The Power of Commercial Influences: How Lifestyle Journalists Experience Pressure from Advertising and Public Relations

ABSTRACT

The growth of advertising and PR industries in recent years, combined with the economic downturn in many news organizations has led to renewed debates about the influence of commercial pressures on journalistic work. While the relationship has frequently been studied in relation to hard news journalism, less attention has been paid to other beats, especially those which have always had a closer relationship with commercial interests. Focusing on the field of lifestyle journalism, this article presents the results of a survey of more than 600 Australian lifestyle journalists. It examines in detail how these journalists experience working with advertising and PR interests, as well as the provision of free products and services. It finds that lifestyle journalists broadly deny being influenced too much by these pressures, however, regression analysis suggests that, in particular, younger journalists experience more pressure, as do magazine journalists, as well as those working in the areas of travel, fashion and beauty journalism.

KEYWORDS:

• Lifestyle
• journalism
• advertising
• PR
• power
• influence

Introduction

The digital transformation of journalism and its implications for news media business models, as well as the growth of advertising and public relations (PR) industries (Deuze 2007), have given rise to increased concerns about journalistic autonomy (Picard 2005). Economic challenges have seen the wall between editorial and advertising become more porous, with increased commercial pressures and interference in editorial decision-making often seen as eroding the integrity of journalistic professionalism and news values (Coddington 2015). Historically, journalists have distanced themselves from advertising and PR (Lewis, Williams, and Franklin 2008), but as economic pressures continue to grow, advertising and PR have increasingly become part and parcel of journalists’ work. In particular, redundancies and diminishing of resources in newsrooms have seen a growing demand for, and dependency on PR services in journalists’ routines and practices (Koch, Obermaier, and Riesmeyer 2017).

One area where commercial influences are particularly pronounced is the field of lifestyle journalism. Due to the field’s ties with various lifestyle industries, journalists are even more likely to experience economic pressures through PR professionals and material, coercive demands from advertising and the provision of free products and services, or freebies. At the same time, scholarship has tended to focus on commercial influences in traditional areas of journalism, paying less attention to those areas where commercial impact has always been more apparent—arguably due to an expectation that fields like lifestyle journalism were so obviously influenced they weren’t deserving of study. This is despite the growing societal relevance of lifestyle journalism in consumption cultures, where the format plays a crucial role in providing advice and orientation for people to shape their identities and lifestyles (Hanusch 2012; Hanusch, Hanitzsch, and Lauerer 2017).

To address this gap, this study focuses on how lifestyle journalists experience a range of commercial influences related to advertising and PR. It builds on past studies’ qualitative explorations (for example, Hanusch, Hanitzsch, and Lauerer 2017) in presenting results from a comprehensive survey of Australian lifestyle journalists, paying particular attention to individual, organizational and beat-specific variations in how lifestyle journalists experience commercial pressures.

Economic Influences in Journalism

One widely discussed tension in journalism relates to the fact that most media organizations need to rely on revenues from advertising, creating tension between economic and journalistic objectives. To ensure autonomy and strengthen professionalism, newsrooms established a rhetorical, and often physical, boundary to separate the economic and journalistic sides of the company (Coddington 2015). Additionally, this so-called “wall” (Coddington 2015) could act as an indicator of credibility and integrity, as journalists may have felt more empowered to reject influences from outside the newsroom. Growing economic pressures and changes in the media environment have seen this wall become more porous, and economic influences are being felt both on the organizational level and in individual journalists’ daily routines and practices.

On the organizational level, new technologies enabled media companies to merge content creation, and control packaging, distribution and place of consumption (Salamon 2016), but new media also added to the existing competition over audience attention, and thus to the fragmentation of audiences. As traditional media were unable to trade the attention of mass audiences to advertisers, advertisers began migrating to media that could target consumers more individually online (Picard 2005). To remain financially sustainable, newsrooms have been re-structured, with fewer resources invested to cover the same spectrum of topics (Lee-Wright 2012; Ferrucci 2015). PR material is recycled as original journalistic work (Lewis, Williams, and Franklin 2008; Jackson and Moloney 2016), the production of content is outsourced (Örnebring and Ferrer Conill 2016), and wages among freelancers and contingent workers have been reduced (Cohen 2015). All these changes arguably make individual journalists more vulnerable to economic influences, as they lack the time and financial security for thorough research and in-depth reporting. On yet another level, the rhetorical wall between editorial and advertorial is being diminished to a line in news management discourse (Coddington 2015; Artemas, Vos, and Duffy 2016).

On the individual level, the trend towards commercialized reporting and fewer resources can affect journalists’ perceptions of influences and autonomy (Örnebring et al. 2016), even if they do not always recognize them. For example, Hanitzsch and Mellado (2011) found that the extent of perceived economic influences is relatively low in Western countries. This led them to assert that “the power and consequences of economic influences, although they objectively exist, may not appear particularly obtrusive in the journalists’ perceptions” (Hanitzsch and Mellado 2011, 419). In a similar vein, Örnebring et al. (2016, 320), argued that “journalists do not necessarily ‘see’ external autonomy factors (notably commercialization) as directly affecting their internal (workplace) autonomy”. However, the authors observed that the degree of commercialization within a media system did affect the perceived autonomy of journalists.

