University of Amsterdam Graduate School of Humanities
RMA Media Studies
How Do You Do, Fellow Kids?
New Practices of Hidden Advertising
for Online Communities
Thesis by Leonid Goryachev Student ID #11104767 goryachev.ls@gmail.com
Supervisor: Alex Gekker Second Reader: Thomas Poell
Table of Contents
Abstract 3
Introduction 5
1. Theoretical Foundation 10
1.1. Value Creation: From Audience Commodification to Information Capitalism 10 1.2. Market Practices and the Web 15
1.3. Theoretical Framework as an Explanatory Tool 18
2. Communication Theory and Models 22
2.1. Hidden Advertising Online as a Form of Communication 29
2.2. Communication Model of Hidden Advertising for Online Communities 41
3. Investigating frackfeed.com Website 45
3.1. Frackfeed.com. Overview 46
3.2. Frackfeed.com. “Memes” Section 49
4. Conclusions 72
Abstract
In a modern world, oversaturated with information, public’s attention is a commodity. This have lead to the situation where advertisers have to be creative and use unconventional methods in order to influence opinions. This thesis studies one of those methods — hidden advertising. In particular — its forms which target specific communities or social groups.
The aim of this study is to get insight in how the advertisers disguise online promotional content by simulating belonging to its target group. In order to achieve this, the following thesis merges the idea of memetic communication with traditional communication models and the theoretical framework of information capitalism. Furthermore, a tailored communication model is developed, which allows to deconstruct the promotional messages and analyze different components of semantic disguise, employed in order to present this content as user-generated. Four of those components are identified in this work: abidance by formal rules (format), use of vernacular (online slang), communication tradition and units of culture (memetics).
Keywords: new media, hidden advertising, information capitalism, online
“How Do You Do, Fellow Kids?” is a reaction image commonly used to respond to users pretending to be part of a community that they are clearly unfamiliar with.
Introduction
This April marked a full year since the Dakota Access Pipeline protests began. The controversy surrounding the project of a pipeline, connecting the oilfields in North Dakota with oil-farms and refineries in Illinois, is actively reported on by the world’s media. Aside from the usual “green” opposition to such projects, this event is highlighted by developing company’s usage of native lands and the kind of fuel which DAPL is going to transport. This pipeline is built specifically to transfer the oil extracted through hydraulic fracturing or simply “fracking”. This technique is different from the usual drilling-types of extraction, and while producing much cheaper fuel, may result in significant ecological damage . 1
All those factors have contributed to the strong societal reaction, a chain of protests which are still going on, and, of course, a heated online discussion. While most aspects of this reaction which happen offline correspond to the conventional forms of political participation and can be dealt with in terms of the pipe-supporters (power, laws, finances, lobbyism) through policing, loyal media outlets, and paid-for-celebrities, Internet debates are different. Online users are better informed (as they have vast amounts of information, data, and opinions within a reach of a click), more active and vocal since they are (to a certain extent) anonymous, and can be a part of a filter bubble which acts as a membrane letting only certain type of information in. This creates a number of specificities related to popularizing a certain view or opinion online.
Naturally, this situation results in the emergence of new techniques and practices of manipulating information and opinions. This is what gave birth to the frackfeed.com website (named after Buzzfeed, an immensely popular platform publishing articles, listicles, videos, and other types of entertainment content). Subtitled “A Project of Texans for Natural Gas” this website features the “Memes”
Since 2006 fracking technique led to a ten-fold increase in oil and gas production in North Dakota 1
(NPR, 2014). Higher production, in turn, requires better redistribution and creates the supply for projects such as DAPL. At the same time, fracking itself is quite controversial, as there is no clear consensus: The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) made a statement that the fracking industry systematic pollutes the drinking water (but apparently, downplayed the risks (Stateimpact, 2016)), while Royal Academy of Engineering produced a report green-lighting fracking in the UK. Media outlets are also polarized on this issue, but the scientific community seems to agree that fracking, at its current incarnation, is dangerous (Howarth, Ingraffea & Engelder, 2011; Sovacool, 2014) and should be seen as both environmental and socio-political issue (Davis, 2012).
section, which is evidently heavily supervised and moderated. This page only contains the pictures, such as s h o w n h e r e w i t h “ S h a r e o n F a c e b o o k / Tw i t t e r ” o p t i o n s . Disguised by humorous user-generated content supporting the idea of fracking there is an obvious attempt of corporate and political elites to relate to the young, “hip”, trend-setting audience, without being informed about inner workings of this social strata.
