Native Adverstising: Ads in Disguise as Editorials

Abstract

Native advertising, paid for by corporate funding, may fool news readers into thinking that they are reading investigative journalism editorials. Such misleading practice constitutes an internal threat to the profession of journalism and may further deteriorate mainstream media trust. If information users are unaware of the Native Ads original promotional nature, they may find themselves insufficiently informed or mislead by its content. This study investigates cases of Native Ads in terms of their contextual use, distinctive features, and likeness to editorials. LIS should aim to provide clear discernment guidelines and consider automated user alerts.

Survey of Millennial and Generation Z Response to Native Advertising Trends in Online News Portal

“…Referring to previous articles and research (Carlson, 2015;Cornwell & Rubin, 2017;Hunt, 2017) that discussed the presence of native advertising and audience responses, the results obtained often lead to positive findings but ironically end up in negative conclusions. This situation has ended because native advertising images have been and continue to be seen as a means of deceiving audiences with commercial messages hidden in related news articles.…”

“…Frequent disclosure labels confuse consumers, such as the use of the phrases "partner studio," "brand" publishing," or "brand voice", because these labels do not notify that content is an explicit advertisement. Cornwell and Rubin (2017) conducted research for the conference paper that investigates native advertising in terms of context, characteristics, distinctive features, and their resemblance to editorial content. The biggest difference in content written by journalists before and after the publication of Building Complete Communities is an article that really represents the voice of the developer and includes votes from the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) and Renomark (association of home renovation contractors) more often than usual.…”

“…Moreover, the separation wall between editorial and advertising is often no longer effective (Cornwell & Rubin, 2017). Native advertising content has various types of frames, such as association, experience, emotional imagery, social significance, and interaction.…”