Forms of Power

While advertising is a paid “form of communication from an identifiable source, designed to persuade” audiences (Richards and Curran 2002, 74) and is usually mediated through the advertising department of a media company, PR aims to persuade or inform journalists or advocate for a topic (Hutton 1999), and thus affects journalists more directly. This perceived leverage of both PR and advertising practitioners can be theorized through concepts of power. Gandy (2009) conceptualized power through three different theoretical perspectives. In the structuralist perspective, the focus is on power dynamics within a system, such as the media industry, where influence stems from “the nature of competition (…), technology, the pressure of professionalism, and to a lesser degree, the interests of audiences and consumers” (132). The institutionalist perspective sees power as exercised through various “filters” that promote “elite perspectives” within public discourses, including the “size, ownership and profit orientation” of the media, and “dependence on advertising” (133). In the instrumentalist perspective, an individual holds legitimate power to exert control through “ownership, superior resources, authority, or position” (132). It is here that Gandy (2009) situates PR as a source of power that “emphasizes intentional actions meant to produce influence ultimately on the behaviour of others” (133).

In their earliest work on social power, French and Raven (1959) conceptualized six bases of power which can be found in any relationship where two agents depend on each other. Exerting power involves one agent’s ability (O) to influence or change another’s (P) behaviours and beliefs, and can be categorized as hard or soft depending on how much freedom and choice the target has to conform to the power influence. The harder the base of power, the more likely the target is to face sanctions for non-conformance. Such “hard” bases include reward power (ability for O to affect change in P through reward); coercive power (ability for O to affect change in P through punishment); and, legitimate power (the belief by P that O’s position—internalized norms and values—gives them the right to influence P’s beliefs or behaviour). Legitimate power can be defined by cultural values and certain characteristics (e.g., older people have the right of power over younger people), social structures (superior positions in a hierarchical system have power over lower positions), or a legitimizing agent selected by P to approve of O’s legitimate power.

In contrast to conformity and sanctions, soft power bases are mediated through identification between agents. These include referral power where P and O share a “feeling of oneness” or desire to maintain a relationship or join one another’s group membership (French and Raven 1959, 266). Change is influenced by O because P admires or identifies with O and wants to adopt their beliefs and attitudes, and “the stronger the identification (…) the greater the referent power” (French and Raven 1959, 266). The influence of expert power is dependent on how knowledgeable, credible and trustworthy P perceives O to be on a topic. As a sub-base of expert power, French and Raven (1959) distinguish informational power where agents can be from different groups and the power of the shared information is evaluated on “the logic of the argument” (French and Raven 1959, 267). The extent to which O can exert expert power over P is also mediated by O’s referent power; if O and P share negative referent power (weak identification), then the influence of expert power is also weakened.

Koch, Obermaier, and Riesmeyer (2017) drew on social power to examine how journalists and PR practitioners perceive one another’s influence and found that the personal relationships between journalists and PR practitioners were far from adversarial, even though journalists claimed a more oppositional attitude to their colleagues in PR. The majority of interviewed PR practitioners (69%) believed that PR material made journalists’ work easier, but only 29% of journalists thought so. Similarly, journalists claimed they did not use PR on a daily basis, while PR professionals thought the majority of journalists depended on it. Journalists also did not think that PR had a strong impact on their work, while half of PR practitioners believed they had an impact on journalists. Thus, journalists believe PR influences them through more “hard” forms of power, such as buying advertising space to apply pressure through management or convincing journalists’ superiors. Moreover, journalists believe PR practitioners lack ethics, especially when they “try to win coverage for their clients by plying journalists with ‘freebies’” (Sallot and Johnson 2006, 85; cf. Aronoff 1975). PR professionals, on the other hand, say they mainly use “soft” forms of arguments and exclusive information, and do not see their influence as primarily economically-driven (Niskala and Hurme 2014; Koch, Obermaier, and Riesmeyer 2017). At the same time, pressure on journalists to produce more with less time and fewer resources means journalists not only rely more heavily on PR material (Lewis, Williams, and Franklin 2008) but also recognize the value of having good relationships with PR professionals (Sallot and Johnson 2006). An analysis of quality print and broadcast news in the UK has shown that as many as one in five print articles were “derived mainly or wholly from PR material” (Lewis, Williams, and Franklin 2008, 7).

While Koch, Obermaier, and Riesmeyer (2017) adapted the bases of power to explore the relationship between journalists and PR, these can be modified to study the relationships between journalists and any agent they perceive to be external to the journalistic field, including advertisers. To study such relationships, reward power is conceptualized as journalists receiving gifts (products, services, benefits) from advertisers or PR in exchange for positive coverage, but also purchased advertising space; coercive power means journalists may be asked to “do something that contradicts his or her professional beliefs” (Koch, Obermaier, and Riesmeyer 2017, 5) or face sanctions; legitimate power is exercised by an authority within a news organization such as editors or management who communicate across departments (e.g., editorial and advertising), or external agents who wield indirect power.

Legitimate and coercive power are more likely to be mediated through organizational pressure, for instance when organizational culture covertly “steers reporters away from sensitive topics” (McManus 1995, 309), such as covering important sponsors in negative ways. Moreover, freelance journalists often concomitantly work in PR (Koch and Obermaier 2014; Obermaier, Koch, Riesmeyer 2018; Antunovic, Grzeslo, and Hoag 2017), adding another layer of economic vulnerability. This is exacerbated by the fact that some freelancers do not disclose their secondary employment in PR for similar topics and are thus able to pitch PR work to journalistic outlets (Koch and Obermaier 2014).