The general motivation behind this attempt is legitimization/popularization of a particular view or agenda — and this is what calls for disguising the promotional component of the message. Internet users and content consumers in general often hold negative attitudes towards advertising and promotional content (especially when it is unsolicited), which is proven both by classic (Zanot, 1984; Alwitt & Prabhaker, 1994) and modern studies in the field (Tsang, Ho & Liang, 2004; Obermiller, Spangenberg & MacLachlan, 2005).
However, this disguise can be hard to implement — after all, successfully “faking” the belonging to a particular group or a community is a complicated task. In case of frackfeed, there are numerous markers pointing towards the true nature of the published content (such as an omnipresent “frackfeed.com” logo along with more subtle clues like the perfunctory usage of online slang, meme templates, etc.) For someone with at least a basic understanding of modern online culture those “fracking memes” are nothing short of politically-motivated advertising, promoting the fossil fuel industry’s agenda. But despite all the possible complications, this type of advertising is fairly common today (Hudson & Hudson, 2010; Advertising Standards Canada, 2016). And while it can be partially attributed to the rising role of the Internet, there are more reasons for the topicality of this issue.
Omnipresence of the information and communication technologies in modern world can be exemplified, inter alia, by the growing numbers of fully functioning
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Figure 1. Content from “Memes” section (frackfeed.com)
electronic governments (United Nations, 2016). The notion of strong impact of Internet on politics is also supported by many modern scholars (Chadwick & Howard, 2009). This is also true for corporate activities — decades-long trend of deindustrialization resulted in the percentage of value, added to world’s GDP by industry and agriculture, reaching a low point in early 2010s. At the same time, there is a significant increase in the service and knowledge-based sector of the modern world’s economy (The World Bank, 2016) . This means that corporations, as the 2
incarnation of the modern capitalism system (both financial and social), are utilizing Internet on many levels.
Some scholars refer to the new modes of this system as “information capitalism” (Castells, 2009). With the emphasis on knowledge and information its practices are quite different from traditional ones. Marketing and advertising, which can be seen as strategically important parts of the capitalist mode of production (Benhabib & Bisin, 2001), are changing as well. Unconventional advertising techniques are also evolving and adapting to the modern conditions. One of those transforming practices is hidden advertising, which takes on numerous different forms. Disguising promotions as user-generated content is one of them. However, sometimes users recognize sponsored content as such and react in a way, which creates a certain clash within the community and can potentially backfire, creating bad reputation for the brand/ company as well as more hostile environment on the platform itself.
This results in emergence of users and communities, who actively oppose those techniques, which in turn creates new challenges both for marketers and users. Achieving the academic understanding of this phenomena will help with to overcome those challenges for the sake of healthy and neutral web, positive user experience, and (moderate) support for corporate activities, or at least provide better knowledge of factors and actors in play. Even though online corporate activity is not inherently harmful or immoral, some of its cases can have a negative impact both on companies, their products and services and their target groups, as well as utilized platforms. This Statistics for the service industry (which is also known as a tertiary sector of economics), often 2
include the numbers for the quaternary sector, the knowledge-based part of economy. This sector typically includes commodities related to ICT and other knowledge-based services like consulting, education, financial planning, advertising, etc. (Busch, 2008) Apparently, this sector will experience rapid growth in the following years (Eurostat, 2017). The number of newly registered patents, trademarks and industrial designs is rising (World Intellectual Property Organization, 2017). Organizations, affiliated with technology, Internet, software development, digital distribution, etc., have been occupying the top-list of market capitalization companies for a few years now (Wikipedia, 2017a).
can range from simple user deception to breaching the rules of a certain websites and even laws, controlling advertising.
So what are the socio-cultural processes and trends which can explain and justify the actions of a party, trying to influence public opinion in such a particularly strange and complex way? How can such promotion pass as organic content? And what is the user’s role in this process?
Today, the level of scientific understanding of this particular topic appears to be insufficient. Despite the fact that concept of hidden advertising in general was already studied in the 1970s, such works often presented just a descriptive study of advertising, branding and customer relations (such as the study of advertising through the prism of information science (Nelson, 1974), or through the employed symbols and their meaning (Leymore, 1975)). And even though during the course of the next few decades this concept received more attention, Internet was not seen as a platform for hidden promotion for a while (most of the studies from the last decade-or-so either focus solely on television (Bærug, 2005), or treat TV as the main outlet for advertising (Nelson, 2008)).
