Native advertising and the negotiation of autonomy, transparency, and deception

Abstract

Fueled by a narrative of crisis, managers and editors have openly advocated for merging commercial and editorial content that is distributed following the same journalistic visual design. As native advertising has become a prominent format used by many news organizations globally, this transgression of the traditional wall that is supposed to separate commercial and editorial content challenges two of journalism’s fundamental ethical principles: transparency and autonomy. This chapter offers a critical overview of native advertising in journalism. First, we unpack the appeal of native advertising for news media and how this practice actively blurs the line between disclosure and deception as the mechanism by which advertisers appropriate the publishers’ influence and trust. Second, we discuss the ethical considerations of incorporating native advertising. From a production perspective, passing commercial content for news is a threat to journalistic authority. The open advocacy for native advertising from within the industry is, however, nothing short of alarming because it symbolizes the surrender of public service ideals to market forces. Failing to adhere to conventional journalism ethics could lead to the potential alienation of the people who gave journalism its legitimacy and to further dismantling news media’s journalistic authority, but this time, from within.