Referent power comes from a source a journalist identifies with and whose relationship they value; through expert power journalists are convinced of something because the source sharing the knowledge is credible and trustworthy, such as a trusted news source, an editor, or externally, a PR professional. Through informational power journalists are convinced of something by evaluating the quality or logic of the argument or information offered by, for example, a PR professional, advertising material, or a newsroom authority (Koch, Obermaier, and Riesmeyer 2017).

While these economic influences through PR, advertising, or free services and goods are present across journalism, they are particularly prevalent in areas of journalism where the “wall” between editorial and the economic side of the business has always been more permeable, such as in lifestyle journalism.

Commercial Influences in Lifestyle Journalism

More than other forms of journalism, lifestyle journalism is market-driven and therefore has an awkwardly close relationship with lifestyle industries’ interests. Travel journalists share a rapport with airlines and accommodation providers, fashion journalists work with clothing brands, food journalists with restaurants, and so on. While it is sometimes considered journalistically “impure”, growing scholarly focus on lifestyle journalism has called for a vision of lifestyle journalism as a journalistic breed of its own, whose uneasy but dependent relationship with commercialism is integral to its character (Hanusch, Hanitzsch, and Lauerer 2017). In fact, in some journalism cultures, commercialism hasn’t necessarily posed a threat to journalistic professionalism. In China, where journalism has historically been an extension of state ideologies, commercialism has given lifestyle journalists some freedom to exercise a level of professionalism otherwise not possible, owed in part to the news organizations’ links to international sister publications and advertising (Li 2012). For mainstream newspapers and magazines, publishing on lifestyle topics has become a way to establish a consumer brand or image, by attracting audiences who find particular lifestyle topics relevant, and advertisers who wish to connect with those audiences (Kristensen and From 2012; Duffy 2013).

Lifestyle journalists regularly deal with different commercial influences, including advertising, PR, and the provision of freebies (Hanusch 2012; Hanusch, Hanitzsch, and Lauerer 2017). In negotiating these, lifestyle journalists find themselves toeing a fine line between resistance (maintaining autonomy) and resignation (acknowledging their economic dependence). Qualitative studies suggest that how directly these influences are felt and what kinds of strategies journalists use to deal with them depends in part on the institutional context: their beat (travel, fashion, beauty, etc.), and their job status—whether they are permanently employed, or work as freelancers (Hanusch, Hanitzsch, and Lauerer 2017). Entrepreneurial, independent journalists whose economic security is more precarious tend to feel commercial influences more directly (Rosenkranz 2015; Hanusch, Hanitzsch, and Lauerer 2017; Pirolli 2017).

Advertising

Like other journalists, lifestyle journalists experience advertising pressure largely indirectly, as it is mediated by organizations’ advertising departments. News organizations face growing economic precarity, and lifestyle journalists are aware of the expectation to avoid publishing critical content about products and services featured in paid advertising (Hanusch, Hanitzsch, and Lauerer 2017). Because of this, editorial and advertorial content increasingly coexist side by side. Adverts showcasing travel destinations, airlines and products feature amidst editorial travel content (Fürsich 2012) and articles reviewing gadgets for the personal technology section of the New York Times, for example, are published alongside advertisements displaying tech products (Usher 2012). While these journalists maintain that such pressures do not distract them from offering their consumer audiences credible guidance on best products and services (Usher 2012; Hanusch, Hanitzsch, and Lauerer 2017), lifestyle bloggers are more likely to be seen by industry actors and advertisers as commodifiable brands. For fashion bloggers who work amidst greater economic precarity, the overlap between advertorial and editorial content is further blurred (Pedroni 2015; Brydges and Sjöholm 2019).

Public Relations and Freebies

With journalists traditionally socialized to approach PR with caution, lifestyle journalism’s reliance on PR material makes for an uneasy relationship. Compared to journalists working for hard beats, lifestyle journalists perceive a slightly higher influence of PR on their work (Obermaier, Koch, and Riesmeyer 2018). In the early 2000s, two-thirds of German lifestyle journalists felt that too much PR material was produced, but nearly half also felt this material provided necessary information, suggested new story ideas, and saved research time (Weischenberg, Malik, and Scholl 2006). Australian and German lifestyle journalists said they used PR material mostly as guidance, but also treated it with caution, especially when the submitted material arrived in a journalistic format (Hanusch, Hanitzsch, and Lauerer 2017). In travel journalism specifically, the cost of travel required to produce content makes reaching for readily available PR material more likely. Travel journalists in Australia saw it as a necessary and useful component of their work, but also as a threat to critical reporting, with more leaning towards the latter (Hanusch 2012). Food reviewers in Australia and the UK are also often pressured by marketing and PR companies to review certain restaurants and write positive reviews; an influence that was also detected in the content, which was found to be overly positive and featuring promotional elements (English and Fleischman 2017). However, food reviewers have also argued they try to resist and avoid such pressures by adhering to certain strategies, such as not announcing their visit to a restaurant or rejecting free meals (Hanusch, Hanitzsch, and Lauerer 2017).