But more recent studies feature the problematic topic more often. For instance, a paper by the members of Amsterdam School of Communication Research, studies a very similar problem, but adopts a different perspective and approach to what this thesis is proposing (Boerman & Van Reijmersdal, 2016). The article introduces an external force to the “advertiser — user” relation, which motivates advertisers to disclose the sponsored content. Disguised advertising then is studied through the prism of disclosure practices. Another approach is offered in a neo-Marxist investigation of labor, capital and the digital economy by Hearn (2010). The author of this paper approaches the topic using “social capital” or “reputation” as an entry point, equating them to the new form of value, and tracing their relations with concepts such as self-identity, collective-identity and meaning-creation. This group of studies, even despite the different focus and methods, cannot be discarded and will be analyzed more deeply in relation to this thesis’ goals in the next chapter.
However, except for this corpus of works, which are relevant but utilize a completely different approach, methodology and framework, there are not many publications doing what this thesis is aiming to achieve. There are some relevant works in terms of methodology and platform-focus, however they are predominantly just the BA/MA theses published through the universities’ networks (Mose, 2014; Rohlin, 2016). Of course, such lack can be explained by how fast younger Internet
users adopt and adapt to new ideas, concepts and trends, as well as by differences in publishing processes for a peer-reviewed paper and a thesis. But still, this further highlights this study’s topicality and underscores the need of a thorough academic investigation.
This is why this research aims to investigate the unconventional practices of online advertising with regard to identity-relating techniques used in hidden or disguised promotion . In order to achieve that, the following thesis will utilize a 3
methodology which combines traditional communication models with a neo-Marxist, information capitalist outlook on the habitual online communication specific for particular communities/user groups. This thesis will develop a theoretical and methodological model to study unconventional advertising online. Thus, the main focus and the object of this study is hidden or disguised advertising, aimed towards a particular social group, represented by an online community. This leads to the following research question:
How do the advertisers disguise online promotional content through simulated belonging to its target group/community?
In order to answer this question, the following research will cover the following sub-questions:
• How the new practices of hidden advertising can be perceived through the prism of information capitalism?
• How and why do the advertisers try to relate to a given social group, while creating online content?
• What are the components or “layers” used to disguise the promotional messages contained within studied content?
For this thesis, I understand identity relating techniques as actions aimed at displaying fabricated 3
“belonging” to a given group or a community possessing a certain collective identity. This definition will be further explained in the following chapters.
1. Theoretical Foundation
As it was mentioned earlier, the concept of information capitalism, along with the works on advertising/marketing and communication theory are crucial to the understanding of the central problem of this study. This is why the following work will engage both with new and relevant research in the field, as well as with classic, fundamental works, which are required to build a framework through which the studied concepts could be perceived.
This chapter begins with an overview of theoretical works focused on information capitalism and concepts related to it. Then, it reviews studies more closely related to this thesis’ focus — hidden advertising. These works will be used to further develop this thesis’ perception of hidden advertising within the framework of information capitalism and to position the studied issue within the existing theoretical field.
Most of the studies reviewed in the following part focus on the issues of capitalism, its new forms, new mechanisms and practices involved. In a sense, such investigations are built upon each other and in a way can be seen as reevaluations of certain aspects of Marxist theory. However, they are diverse and sometimes introduce opposing concepts and ideas. But the ties to Marxist theory are impossible to avoid when researching capitalism and especially practices or actors, opposing it. I will present an overview of suitable theories in the first section of this chapter, and will use them to operationalize my research later.
1.1. Value Creation: From Audience Commodification to Information Capitalism
In context of (modern) capitalism, value and labor can be seen as the main drivers behind most, if not all, economic advancements and profit generation. Briefly, the original idea behind the labor theory of value, as proposed by Marx (1867), suggests that the economic value of any commodity, product or service is measured by the amount of work, or labor, which was required to produce it. However, Marxist theory saw many revisions, reevaluations and critique, a lot of which happened in the last half-century. Concepts of labor and value are not an exception — technological developments created a lot of conceptually different practices and habitus which had a strong impact on the perception of value creation. Many scholars commented on the topic, but one of the most recognized related theories is audience commodification.
