Angele Christin
Associate Professor of Communication and, by courtesy, of Sociology
Bio
Angèle Christin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and a Richard E. Guggenhime Faculty Scholar at Stanford University. She studies fields and organizations where algorithms and analytics transform professional values, expertise, and work practices.
Academic Appointments
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Associate Professor, Communication
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Associate Professor (By courtesy), Sociology
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Faculty Affiliate, Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI)
Honors & Awards
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Viviana Zelizer Best Book Award, Economic Sociology, American Sociological Association
Program Affiliations
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Modern Thought and Literature
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Science, Technology and Society
Professional Education
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PhD, Princeton University, Sociology (2014)
Current Research and Scholarly Interests
Angèle Christin studies how algorithms and analytics transform professional values, expertise, and work practices.
Her book, Metrics at Work: Journalism and the Contested Meaning of Algorithms (Princeton University Press, 2020) focuses on the case of web journalism, analyzing the growing importance of audience data in web newsrooms in the U.S. and France. Drawing on ethnographic methods, Angèle shows how American and French journalists make sense of traffic numbers in different ways, which in turn has distinct effects on the production of news in the two countries. She discussed it on the New Books Network podcast.
In a related study, she analyzed the construction, institutionalization, and reception of predictive algorithms in the U.S. criminal justice system, building on her previous work on the determinants of criminal sentencing in French courts.
Her new project examines the paradoxes of algorithmic labor through a study of influencers and influencer marketing on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.
2024-25 Courses
- Social Media Cultures: Communication Capstone Seminar
COMM 100C (Aut) - The Politics of Algorithms
COMM 154, COMM 254, CSRE 154T, SOC 154, SOC 254C (Win) -
Independent Studies (9)
- Advanced Individual Work
COMM 399 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Coterminal MA directed research
SOC 291 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Coterminal MA individual study
SOC 290 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Coterminal MA research apprenticeship
SOC 292 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Honors Thesis
COMM 195 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Individual Work
COMM 199 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Individual Work
COMM 299 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Media Studies M.A. Project
COMM 290 (Win, Spr) - Teaching Apprenticeship
SOC 393 (Aut, Win, Spr)
- Advanced Individual Work
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Prior Year Courses
2023-24 Courses
- Ethnographic Methods
COMM 314, SOC 319 (Win) - The Politics of Algorithms
COMM 154, COMM 254, CSRE 154T, SOC 154, SOC 254C (Spr) - Theories of Culture, Media, and Institutions
COMM 355B, SOC 355 (Win)
2022-23 Courses
- Ethnographic Methods
COMM 314, SOC 319 (Win) - The Politics of Algorithms
COMM 154, COMM 254, CSRE 154T, SOC 154, SOC 254C (Spr)
2021-22 Courses
- Ethnographic Methods
COMM 314, SOC 319 (Win) - The World of Influencers: Labor, Power, and Celebrity on Social Media
COMM 355 (Spr)
- Ethnographic Methods
Stanford Advisees
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Doctoral Dissertation Reader (AC)
Daniel Akselrad, Pratyusha Kalluri, Rebecca Lewis, Reagan Ross -
Postdoctoral Faculty Sponsor
Isha Bhallamudi, Jenessa Williams -
Doctoral (Program)
Sacha Alanoca, Rachel Bergmann, Elizabeth Fetterolf, Marijn Nura Mado
All Publications
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Internal Fractures: The Competing Logics of Social Media Platforms
SOCIAL MEDIA + SOCIETY
2024; 10 (3)
View details for DOI 10.1177/20563051241274668
View details for Web of Science ID 001295448100001
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The influencer pay gap: Platform labor meets racial capitalism
NEW MEDIA & SOCIETY
2023
View details for DOI 10.1177/14614448231164995
View details for Web of Science ID 000978443100001
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Walking the Walk of AI Ethics: Organizational Challenges and the Individualization of Risk among Ethics Entrepreneurs
ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY. 2023: 217-226
View details for DOI 10.1145/3593013.3593990
View details for Web of Science ID 001062819300021
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Platform drama: "Cancel culture," celebrity, and the struggle for accountability on YouTube
NEW MEDIA & SOCIETY
2022; 24 (7): 1632-1656
View details for DOI 10.1177/14614448221099235
View details for Web of Science ID 000827410900006
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Technologies of Crime Prediction: The Reception of Algorithms in Policing and Criminal Courts
SOCIAL PROBLEMS
2021; 38 (3): 608-624
View details for DOI 10.1093/socpro/spaa004
View details for Web of Science ID 000733268900006
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The Drama of Metrics: Status, Spectacle, and Resistance Among YouTube Drama Creators
SOCIAL MEDIA + SOCIETY
2021; 7 (1)
View details for DOI 10.1177/2056305121999660
View details for Web of Science ID 000630007300001
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"This Seems to Work": Designing Technological Systems with The Algorithmic Imaginations of Those Who Labor
ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY. 2021
View details for DOI 10.1145/3411763.3441331
View details for Web of Science ID 000759178500022
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The ethnographer and the algorithm: beyond the black box
THEORY AND SOCIETY
2020
View details for DOI 10.1007/s11186-020-09411-3
View details for Web of Science ID 000559936900001
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ALGORITHMS AT WORK: THE NEW CONTESTED TERRAIN OF CONTROL
ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT ANNALS
2020; 14 (1): 366–410
View details for DOI 10.5465/annals.2018.0174
View details for Web of Science ID 000510825600012
- Technologies of Crime Prediction: The Reception of Algorithms in Policing and Criminal Courts Social Problems 2020; 68 (3): 608–624
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What Data Can Do: A Typology of Mechanisms
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION
2020; 14: 1115–34
View details for Web of Science ID 000519578900018
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METRICS AT WORK JOURNALISM AND THE CONTESTED MEANING OF ALGORITHMS Introduction
METRICS AT WORK
2020: 1-14
View details for Web of Science ID 000630893000002
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Counting Clicks: Quantification and Variation in Web Journalism in the United States and France
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
2018; 123 (5): 1382–1415
View details for DOI 10.1086/696137
View details for Web of Science ID 000428063300004
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Work and Identity in an Era of Precarious Employment: How Workers Respond to "Personal Branding" Discourse
WORK AND OCCUPATIONS
2018; 45 (1): 3–37
View details for DOI 10.1177/0730888417735662
View details for Web of Science ID 000419321000001