One of the most obvious forms of pressure is the provision of free products and services, also known as freebies. Journalists generally claim they are not influenced by such material, but at the same time, they appear to experience pressure on a more subliminal level. Although companies sometimes ask journalists explicitly to produce favourable editorial content, more often than not the request is implicit. A product or service is sent for review in the hope it receives favourable coverage, barring which, journalists may not receive them again (Hanusch, Hanitzsch, and Lauerer 2017). While freebies are regularly provided by travel companies, they do not, however, automatically result in positive coverage (McGaurr 2010).

Determinants of Economic Influences

Existing scholarship points to a range of possible determinants that can affect how lifestyle journalists experience commercial pressures. These include gender, job status, education, training and previous work experience in journalism (Hanusch 2012), but also whether journalists are permanently employed by traditional newsrooms, or work as freelancers. Entrepreneurial, independent journalists whose job status can be precarious and financially insecure tend to feel commercial influences more directly (Rosenkranz 2015; Hanusch, Hanitzsch, and Lauerer 2017; Pirolli 2017). Freelancers also often concomitantly work in PR (Koch and Obermaier 2014; Antunovic, Grzeslo, and Hoag 2017), adding another layer of economic vulnerability. Journalistic beats can also be predictors for perceived influences. Those in travel, fashion and personal technology journalism appear particularly affected by the provision of free products and services (Hanusch, Hanitzsch, and Lauerer 2017). Among journalists in general, those with greater time pressures and fewer resources are more likely to re-use PR material (Jackson and Moloney 2016). On the organizational level, journalists in more competitive and homogenized environments believed PR professionals tried to influence them (Örnebring et al. 2016). Journalists believe PR professionals influence them more through “hard” forms of power such as buying advertising space to exert pressure through management or convincing journalists’ superiors (Koch, Obermaier, and Riesmeyer 2017). Lastly, structural factors can also affect perceived influences, for instance, the degree of commercialization within the media system (Örnebring et al. 2016). Despite these insights, we still have an incomplete understanding of how various determinants may impact specifically lifestyle journalists’ perceived commercial influences. Based on the literature reviewed here, we developed the following two research questions:

RQ 1: To what extent do lifestyle journalists experience influences from advertising, public relations and the provision of free products?

RQ 2: What are the key determinants for how lifestyle journalists perceive influences through hard or soft power?

Method

This article is based on examining the results of a broader survey that studied the professional views of more than 600 Australian lifestyle journalists (see Hanusch 2019). As an advanced economy with a vibrant media system similar to many other Western countries, as well as due to the fact that a number of previous studies of lifestyle journalism have been conducted there, Australia was deemed an appropriate choice. Following established procedures in other surveys (Weaver and Wilhoit 1986; Hanitzsch et al. 2010), lifestyle journalists were defined as anyone with editorial responsibility over the production of lifestyle content across a range of journalistic beats. Potential respondents were identified through a publicly available database (AAP MediaNet), using search criteria specific to the lifestyle journalism beats mentioned here. To account for different employment types, we included journalists employed by established media organizations, but also freelancers and bloggers due to the ongoing precarization of journalistic labour (Elefante and Deuze 2012).

A personalized invitation to the survey was sent to 5314 email accounts on 19 April 2016. A total of 458 emails were undeliverable, with respondents either no longer working at the address or out of the office during the research time-frame. Four reminder emails were sent over a period of 10 weeks, and data-gathering finished on 30 June 2016. By that date, 751 responses had been received, of which 616 were completed sufficiently to allow analysis. While the overall response rate of 12.7% is low compared with telephone or face-to-face surveys, it is not uncommon for email surveys, and is in line with other online studies of journalists (see, for example, Wigley and Meirick 2008; Vu 2014). Nevertheless, the response rate may limit the generalizability of results somewhat.

To examine commercial influences, we drew on previous research on lifestyle journalism (Hanusch 2012; Hanusch, Hanitzsch, and Lauerer 2017), as well as economic influences on journalism generally (Hanitzsch et al. 2010). Advertising influences were measured by the following: “Lifestyle journalism is affected by a range of commercial aspects. Please indicate how strongly you agree or disagree with the following statements”. Respondents were then asked to rate eight statements, each on a five-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). To measure PR influences, we asked: “Please indicate your agreement with the following statements in relation to public relations material”. Respondents rated each of eight statements on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The perceived influence of freebies was measured by the question: “Please indicate your agreement with the following statements about free products and services”. Using the same five-point scale, respondents were presented with eight statements and asked to what extent they agreed or disagreed with each.

On the individual level, we also asked respondents for their gender, age, salary level, whether they worked full-time, part-time, as freelancers or bloggers, and whether they had studied journalism at tertiary level. To account for their organizational environment, full- or part-time journalists were asked which platforms they produced content for, as well as to rate their employer’s financial status, the extent of competition they operated in and the extent to which their employer was dependent on advertising, all using a five-point scale. We also asked respondents to identify the lifestyle beats on which they worked.

