House-Made Influence? How Advertising Interests Shape Journalistic Work in Media Organizations

• In Event: ICA Interactive Paper/Poster Session II
  In Interactive Paper Session: Journalism Studies Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

Advertising revenue can be both, a blessing funding journalism in times of lacking willingness among the audience to pay, or a threat influencing the editorial content. In the light of current financial problems of many media organizations, the study investigates how journalists perceive advertising interests to influence their work via relevant business people. A representative sample of German journalists was interviewed (N= 741). Survey results show that many journalists are in contact with the advertising sales department often, and their interests are regularly in conflict. In contrast, the perceived advertising influences on journalistic work are rather low. It turns out that advertising influence mostly play out in terms of adding advertising-friendly content but rarely in terms of censorship. Interestingly, journalists perceive the expectations of their organization’s management and the advertising sales department to consider advertising interests in the editorial content to be higher than the pressure the advertising clients exert.

Author

• Corinna Maria Lauerer, Ludwig Maximilians U Muenchen