Native ads and the new journalism economy
Victor Pickard celebrated the Federal Communication Commission’s vote Thursday to regulate the internet as a public utility at an internet victory party in Washington, DC. For Pickard, an assistant professor at the Annenberg School of Communications, and an expert on global media activism, the decision is a win for the public good, and maybe even the future of journalism—two concerns that are very much on his mind as he sits down to write his next book.
Even though it’s still in its earliest stages, the book will stand on the shoulders of Pickard’s most recent work, America’s Battle For Media Democracy: The Triumph of Corporate Libertarianism and the Future of Media Reform, which he is currently on tour promoting. A slim, fast-paced account, it digs into a series of media policy battles that played out in the 1940s, when government and media activists fought to rein in powerful broadcasters and to articulate a role for radio and newspapers that served the public good, as opposed to commercial interests.
Their vision might have succeeded, were it not for Cold War paranoia, and an interpretation of freedom of speech that favored the rights of corporations over the rights of individuals. By the time the smoke had cleared, antitrust action had split NBC into two, but the efforts to make the news more local and less commercial were largely defeated. To Pickard, this failure to “unhook” the news from commercial pressures, and the subsequent triumph of “corporate libertarianism,” was a critical juncture in journalism that shaped the course of its future.
Now, while the impact of the FCC’s ruling remains uncertain, and native advertising colonizes the Web, journalism has arrived at another critical juncture. As policy makers seek to define the public interest in a digital age, Pickard’s body of scholarship may provide a useful, if controversial, road map to our current media environment. As he sees it, technology has changed, but the concerns of the 1940s—access, sustainable business models for the news, and the role of regulation—will be central to maximizing the democratic potential of the web, and nurturing the future of public service journalism.
I spoke with Pickard by phone. Our conversation has been lightly edited and abridged.
Your previous book argues that the commercial internet faces a norm-defining moment similar to that of commercial radio in the 1940s. How so? What is at stake?
In the 1940s, as a society, we were asking big, normative questions about what the role of media should be in a democratic society. Questions that sought to define a kind of social contract between media institutions, the public, and the government. That asked whether it was healthy to have a news media system so dependent on the market, or whether we should be creating structural alternatives. I think we’re facing a similar crossroads for determining whether our new media—or newish media—will become captured by commercial interests, or whether they are able to serve a higher democratic purpose.
So those earlier battles to keep the airwaves free of corporate monopolies, and the moral concerns about ads invading the news, are being repeated today?
Yes, and net neutrality is kind of exhibit A. If we preserve net neutrality protections, our internet will develop one way. If we lose those protections our internet will develop in a very different way. So we’re certainly in a pivotal moment.
How do native ads fit in? What’s your take on them?
I think they are an unsurprising outcome of a system that has been driven by commercial values. And I would say that the lack of transparency, and the lack of public conversation around their use, are grounds for concern. As a society, we should be reckoning with the relentless commercial pressures on news organizations, which have been made even more dramatic with the collapse of the traditional print advertising model. I’m troubled by what’s happening, not just with native advertising, but with the trajectory of journalism in general. I think our heavily commercialized model is problematic for a democratic society.
But ads have been subsidizing the news for at least a century. Are native ads really any different than the “singing jingles” you describe in your book?
It’s true that advertisers are always trying to colonize new social platforms, and the public has always reacted negatively to them at first. You had companies in the 1940s sponsor radio programming and, of course, that’s where we get the term soap operas. Advertorials have been around for a long time. But qualitatively, we are seeing a difference. This reliance on subterfuge, on creating confusion between editorial and advertising content, is taking it to a new level.
- See more at: http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/qa_victor_pickard.php#sthash.Oa9rwLMW.dpuf
More here: http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/qa_victor_pickard.php