Two-thirds (66.1%) of the overall sample were women, and the average age of all respondents was 42.9 years. Just over half (54.4%) were employed full-time, 11.4% part-time, 26.5% worked as freelancers, while 7.5% described themselves as bloggers. Respondents’ average experience in in journalism was 16.2 years (SD = 11.6), with 11.2 years (SD = 8.72) in lifestyle journalism. Just under four in five (78.4%) had a university degree, and 46.7% had specialized in journalism at university. The most common beat was travel, with 46.1% working in this area. Four in ten (40.6%) worked in food, cuisine and cooking, and 38.8% in health, wellness and fitness. Just under one-third (30.5%) produced content on music and movies, 28.2% worked in fashion and beauty, 26.6% in people and celebrity, 26.1% in living, gardening and design. Further, 21.9% worked in parenting and family, 17% in personal technology, 14.9% in property and real estate, and 10.9% in personal finance. More than half (54.9%) produced content for magazines, 33.8% for newspapers, 18.2% for radio, and only 9.4% for television. Four in five (83.4%) said they produced content for online platforms. In terms of other organizational aspects, more than half (57.1%) said the organization they worked for operated in a highly or very highly competitive environment, 60.1% said their main organization was somewhat or entirely dependent on advertising, while 45.3% said their organization’s financial situation was positive or very positive.

Results

To examine our first research question, we examined journalists’ responses to questions about specific influences and aspects of advertising, as well as PR. In terms of advertising, lifestyle journalists believed advertising influences had relatively little impact on their work (Table 1).

Table 1. Lifestyle journalists’ perceived advertising influences on their work.

	N	M	SD	% agree/ strongly agree
I consider publishers’ or managers’ interests when producing journalistic content	607	3.13	1.34	48.6
I’m in direct contact with advertisers	606	2.63	1.54	37.8
I consider advertising interests in the content of the stories I produce	605	2.55	1.35	33
I try to find story themes that will attract advertisers	605	2.48	1.33	28.1
Advertisers try to dictate the stories I produce	604	2.37	1.37	27.3
I consider advertising interests when deciding which stories to pursue	602	2.32	1.33	26.4
I never mention a brand in the stories I produce	607	2.11	1.15	12.5
Advertising interests usually outweigh editorial interests	606	1.97	1.18	14.2

This is not surprising given we gathered journalists’ self-reports, which may be affected by social desirability bias. Other studies also tend to demonstrate what is often deemed an underestimation on the part of journalists (Hanusch 2012; Koch and Obermaier 2014). While around half admitted they considered publishers’ or managers’ interests when producing content, only one-third said they considered advertising interests, and even fewer tried to find themes that may attract advertisers. Still, just over one-third said they were in direct contact with advertisers, and only one in ten said they never mentioned a brand in stories they produced. In fact, two-thirds somewhat or strongly disagreed with this suggestion, stating they were quite happy to name brands in their stories. Only 14% said that advertising interests usually outweighed editorial interests.

Influences from PR and Freebies

The journalists interviewed for this study reported being exposed to large amounts of PR material. On average, they received more than 30 unsolicited emails containing PR material each day (M = 33.3, SD = 59.11), although the high standard deviation indicates considerable variation. Nearly one-third (30.9%) received less than ten emails, while almost one in ten (9.8%) received more than 100 such emails per day. Phone calls from PR practitioners are less common, though on average respondents said they received nearly two unsolicited calls per day (M = 1.94, SD = 3.16). Again, there was some variation, with four in ten (39.3%) receiving no such calls, yet 13.5% received at least five calls a day. Contact with PR practitioners seems to be most pronounced in the music and movies, as well as personal finance beats, where journalists received an average of at least 44 emails per day, compared with health and food journalism, where these numbers were 34 or less. PR material does find its way into stories, but—at least in the view of the respondents—not to an overly large degree. On average, respondents stated that just over 70% of their stories were free of public relations material, 21% were influenced by PR, and only 4% consisted of unrevised PR.

Accordingly, respondents claimed they were relatively autonomous when it came to the influence of PR and freebies, although there are some apparent contradictions (Table 2).

Table 2. Lifestyle journalists’ perceived influences on their work from public relations.

	N	M	SD	% agree/ strongly agree
I always tell audiences if a product or service was sponsored by someone else.	561	4.17	1.09	75.6
When a free product or service did not live up to expectations, I tell my audience.	559	3.5	1.18	51.9
Accepting gifts of higher than nominal value is wrong.	562	3.42	1.25	47.5
There is too much public relations material	592	3.41	1.09	47.2
When a free product or service did not live up to expectations, I prefer not to produce the story at all.	564	3.35	1.31	51
Public relations material offers necessary information for me to do my job	592	3.3	1.19	54.2
I have a close relationship with public relations professionals	592	3.22	1.23	48.8
Stories based on free products or services are less credible than stories where these products or services were paid for by the media organization.	563	3.15	1.29	40.9
It is easy for public relations professionals to place content in journalistic publications	592	2.94	1.14	35.3
Information in public relations material is reliable	589	2.74	1.01	26.2
Free products or services are necessary for me to do my job.	561	2.73	1.44	37.9
Free products or services influence the reporting.	563	2.41	1.28	25.6
How to deal with public relations material is discussed in editorial meetings	588	2.36	1.18	19.7
Public relations professionals have a large impact on which stories I choose to cover	593	2.3	1.17	19.1
I always return free products I receive, regardless of their value.	560	2.29	1.11	10.9
Public relations professionals have a great impact on how I cover stories	593	2.2	1.11	15.4

Fewer than two out of five admitted that PR professionals had an impact on the types and content of their stories, even though more than half said that PR material offered necessary information to do their job and one-third said it was easy for PR practitioners to place content in journalistic publications. At the same time, around half said there was too much PR material and only one-quarter agreed that PR material was reliable.

