Selling their souls to the advertisers? How native advertising degrades the quality of prestige media outlets

ABSTRACT

Native advertising – disguising sponsored content as journalistic material – is not a new phenomenon, but only recently has it reached news media outlets that stand for high-quality journalism. To investigate the potential impact of native advertising on perceived media quality, a 2 (source: low vs. high quality media outlet) × 3 (content: ad-free article vs. declared native advertising article vs. undeclared native advertising article) factorial between-subjects experiment was conducted. This experimental study found that news media outlets that stand for high-quality journalism damage their quality as perceived by recipients when publishing properly declared native advertising.

KEYWORDS:

• Native advertising
• sponsored content
• journalism
• media quality
• quality press
• structural equation modelling

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Philipp Bachmann

Philipp Bachmann is Senior Research and Teaching Associate at the Institute of Mass Communication and Media Research (IKMZ), University of Zurich. His research interest focuses on public relations, media management, and media quality.

Sévérine Hunziker

Sévérine Hunziker has studied at the Institute of Mass Communication and Media Research (IKMZ), University of Zurich, where she received a Master’s degree

Tanja Rüedy

Tanja Rüedy is a Research and Teaching Associate at the Institute of Mass Communication and Media Research (IKMZ), University of Zurich. Her research interest focuses on societal impacts of algorithmic selection on the Internet.