The insidious effects of advertising
Alex Halavais was talking about Wikipedia when he wrote this, but I couldn’t help thinking of small citizen journalism (or community journalism) Web sites:
The point behind advertising is to persuade consumers to behave in a way that they wouldn’t otherwise behave. The expense is justified by the profit they can draw from these changes in behaviors. That’s why companies might be willing to buy (the idea that they would be “donating” is disingenuous) ad space on a site that has drawn attention as a credible source of information. The only currency Wikipedia has is its credibility, and frankly this is not as shored up as it might be. Accepting advertising might well produce a significant short-term profit, but it would be at the expense of the goose laying the eggs.
So consider a very small Web site or blog that covers the news in a small community. To stay afloat, the publisher accepts ads from local businesses. Yet we all know how that works with print newspapers in small towns — the business then has a stranglehold on the contents of the newspaper.
I can imagine the angry phone call: “Bob, if you publish that story about my husband’s drunk driving arrest, I’m going to pull my full-page ad for the grocery store!”
Now, if Bob the publisher has scruples, he will publish the story anyway. But if Bob has to pay someone this week, he can’t afford to lose that ad.
Halavais has a good point about Wikipedia — and it applies to a whole lot more than just the world’s largest-ever free encyclopedia.
Technorati tags: journalism | advertising | online journalism | online media | ethics | citizen journalism
I’ll take your comments as fair warning to prepare for losing some advertisers while building a publication. But what I hope you’re not implying is that selling advertising implicitly puts content at risk.
Somehow all of the major newspapers in the country struggled from life as a small newspaper into a big one. And somehow they did this even while selling advertising. Journalists are among the most ethical people I know, and the public expects that they can withstand the dark side.
Wikipedia, sell ads if you want to.
The New York Times sells ads. It’s credible. Google sells ads. It’s credible. Everyone sells ads.
October 29, 2006 at 2:47 pm