Pushing Boundaries—Hybrid Advertising in Online News Media: A Content Analysis of Media Kits

Lauerer, Corinna (2024): Pushing Boundaries—Hybrid Advertising in Online News Media: A Content Analysis of Media Kits. In: Digital Journalism [Forthcoming]

Abstract

Hybrid advertising, such as native ads or advertorials, is a vital rev-enue stream for digital news media, but is normatively challenging,since it blurs the boundaries between advertising and journalism.We lack an overview of the types of hybrid advertising that newsorganizations deem acceptable, and insight into how they discur-sively legitimize blurring boundaries by publicly promoting suchadvertising. News media list and promote the advertising formsthey offer to advertisers in their media kits, but communicationscholars have overlooked this rich information source. in a quanti-tative content analysis of media kits, we examined portfolios ofhybrid advertising offered by digital news media and how openlythey promote the hybrid nature thereof. the results show that dig-ital news media most commonly offer sponsored editorial contentmimicking articles but also various other forms. We develop a tax-onomy of the types of hybrid advertising based on their label,media format, and type of hybridity. News organizations openlypromote the boundary-blurring nature while rarely highlightingdisclosure policies. the bold promotion of ever-more forms ofhybrid advertising discursively contributes to normalizing trans-gression of the iconic wall separating journalism from advertisingand makes it increasingly difficult for audiences, regulators, andscholars to keep track.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Keywords: hybrid advertising; native advertising; advertorials; taxonomy; online news media; boundary work; media kits; content analysis
• Fakultät: Sozialwissenschaften > Institut für Kommunikationswissenschaft und Medienforschung (IfKW)
• Themengebiete: 300 Sozialwissenschaften > 380 Handel, Kommunikation, Verkehr
• ISSN: 2167-0811
• Sprache: Englisch