Week 8: Economics of digital media

Week 8: Economics of digital media

Blogger note: As I finished my reading responses for this, I realized I found myself beginning to think more about how these articles contribute to the idea of digital culture that we talked about in the first weeks of classes. I've come to the conclusion that I think advertising is a big part of our digital culture and appreciated the opportunity to finally read things that tie into what I originally thought this class would be about!

“Industry breakdown: Newspapers still largest revenue segment”

So if I understand this correctly, newspapers accumulate the most revenue of all the news sectors, most of which is the result of advertising fees. Without the advertising factored in, the revenue is closer to the number local TV news. So I’m beginning to think that advertisers prefer to buy newspaper ads, which illustrates their inherent biases towards print. But I’m struggling to decide how this figures into everything else we’ve read so far.

“Spending on native advertising is soaring as marketers and digital media publishers realize the benefits”

I think this must be a really interesting article to read in full! I personally hate social-native and native-style display ads. I always click the ‘x’ in Twitter to remove them from my feed when possible and luckily Ghostery helps eliminate them on my MacBook Pro. they’re especially horrible on my iPhone.

I do not mind sponsored content, however, I never click to read sponsored posts on websites, but I like that it’s generally clear what they are and sometime I am intrigued. At the same time, I never really go online to shop for anything but books so I avoid temptation on well-done sponsored content.

FTC’s “enforcement policy statement on deceptively formatted advertisements” 

I’m glad to know the FTC has a policy on advertisements that may trick readers into engaging with them. I appreciated reading about the past cases that illustrate the different types of misleading ads. It’s astonishing the lengths to which people will go. I which there was a section here for really persistent ads. This document covers ad formats, but in this digital age I think they should also cover ad behavior.

The telemarketing example in the misleading door openers made me laugh because I think I was a telemarketer when I worked at my undergraduate college’s call center where we called alumni and parents to ask them to donate money. I never straight up told anyone I was calling to ask for money, instead I was encouraged to emphasize that I wanted to get to know the caller and offer my perspective on student life to make them nostalgic; make it seem like I just wanted to chat. After a few minutes, I would then have to begin to start asking for donations, but most people knew what I was doing before it would get to that point.

 “Free? New research shows you’re likely paying with your privacy” 

I missed the news about Apple allowing ad-blocking and immediately began to do my research for which to app to download. I can tolerate invasive ads on my MacBook Pro, but I can’t on my iPhone.

I had learned last year about how social media platforms, namely Facebook, provides their services free by data mining. But it is interesting to hear about this happening in the news industry as well, at such an alarming rate. At the mention of NPR in the article, I visited the site and my Ghostery application detected 22 trackers, which is more than most website. And most frightening was the number labeled advertising that I had never encountered before and for which I had to flip the block switch on.

I really appreciated how this article touched on a lot of different perspectives and considerations that linked to further reading (i.e. the misuses of data and “Do Not Track” stuff). I was actually motivated to link on a lot of the hyperlinked text.

“Facebook to tell brands more about who’s near their stores, tailor ads to them”

For a social media platform, it is very clear that Facebook spends a lot of time and energy trying to find new ways for advertising to reach more people. It’s absolutely ridiculous. And because so few people realize it, or care, they will get away with it and continue to become more and more powerful by shaping the digital environment (or digital culture, if you will).

“Digital news revenue: fact sheet”

Given these stats, it’s not hard to see why people are as concerned about mobile device producers like Apple enabling ad-blocking. There’s so much money being made by social media and technology companies. Not only do advertising giants have to worry, but the companies who sell the ad space. It will be exciting to see how things evolve in the years that ad-blocking grows in popularity which will cause tech giants to find other ways to maintain their revenue.

I predict they will either find themselves in the same problem as print newspapers, struggling to adapt to the new digital culture and going to desperate means to stay afloat. Or they will be crafty and unethical in their means to defeat ad-blocking. I don’t see Facebook investing in new methods that would be mutually beneficial to both them and society. It’s not a part of their business culture.