As Merry puts it, metrics and indicators require all kinds of political compromises and judgment calls to compress so much rich information into a single ranking. But the superficially simple nature of the final product—the metric—tends to conceal all kinds of subjectivity and politics

“Value” and “productivity” cannot be expressed in objective figures, even if we pretend the opposite: “We have a high graduation rate, therefore we offer a good education” – “Our doctors are focused and efficient, therefore we provide good care” – “We have a high publication rate, therefore we are an excellent university” – “We have a high audience

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You can see this mindset has infected everything:

• We join Twitter for the love of conversation—come out obsessed with likes.


• We pursue research for discovery—then get trapped chasing citation counts.


• We try to hire and retain the best teachers, so we measure test performance, and then teachers teach the test.


• We want to reward quality media. So we

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