Beyond clickbait and commerce

Recommendations

Info

Items about Dove not labelled as sponsored content included a headline: ‘Share: The new Dove ad proves that being beautiful is just a state of mind’, with accompanying text reading: ‘Dove – the creators of many a beautiful viral video about women’s body image and body confidence – have another question for you.’ The words ‘viral video’, ‘body image’ and ‘body confidence’ were presented as links. Another item, again presented as non-sponsored content, was headlined: ‘Watch: The new Dove ad that will make you think’, which explained that ‘The Dove Real Beauty Sketches campaign encourages women to reassess how they see themselves’. Mamamia’s overt and covert product endorsement, sometimes labelled as sponsored content and sometimes not, was found by the researcher to be an important factor in the website’s financial success. RESEARCH PAPER In many respects, of course, this is simply an online version of that genre of largely ‘women’s’ magazines which for decades have mashed editorial and advertising content into a mélange from which it is impossible to disentangle the independent journalism – if any – from the promotional fluff. For that reason, perhaps the readers of this particular website are not duped. However, the evidence from an American survey (reported below) suggests that a large proportion of readers do struggle to recognise native advertising, even when it is labelled as such. The problem of deception Closely allied to conflict of interest is the further ethical problem of deception. The potential for sponsored content to dupe audiences was illustrated by the findings from a survey (n = 209) conducted in 2015 by a native-advertising technology company, TripleLift. The survey tested the perceptions of respondents to five versions of a native advertisement on a website, each with a different disclosure label. The data showed that 62 per cent of respondents did not realise they were looking at an advertisement (Moses 2015). One example from Australia and several from the United States illustrate the deception problem. They also show that what a decade-and-a-half ago was considered to be unquestionably dishonest conduct is now accepted, indeed promoted, by large parts of the media. In July 1999, the Australian Broadcasting Authority conducted an inquiry into the conduct of five commercial radio talkback hosts in receiving undisclosed payments from programme sponsors in return for making favourable comments about the sponsors that Copyright 2016-2/3. Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics. All rights reserved. Vol 13, No 2/3 2016 105
Denis Muller were presented to the audiences as if they were the hosts’ own genuinely held opinion. The practice became known as ‘cash for comment’. In February 2000, the authority found that this conduct had led to 90 breaches of the broadcasting code of practice and five breaches of Sydney station 2UE’s licence conditions. The authority imposed three new standards on commercial broadcasters, including a requirement that they make on-air disclosures of any agreements between sponsors and programme hosts. In the United States in 2005, a series of scandals erupted over the payment of fees to journalists in return for various services. As The Economist (2005) reported, Michael McManus, a syndicated columnist, received $US10,000 from the Department of Health and Human Services for helping to train marriage counsellors. Another syndicated columnist, Margaret Gallagher, received $US21,500 from the same department for helping to draft brochures, and a talk show host, Armstrong Williams, received $US241,000 to promote the ‘No Child Left Behind’ initiative. These journalists not only took the money but they continued to write and broadcast about these issues without disclosing them to their audiences. In these cases, deception and conflict of interest were intertwined. Deception is also the principal criterion used by the Australian Press Council to determine complaints from newspaper readers concerning sponsored content (Weisbrot 2015). The council’s general position was spelt out in its adjudication of a complaint brought against the Sydney Morning Herald concerning its labelling of a supplement on Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN). Whilst dismissing the gravamen of the complaint (Adjudication 1548, 2012), the council found that the label ‘special report’ did not assist substantially to provide adequate identification of the nature of the supplement. It went on to state that in the absence of a prominently displayed ‘unequivocal branding’ of such supplements, there was a substantial risk that a publisher would breach those principles of the Press Council concerning disclosure of vested interests and conflict of interest. Conclusions Whatever terms are used to describe news-like content, it is ubiquitous in online media and in legacy media alike. It presents pressing ethical challenges to the profession of journalism and to the media as an industry concerning conflict of interest and deception, and mocks the concept of editorial independence. Ethical norms concerning these issues are grounded in assumptions about the nature of news, the nature of journalism, the role of the news media and the processes by which media manage the tensions between 106 Copyright 2016-2/3. Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics. All rights reserved. Vol 13, No 2/3 2016
Page 1 and 2:
Beyond clickbait and commerce The e
Page 4 and 5:
Contents Editorial Looking beyond t
Page 6 and 7:
EDITORIAL Looking beyond the tradit
Page 8 and 9:
These questions of independence are
Page 10 and 11:
of the work produced by foundation-
Page 12 and 13:
Crisis Center, for example, has a g
Page 14 and 15:
library that spotlights progress in
Page 16 and 17:
journalists working on the developm
Page 18 and 19:
Note on the contributor Dr Mel Bunc
Page 20 and 21:
2014). One response has been to par
Page 22 and 23:
and/or distributed by ENGOs to mobi
Page 24 and 25:
democratic dissent’, while DeLuca
Page 26 and 27:
ecording the interviews, I engaged
Page 28 and 29:
spent two weeks collecting images a
Page 30 and 31:
Although photographs of spirit bear
Page 32 and 33:
up the article ‘Pipeline through
Page 34 and 35:
Alexandra Garcia, iLCP communicatio
Page 36 and 37:
killed/, accessed on 27 December 20
Page 38 and 39:
Dave Harte ‘Tell it like it is’
Page 40 and 41:
Veronica Coatham and Lisa Martinali
Page 42 and 43:
which content its audience is most
Page 44 and 45:
in the 1990s and early 2000s. Borge
Page 46 and 47:
in Leeds, he notes the valuable rol
Page 48 and 49:
Yet the nature of the journalism at
Page 50 and 51:
Foucault, Michel (1980) Power/Knowl
Page 52 and 53:
Unitec research colleagues; media p
Page 54 and 55:
voice in seven unique contexts was
Page 56 and 57:
therefore, challenging to strike th
Page 58 and 59: 7 The Pacifica Mamas, ‘matriarchs
Page 60 and 61: sharing approach to collaboration,
Page 62 and 63: programme, and they wanted the spot
Page 64 and 65: and that I was entrusting myself to
Page 66 and 67: ecosystem (Cooren 2015b). In a 2015
Page 68 and 69: Saifoloi, Malama, Stowers-Ama, Jarc
Page 70 and 71: informed citizenry. Most see journa
Page 72 and 73: While there is no universally accep
Page 74 and 75: news organisation are decisions to
Page 76 and 77: is largely seen as unethical to ask
Page 78 and 79: open to paying for content. Others
Page 80 and 81: Conclusions Overall, oppositional n
Page 82 and 83: Foster, Michelle (2012) Calling the
Page 84 and 85: Judith Townend ‘Charitable journa
Page 86 and 87: In the second category, where the r
Page 88 and 89: Among the issues is the Charity Com
Page 90 and 91: House of Lords (2012) House of Lord
Page 92 and 93: press in a democracy to campaign, l
Page 94 and 95: The tribunal’s decision For the p
Page 96 and 97: charitable journalism may be recogn
Page 98 and 99: Denis Muller Conflict of interest:
Page 100 and 101: Tanner et al. (2005: 187) identify
Page 102 and 103: to its audiences. To engage in jour
Page 104 and 105: creating a commercial climate in wh
Page 106 and 107: that a sponsor would have no role i
Page 110 and 111: their public-interest responsibilit
Page 112 and 113: Murtha, Jack and Gourarie, Chava (2
Page 114 and 115: Recognising the shadow elements of
Page 116 and 117: admits that ‘systematic’ may be
Page 118 and 119: Rather than ethics being an issue t
show all

Beyond clickbait and commerce

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?