10.1080/21670811.2019.1571931">
 

The role performance of native advertising in legacy and digital-only news media

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2019

Department/School

Communication, Media and Theatre Arts

Publication Title

Digital Journalism

Abstract

This study compares the role performance of native advertising on the websites of legacy news media and digital-only news media in the United States. Instead of analyzing discourses and rhetorics about native advertising, this study concentrates on the content characteristics of native advertising to infer its roles oriented to audiences. The study finds that native ads on the selected media sites have more emphasis on the service role than the civic and infortainment roles. The digital-only media sites have native ads with more emphasis on the service and infortainment roles than those in the legacy media sites, whereas the legacy media sites have native ads with more emphasis on the civic role than its counterparts in the digital-only media sites. However, native advertising lacks independent and transparent sources of information. Nearly half of the native ads on the legacy media sites reply on sponsor-affiliated sources, and more than half of the native ads on the digital-only media sites lack attributions for sources of information.

Link to Published Version

10.1080/21670811.2019.1571931

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS