funders to learn more about an article’s impact through article badges and dashboards displayed on the tracker. They believe that this tool will “demonstrate the value of journalism to readers” and it will help “make the case that journalism is worth investing in.”
Related reading:
- How Altmetric measures the attention surrounding academic research
- A broader view of research impact through Altmetric
- Using altmetrics to showcase the influence of your work to funders: A case study
- Dr. Kim Holmberg: We are not yet ready to use altmetrics to measure research impact
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