
Angele Christin
Assistant Professor of Communication and, by courtesy, of Sociology
Bio
Angèle Christin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication, and, by courtesy, in the Sociology Department at Stanford University. She studies fields and organizations where algorithms and analytics transform professional values, expertise, and work practices. She received her PhD in Sociology from Princeton University and the EHESS (Paris).
Academic Appointments
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Assistant Professor, Communication
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Assistant Professor (By courtesy), Sociology
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Faculty Affiliate, Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI)
Program Affiliations
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Modern Thought and Literature
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Science, Technology and Society
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.
2021-22 Courses
- Ethnographic Methods
COMM 314 (Win) - The World of Influencers: Labor, Power, and Celebrity on Social Media
COMM 355 (Spr) -
Independent Studies (9)
- Advanced Individual Work
COMM 399 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Advanced Individual Work
STS 299 (Win, Spr) - Coterminal MA individual study
SOC 290 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Curriculum Practical Training
COMM 380 (Sum) - Honors Thesis
COMM 195 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Individual Work
COMM 199 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Individual Work
COMM 299 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Media Studies M.A. Project
COMM 290 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Teaching Apprenticeship
SOC 393 (Spr)
- Advanced Individual Work
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Prior Year Courses
2019-20 Courses
- Communication Colloquium
COMM 390 (Aut, Win) - Ethnographic Methods
COMM 314, SOC 319 (Aut) - The Politics of Algorithms
COMM 154, COMM 254, CSRE 154T, SOC 154, SOC 254C (Aut)
2018-19 Courses
- Communication Colloquium
COMM 390 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Ethnographic Methods
COMM 314, SOC 319 (Win) - The Politics of Algorithms
COMM 154, COMM 254, CSRE 154T, SOC 154 (Spr)
- Communication Colloquium
Stanford Advisees
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Doctoral Dissertation Reader (AC)
Prachee Jain, Abisola Kusimo, Yingdan Lu, Jeff Nagy, Morgan Weiland -
Doctoral Dissertation Advisor (AC)
Sanna Ali, Anna Gibson -
Doctoral (Program)
Sanna Ali, Anna Gibson, Marijn Nura Mado
All Publications
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Race after Technology (Book Review)
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
2021; 127 (3): 1004-1005
View details for DOI 10.1086/715868
View details for Web of Science ID 000756021400011
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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 Metric Society: On the Quantification of the Social (Book Review)
ARCHIVES EUROPEENNES DE SOCIOLOGIE
2020; 61 (3): 486–89
View details for DOI 10.1017/S0003975620000338
View details for Web of Science ID 000632985300017
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Algorithmic ethnography, during and after COVID-19
COMMUNICATION AND THE PUBLIC
2020; 5 (3-4): 108–11
View details for DOI 10.1177/2057047320959850
View details for Web of Science ID 000598578700006
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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
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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
- Technologies of Crime Prediction: The Reception of Algorithms in Policing and Criminal Courts Social Problems 2020; 68 (3): 608–624
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Down and Out in the New Economy: How People Find (or Don't Find) Work Today (Book Review)
WORK AND OCCUPATIONS
2019; 46 (1): 94–96
View details for DOI 10.1177/0730888418793489
View details for Web of Science ID 000454585200005
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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