(Person) Percentage - Sabanci University Research Database

The Asian Media & Mass Communication Conference 2010 Osaka, Japan
of the lifestyle presented with these, it also plays a key role in keeping the masses within the
system (Dağtaş, 2006).
According to Bourdieu, new middle class, who could also be named as cultural
mediators, work in jobs that mostly comply with the definition of service sector. The most
significant function of cultural mediators is to produce goods and services which have
symbolic value. Unlike intellectual capital, pleasure, taste, desire and lifestyle are sold to
people in these jobs which require cultural capital; therefore a path to consumption is guided.
Bourdieu defines this as cultural imitation/cultural representation. According to him, through
a certain lifestyle and discourse, cultural mediators, thus, seem as if they had the high income
level and high culture which actually they do not (Quoting Swartz, 1998: 160). It is aimed to
glorify consumption by elevating the pleasure that the citizens take (Swartz, 1998: 180).
Among the professionals that Bourdieu counts while explaining the social positions
based on new middle class and consumption are the new type journalists (Bourdieu, 1992:
230 and 270). New type journalists and their bosses are role models for dependent classes
with the representation of their lifestyle as both the producer and the consumer. Advertorial
news, in that sense, points out the social hegemony and cultural/ideological production of
these media professionals.
Advertorial News in World Press
Advertorial news is the affirmation or direct advertisement of the products and
services marketed by institutions or individuals aiming at gaining economic profit and
political government sharing. Media organizations owned by diagonally monopolized
corporations active in every field could be in vast and complicated relationships based on self
interest. There might be a number of reasons why advertisement leaks into the news:
representation of lives of the famous and people seeking to be famous, protection of powerful
corporations’ products and services from criticism, etc. In this framework, the subject is
multidimensional as both a structural and an ethical problem.
According to Edwin Baker, since the first newspapers, publishing advertisements in
the newspapers has affected content and media organizations even without advertorial news.
The attitude to have good relations with the advertisers results in a kind of ideologically mild
journalism which is afraid of scaring the advertiser capital class. Ultimately, selecting the
news context in parallel to the advertisement is the inevitable result of publishing
advertisements (Baker, 1992: 2139).
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