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(Person) Percentage - Sabanci University Research Database

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The Asian Media & Mass Communication Conference 2010 Osaka, Japan<br />

Since the beginning of television news reporting, the advertisement-news relation<br />

which began with the firms sponsoring the news programs emanated in elimination of the<br />

news which might damage the firms’ image (Mitchell, 1994: 230). Afterwards, a legal<br />

adjustment was made with definitions of news, advertisements and sponsors made by official<br />

commissions. Despite that, regarding audience guidance, advertiser-publisher relationships<br />

continue affecting the content through various methods (Mitchell, 1994: 233).<br />

According to Neil Henry, advertorial news is commonly used in company advertisings<br />

and political campaigns particularly for the public relations sector. For example, cosmetics<br />

sector is worth millions of dollars and they spend enormous amount of money on advertorial<br />

news. With a functionalist approach, Henry focuses on media’s mission to inform the public<br />

and states that besides hindering media’s basic functions, advertorial news threatens the<br />

ethical principles. Advertorial news also oppresses the freedom of editors and white-collar<br />

workers to make news (Henry, 2007: 30 and 237).<br />

In Australia concrete examples regarding advertorial news can be given through<br />

lifestyle magazines. Presentation of lifestyle stands out as the dominant content in these<br />

publications which cover issues like celebrity lives, youth news, music-film industry, manwoman<br />

relations, hobbies, sports, healthy life and personal care. In these representations, a<br />

considerable number of advertisements and news about products and services are used. News<br />

items which introduce a particular brand’s product as a desired and must-be-bought object are<br />

also very common (Mc Knight, 2005: 34-35).<br />

One of the pioneers of American television news, Edward S. Murrow emphasizes that<br />

“if news is regarded as a commodity and picked up based on its profit rate, it cannot be called<br />

news anymore” (Quoting Sperber, 1998: 229). Originated in America, functionalist<br />

philosophy tradition is a pragmatic approach. This tradition defines market economy, family<br />

and ethics phenomena, all of which are the products of the same social formation, as separate<br />

and conflicting areas. However, Marxist philosophy based on dialectic materialism deals with<br />

all these and their conflicts as parts of the same economic structure. Thus, it places its attitude<br />

on changing the economic structure (Fuchs, 2009: 71).<br />

Keeping a similar attitude in its subject due to social change, 20 th century neo-Maxism<br />

accepts that the mentioned superstructural institutions are relatively independent. It assumes<br />

that these structures could be used for opposite social arrangements as well as the hegemony<br />

and the ideological production of the existing order. Approaches like critical political<br />

economy and instrumentalism which are considered as critical approaches are evaluations<br />

accepted as part of the neo-Marxist philosophy (Fuchs, 2009: 72-73). In this context, as well<br />

543

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