Even though journalists found free products and services necessary to do their job (37.9%), they also claimed these didn’t jeopardize their integrity. Three in four said they were transparent about outside sponsorship. While a little more than half would prefer not to produce a story that is critical of products and services that don’t live up to expectations, almost the same number claimed they would tell their audiences.

Key Determinants

To answer our second research question and examine the key determinants for lifestyle journalists’ perceptions of influence, we developed scales for soft and hard forms of power based on the individual items described earlier. In this study we follow an ontological, formative approach to index construction, in which we chose indicators that reflect the conceptualization of hard and soft power (French and Raven 1959; Koch, Obermaier, and Riesmeyer 2017). In contrast to reflective measurement models, a formative approach does not assume a latent construct to exist independently of its conceptualization, rather, indicators of an index reflect the defining characteristics of the construct. As such, indicators are not interchangeable and thus do not have to correlate (Coltman et al. 2008).

Drawing on the six bases of power (French and Raven 1959; Koch, Obermaier, and Riesmeyer 2017), as well as previous research on lifestyle journalists (Hanusch 2012; Hanusch, Hanitzsch, and Lauerer 2017), hard power was measured by the following items. Coercive power was measured by: “Advertisers try to dictate the stories I produce”; “It is easy for public relations professionals to place content in journalistic publications”; and “Advertising interests usually outweigh editorial interests”. Legitimate power was measured by: “I consider advertising interests when deciding which stories to pursue”. Reward power was measured by: “I consider advertising interests in the content of the stories I produce”; “Public relations professionals have a large impact on which stories I choose to cover”; “Public relations professionals have a great impact on how I cover stories”; “I try to find story themes that will attract advertisers”; “Free products or services influence the reporting”; and “I never mention a brand in the stories I produce”, which was reverse coded for the scale. Items used to measure influences mediated through soft power included for referent power: “I consider publishers’ or managers’ interests when producing journalistic content”; and “How to deal with public relations material is discussed in editorial meetings”. For information power, we used: “Public relations material offers necessary information for me to do my job”; “Information in public relations material is reliable”; and “Free products or services are necessary for me to do my job”. Expert power was measured by “I have a close relationship with public relations professionals”.

Hard and soft power were also conceptualized around the degree to which influences of power are perceived to violate professional ideology and freedom to follow norms and values; whether influences are perceived as a threat or offer journalists relative choice; and thus, whether or not journalists perceive to have a beneficial relationship with the source of influence, which may alleviate work routine constraints and pressures. For example, PR is traditionally perceived as an external source of power that challenges journalistic norms of autonomy. However, journalists are also increasingly choosing to form mutally beneficial relationships with PR professionals who offer informational power.

These new composite scales were submitted to multiple linear regression analysis, distinguishing between three levels of influence, following Hanusch’s (2019) approach. On the individual level, we used standard control variables such as age, gender, salary and whether respondents had specialized in journalism at university. On the organizational level, we examined which platform journalists worked for, using information on whether they worked for newspapers or magazines as variables for the regression, as well as their employer’s competitive environment, financial health and dependence on advertising. On the routines level, we examined whether respondents’ beat made a difference, using the eleven beats described in earlier. As respondents did not respond to each form of power separately for each beat they worked on, we are mainly inferring the influence on individual beats by using them as dummy variables in the regression. While this makes it more difficult to ascertain the exact extent to which a form of power influences a particular beat, the results give us at least a reasonable approximation. Further, this analysis includes only those 405 journalists who were part- or full-time employed in a media organization, as the organizational variables did not apply to freelancers and bloggers in our sample.

On the individual level, our results show that a journalist’s age makes a difference in terms of how they view both hard and soft power influences (Table 3).

Table 3. Multiple linear regression analysis of advertising and PR influences (standardized betas).

	Hard power			Soft power
	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3
Age	−.201***	−.218***	−.191***	−.128*	−.14**	−.103
Salary	−.032	−.075	−.073	.014	−.024	−.026
Journalism degree	.009	.014	.027	.033	.031	.068
Gender	.011	.034	.017	.031	.039	.014
Works for newspaper		−.039	−.05		.033	.043
Works for magazine		.22***	.210***		.056	.062
Competition		.073	.063		.097	.092
Financial situation		.018	.0		.022	.009
Dependence on advertising		.087	.097*		.035	.057
Travel			.161**			.161**
Fashion, Beauty			.126*			.189**
Living, Gardening			−.09			−.127*
Personal Technology			.027			.124*
Personal Finance			−.111**			−.109*
Property, Real Estate			.069			.007
Health, Wellness			−.07			−.119*
Food, Cuisine			.031			−.027
Parenting, Family			−.082			−.035
People, Celebrity			−.017			−.026
Music, Movies			.051			.009
Variance explained (R^2)	.042	.11	.188	.018	.033	.126
Change in R^2		.067***	.079***		.015	.082***

*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

In almost all our models, age is a significant determinant, explaining between 12% and 21% of variance. It seems that the younger journalists are, the more they are likely to report stronger influences from both hard and soft power, while older journalists are more likely to claim they are not strongly influenced. While significant, the individual level is not the most important in explaining variation in relation to these influences, however. In terms of influences from hard power, both the organizational level (Model 2) and journalists’ beats (Model 3) contribute to explaining such differences to a similar extent. On the organizational level, whether journalists work for a magazine plays a strong role, explaining around 22% of variance. Journalists working for magazines are thus the most likely to feel pressured by hard power, as suggested in earlier research (Hanusch, Hanitzsch, and Lauerer 2017). When journalists’ beats are added to the model, an organization’s dependence on advertising also explains some significant variance in our model, even though journalists’ beats have even more explanatory power. Those feeling most pressured by hard power worked in travel, followed by fashion and beauty, while journalists working in personal finance were significantly less likely to report pressure through coercive, legitimate or reward power.

