Beyond clickbait and commerce

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their public-interest responsibilities and commercial imperatives. As a consequence of the burgeoning of news-like content, these assumptions are themselves under challenge. There are large stakes here because these assumptions provide the foundation for the institutional place of journalism in the functioning of a democratic polity. The terminology surrounding news-like content is clearly designed to disguise the real nature of the material, and this itself is prima facie deceptive conduct. Whilst far from perfect, the term ‘native advertising’ at least has the merit of including the word ‘advertising’ and is preferable to the questionable term ‘hybrid journalism’, and the elliptical ‘integrated content’, ‘sponsored content’ or ‘branded content’. Where conflicts of interest exist, a declaration is usually the bare minimum ethical requirement. However, where staff writers whose job is ostensibly journalism are assigned to create this content, a bare declaration will not be enough. Audiences are entitled to know the provenance of the material because whatever else this work might be called, it is not journalism. RESEARCH PAPER While some scholars (for example, Carr et al. 2014) draw a distinction between ‘mainstream’ and ‘citizen’ journalism in this regard, in fact the problem is common to both, as the case studies in this paper show. Moreover, the phenomenon is now reaching out beyond standard product endorsement to material about religion, ideology and politics. As a result, while disclosure of the true nature of the material is a minimum requirement, it might not always be sufficient. The level of integration between journalists and sponsors, responsibility for authorship of the material, and disclosures about the way comments are moderated are other essential requirements. This is especially the case where the content concerns politics. Voters are entitled to know exactly whose material they are reading and whose ideas are being promoted. The core journalistic function of informing voters is in danger of being surreptitiously suborned. The economics of advertising no doubt go some way to explaining the desperation evident in these attempts by publishers to find new ways of making money. The Pew Research Center (Mitchell 2014) reports that while traditional advertising from print and television still accounts for more than half the revenue supporting journalism, total newspaper advertising fell 49 per cent between 2003 and 2013. So new media and old media alike have an equivalent stake in pursuing any new possibility. News-like content represents just such a possibility. Copyright 2016-2/3. Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics. All rights reserved. Vol 13, No 2/3 2016 107
Denis Muller In pursuing it, the media and elements of the journalism profession seem prepared to trade off long-term trust for short-term profit. It is, in effect, another example of the Richards (2005) dictum: that a vast array of vocabularies of motive and accounts is drawn upon to explain, excuse or justify expedient action. References Australian Press Council (2012) Adjudication number 1548 Paul Fletcher/Sydney Morning Herald, 4 September. Available online at http://www.presscouncil.org.au, accessed on 18 December 2018 Brighton, Paul and Foy, Dennis (2007) News values, London, Sage Bull, Andy (2013) Brand journalism, London, Taylor and Francis Tanner, Stephen; Phillips, Gail; Smyth, Chris and Tapsell, Suellen (2005) Journalism ethics at work, Sydney, Pearson Longman Carr, Jason, Barnidge, Matthew, Lee, Byung Gu and Tsang, Stephanie (2014) Cynics and skeptics: Evaluating the credibility of mainstream and citizen journalism, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Vol. 9, No 3 pp 452-470 Chemi, Eric (2014) Advertising’s century of flat-line growth, Bloomberg, 3 March 2014. Available online at http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-03-03/ advertisings-century-of-flat-line-growth, accessed on 16 December 2015 Cowcher-Guthrie, Lucy (2014) Mamamia, native advertising and the commodification of feminism. Unpublished Master’s thesis, Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne Economist (2005) Fourth estate or fifth column, 5 February Ellis, Justin (2012) BuzzFeed adapts its branded content approach to political advertising, and Obama’s in, NiemanLab, 24 October. Available online at http:// www.niemanlab.org/2012/10/buzzfeed-adapts-its-branded-content-approach-topolitical-advertising-and-obamas-in, accessed on 16 December 2015 Finkelstein, Ray and Ricketson, Matthew (2012) Report of independent inquiry into media and media regulation, Australian Government Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy Friend, Cecilia and Singer, Jane (2007) Online journalism ethics, New York, M. E. Sharpe Hallam, Henry (1884) The constitutional history of England, Vol. I, London, John Murray Hocking, William (1947) Freedom of the press, Chicago, Chicago University Press Keeble, Richard (2001) Ethics for journalists, London, Routledge Lippmann, Walter (1922) Public opinion, New York, Macmillan McQuail, Denis (1994) Mass communication theory, London, Sage Mitchell, Amy (2014) State of the news media 2014, Pew Research Center, 26 March 2014. Available online at http://www.journalism.org/2014/03/26/state-ofthe-news-media-2014, accessed on 13 December 2015 Moos, Julie (2013) The Atlantic publishes and then pulls sponsored content from Church of Scientology, Poynter.org, 15 January. Available online at http://www. poynter.org/news/mediawire/200593/the-atlantic-pulls-sponsored-content-fromchurch-of-scientiology, accessed on 13 December 2015 Moses, Lucia (2015) How native advertising labelling confuses people, in 5 charts, Digiday.com, 4 May. Available online at http://digiday.com/publishers/5-chartsshow-problem-native-ad-disclosure, accessed on 16 December 2015 Muller, Denis (2014) Journalism ethics for the digital age, Melbourne, Scribe Publications Muller, Frederick (1946) The making of the Manchester Guardian, Frederick Muller, London 108 Copyright 2016-2/3. Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics. All rights reserved. Vol 13, No 2/3 2016
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Beyond clickbait and commerce The e
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Contents Editorial Looking beyond t
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EDITORIAL Looking beyond the tradit
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These questions of independence are
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of the work produced by foundation-
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Crisis Center, for example, has a g
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library that spotlights progress in
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journalists working on the developm
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Note on the contributor Dr Mel Bunc
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2014). One response has been to par
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and/or distributed by ENGOs to mobi
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democratic dissent’, while DeLuca
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ecording the interviews, I engaged
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spent two weeks collecting images a
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Although photographs of spirit bear
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up the article ‘Pipeline through
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Alexandra Garcia, iLCP communicatio
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killed/, accessed on 27 December 20
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Dave Harte ‘Tell it like it is’
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Veronica Coatham and Lisa Martinali
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which content its audience is most
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in the 1990s and early 2000s. Borge
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in Leeds, he notes the valuable rol
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Yet the nature of the journalism at
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Foucault, Michel (1980) Power/Knowl
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Unitec research colleagues; media p
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voice in seven unique contexts was
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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 108 and 109: Items about Dove not labelled as sp
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
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