In terms of influences from soft power, lifestyle beats explained considerably more variation than the organizational and individual levels. The results for travel and fashion mirror those for hard power. While travel journalists report significantly more influence from soft power than others, fashion journalists are even more strongly influenced by soft forms of power. Another beat that is more likely to be influenced by soft power is personal technology. On the other hand, journalists working in living and gardening were significantly less likely to report influence from soft power, as were those reporting on personal finance, as well as health and wellness.

Discussion and Conclusion

Our findings identify key areas of the lifestyle journalism field that are particularly susceptible to commercial influences, as well as a range of organizational influences. While journalists admit to a range of pressures from advertising and PR, they believe they can be relatively free from these influences. Journalists ascribe different levels of importance to commercial influences at different stages of their work, especially in terms of advertising. For example, during story planning and selection, lifestyle journalists don’t consider advertising interests as important, indicating more autonomy there than during story writing. Similar tension between “resistance and resignation” has been observed in past scholarship (Hanusch, Hanitzsch, and Lauerer 2017, 155).

A heightened awareness of economic pressures affects how journalists experience different economic influences, and puts them in a predicament: on the one hand, they attempt to hold on to journalistic norms by championing the “wall” that separates them from advertising pressures, and on the other hand, they acknowledge that commercial influences shape their routines and practices more directly and tangibly than before, making them more dependent on these sources of influence (Coddington 2015; Örnebring et al. 2016). To some extent, journalists’ perceptions of influences and their reactions to them are an outcome of conflicting expectations—to be autonomous from PR and advertising influences (an ideological expectation), and to produce content under far greater resource constraints than before (an organizational/work routine expectation) (Lewis, Williams, and Franklin 2008; Ferrucci 2015; Koch, Obermaier, and Riesmeyer 2017). Being transparent about content featuring sponsored products and services was the most important principle for three in four lifestyle journalists in our sample, even when the products and services don’t live up to expectations, showing a resistance to influences that infringe on professional norms and values.

How journalists perceive different sources of commercial influences could also be explained by how they view and relate to different sources or bases of power (French and Raven 1959; Koch, Obermaier, and Riesmeyer 2017). How an act of power is experienced is also relative to what journalists feel is potentially being violated (their professional ideology, work practices, job security), and the extent to which they identify with the source of the power—those they perceive as members of the in-group (share their norms and values) or out-group (advertisers, PR). Traditionally, journalists perceive advertising or PR as outsiders, thus showing more resistance to any acts of hard or soft power. Hard power is exercised through influences that limit journalists’ freedom to uphold and exert their professional norms and values. They are imposed on them, and this lack of choice is evident in claims such as: advertisers and PR professionals having a great impact on journalists’ story selection and coverage; journalists’ consideration of advertising interests outweighing editorial ones; and freebies influencing reporting. Soft power, although it disrupts autonomy norms, is not imposed on journalists, but rather journalists have relative choice in welcoming such influences into their routines in order to alleviate constraints.

In terms of hard forms of power, our findings show that fewer than one in five lifestyle journalists claim that advertising interests outweigh editorial interests, and less than one-third admit they seek out stories that attract advertisers, that advertisers dictate the stories they produce, or that advertiser interests factored into which stories journalists pursued. This could be understood as journalists asserting boundaries and safeguarding the ideological expectation to remain autonomous from advertising pressures, or that advertising pressures are now being mediated through organizational management. Similarly, when it comes to PR, less than one-fifth claim that PR professionals have a large impact on which stories they choose to cover, and how they cover those stories. These findings suggest a more oppositional attitude towards PR, as found by Koch, Obermaier, and Riesmeyer (2017). Although journalists feel the ideological pressure to deny influences of hard power from PR, past analyses in the UK have shown that almost one in five print stories in general came largely or entirely from PR material (Lewis, Williams, and Franklin 2008). While Lewis, Williams, and Franklin’s (2008) study focused on general news, future analyses of lifestyle content might reveal similar or higher amounts of PR material in published content, and would help contextualize this study’s findings.

Younger lifestyle journalists in our sample are significantly more likely to experience hard power. They also have less institutional authority to challenge such influences, and feel greater pressure to comply with expectations that contradict their norms and values due to employment precarity. Such experiences are heightened for journalists working at magazines and especially those with a relatively strong dependence on advertising. Older journalists, we assume, have had longer to internalize these norms and values and feel a stronger ideological obligation to deny their influence, despite their impact on their work.

Once stories are being shaped for publication, advertising and PR influences seem to receive slightly more consideration, with over one-third suggesting they consider advertising interests in a story’s content, and just over one-third feeling it is too easy for PR to place content in their publication. Some of the shift we see in how journalists claim to experience influences of power at different stages of their work routine—developing a story idea versus shaping a story for publication—could be explained by whether the perceived influence is coming from within or outside of the news organization. We attribute this to the finding that almost half the journalists consider publishers’ or managers’ interests when producing journalistic content—a form of soft power. At the same time, it is important to consider that journalists might also experience such requests as legitimate (hard) power from an appointed organizational authority who acts as an intermediary between the advertising and editorial departments. Here, compliance happens because a journalist has internalized this expectation in order to avoid potential sanctions (e.g., job loss). Further research should look more closely at how acts of soft and hard power stemming specifically from within different levels of a news organization are experienced by journalists.

Across all beats, travel journalists experience hard power most pronounced, which resonates with earlier findings that due to the high production costs these journalists rely more strongly on sponsored trips and PR material. PR was seen as both necessary and useful for their work, but also as a threat to critical reporting (Hanusch 2012). The pressure to consider advertisers’ interests and mention brands in a story is also felt acutely by fashion and beauty journalists who are regularly invited to industry events and are often expected to produce positive coverage. Journalists in the personal finance beat, however, were significantly more likely to claim little to no pressure through hard power influences. Some of this might be due to personal finance having more in common with the traditional business news beat in terms of norms, as well as the fact there are fewer private or public financial institutions (e.g., financial advisors, banks etc.) competing for journalistic coverage.

When it comes to soft forms of power, journalists still hold PR at arm’s length. Only one quarter of our respondents agree PR material is reliable—a claim that indicates a resistance to influences from those they perceive as outsiders to their professional in-group (Koch, Obermaier, and Riesmeyer 2017). However, on the routines level, lifestyle journalists are becoming more open to PR, with more than half claiming that PR material helps them get the job done. This is higher than was the case for journalists in Germany, where less than one-third believed that PR material made journalists’ work easier (Koch, Obermaier, and Riesmeyer 2017). The fact almost half the journalists feel it is important to maintain close relationships with PR professionals may indicate that as commercial pressures grow and journalists experience increasing resource constraints in their work, journalists are beginning to perceive PR professionals as migrating from being a source of coercive or reward (hard) power to being an expert (soft) power, i.e., someone journalists see as possessing beneficial skills and knowledge. This finding resonates with past studies that show journalists value good relationships with PR professionals (Weischenberg, Malik, and Scholl 2006), but that they also believe PR professionals should be the ones initiating and developing such relationships (Sallot and Johnson 2006).

Both hard and soft power are felt most acutely by those working in travel and fashion and beauty. On the other hand, journalists in the living and gardening, health and wellness, as well as personal finance beats were significantly less likely to experience soft power. The assumption here is that those in the living and gardening beat are more likely to bypass PR professionals and form relationships directly with industry professionals, such as designers (furniture, plants, building materials etc.) and those offering services (landscaping, insulation etc.), and that competition for advertising space among these is slightly weaker than in the fashion and beauty or travel industries. Journalists in personal finance are also likely to form relationships directly with managers at various financial institutions to get information or story ideas instead of relying on PR. Again, younger journalists felt these influences most pronounced. Whereas magazine journalists are more attuned to advertising influences, we assume that newspaper journalists find it more tolerable to admit to soft power influences such as PR being helpful than to claim the impact of hard power influences that disrupt editorial integrity. Alternatively, those working for magazines experience both hard and soft power influences more directly, whereas at newspapers, soft power influence is experienced directly, and hard power influences (e.g., advertising pressures) are mediated by newsroom management.

While hard power influences and what they appear to violate go to the heart of journalists’ professional ideology, soft power influences seem to alleviate the growing constraints on journalists’ working routines. We would therefore speculate that, as journalists increasingly rely on ready-to-publish PR material, and receive exclusive insights and information from PR professionals they have built relationships with, journalists might also begin to perceive PR as a source located on the axis of referent, expert and informational, i.e., soft power—a source of trusted information, whose relationship journalists value. This may also suggest that PR is not solely an instrumentalist source of power, but might also be understood within the structuralist perspective; an influence that helps journalists to respond to increasing pressures as a result of competiton, technological changes and awareness of audience interests (Gandy 2009). It is crucial that future research examine more in-depth the development of how these different forms of power shape journalism more broadly.

While this study sheds light on how lifestyle journalists experience commercial influences, it does not come without limitations. As noted earlier, we have relied on journalists’ self-reports, which may be affected by recall inaccuracy and social desirability bias (Podsakoff and Organ 1986). Journalists’ negative attitudes toward PR practitioners have a long tradition and are embedded in journalists’ ideology of autonomy (Aronoff 1975; Niskala and Hurme 2014). Thus it may well be they are sensitive about giving in to PR and advertising influence and deny it, even subconsciously (Obermaier, Koch, and Riesmeyer 2018). One way forward for research would be to go beyond such self-reports, for example by conducting ethnographies or doing experiments to better understand actual practice. At the same time, we were not as interested in the absolute influence of the various forms of soft and hard power, but rather in their impact relative to each other, such as whether one form of power is experienced more or less strongly than others. Still, it would be important for future research to examine these in more detail. Further, this study was limited to the Australian context. While Australia’s media system is very similar to other Western contexts, lifestyle journalists in other countries may experience commercial influences somewhat differently. Comparative studies would be particularly useful in this regard.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.