This concept originates from the field of political economy of communication and was developed by Dallas W. Smythe, an American political activist and researcher. In his pre-internet work "Communications: Blindspot of Western Marxism” he investigates how modern capitalism erases the border between individual’s role as a producer (worker) and consumer (buyer), arguing that every second of time spent away from actual work and sleep is a commodity, sold to advertisers (Smythe, 1977). Even though Smythe was focused on describing and analyzing advertising on radio and TV, his ideas are quite relevant today. Nowadays, there are even more possibilities for commodifying audience’s free time, which can be exemplified by data collection, monetization of user-generated content, etc. In context of this thesis, the appropriation of some aspects of a given (online) culture can also be seen as an instance of audience commodification. Users spend their free-time engaging in communication by creating content which represents their opinions, outlooks, and sentiments, and sharing it with other users. Such interactions, over time, lead to establishment of a certain communication tradition or even a shared identity. This identity then can be commodified and used by the capitalist actors. For instance, content published on the frackfeed website can be seen as an instance of appropriation of online culture, aimed at promoting a certain agenda. The tradition of meme as a communicative tool is being perpetually developed by a certain group of online users. Advertisers then utilize it to “blend in” and disguise the actual message by framing it as a meme.
The idea of by-product of online activities being used by capitalist system can be compared to some of the concepts, studied by Maurizio Lazzarato. His concept of immaterial labor is particularly valuable, as it allows to create a connection between the information capitalism framework and the ideas of audience commodification and concepts from the field of advertising and marketing. Lazzarato does not follow the old dichotomy between “mental” and “manual” labor. Immaterial labor is not contraposed to the material labor, but there is a dichotomy in the concept itself (Lazzarato, 1996). Immaterial labor can refer both to the informational and cultural content of commodity, and it includes new developments in labor processes (rise of new “immaterial” skills required for all types of labor, such as basic computer control, technical literacy, etc.) as well as new types of activity, which were usually not recognized as work. This last part of his definition is very important in the context of this research. The emergence of this new types of activities, which influence and define cultural and social standards and norms, but also consumer behavior, fashions, trends, tastes, and even what can be called “public opinion” in general, is crucial to information capitalism. The nature of immaterial labor allowed for the creation of the
system, which utilizes the byproducts of online activity of millions of people and treats it as a commodity, as a source of capital or even a brand new means of production. Whether it is a company gathering usage data from all its devices (which are not a property of the said company, but a set of clever terms, user limitations and loopholes negates this issue), or a website which is popular only because its users engage with each other in productive ways and create enormous amount of user-generated-content (which draws more users to the website, allowing its owners to capitalize on, for example, advertising), the vast majority of modern companies affiliated with technology, IT, information and Internet utilize the products of immaterial labor, performed by their clients/customers, one way or another. This is also supported by more recent works on the topic, such as an essay by T. Scholz in which he investigates the concept of Web 2.0 in relation to capitalist practices (2008). This investigation leads to a conclusion that alike to the consumers desires, which do not grow in a vacuum but rather are largely produced by the market machine in the first place, “Web 2.0 is a good example of marketers entering the discussion about the Internet.” (p. 1) This statement takes the argument further from the individual practices of commodifying the by-products of online activity towards the conceptual ideas about the transforming force of modern capitalism. A good example of such a transformation is the trend towards the platformization of the Web — or “the rise of the platform as the dominant infrastructural and economic model of the social web” (Helmond, 2015, p. 5).
Very closely related to Lazzarato’s and Smythe’s works is the idea of attention economics. This concept was described by an American scientist Herbert A. Simon in his 1971 speech: “… in an information-rich world … a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it” (p. 41). This idea was later explored by other scholars, but the main concept remained unchanged — human attention is not infinite. It is scarce, limited both by the specifics of cognition and restricted time and resources, but without attention information is useless. In line with the concept of information capitalism, information still can be seen as a commodity, but its value is also determined by attention as a resource. This creates a situation where all the different types of content, information and external stimuli are competing for attention. Thus, the attention of potential clients and customers is of the utmost importance when it comes to advertising and can be seen as the prerequisite of turning a people into consumers. Today, this issue is even more important — Internet made information increasingly available for its users (James, 2012) thus making audience attention even more scarce (Falkinger, 2008).
These concepts can be seen as a part of a broader framework, in this case — the framework of information capitalism. As it was said before, most of the works, discussed in this chapter, have a lot in common, and even though the main problem, the way of approaching it, and the resulting conclusions may vary, different aspects of the reviewed theories can be used to establish a certain outlook of the problematic issue. This is particularly true for the fundamental works.
The most important in this regard are the works of an author, who coined the term of information capitalism and was the among the first to describe the modern economy and society in such terms. It was done by Manuel Castells, a highly-recognized Spanish scholar, known for his studies of the information society, mass communication and globalization issues. One of his most well known and influential works is a three-part investigation into the modern capitalist system, titled “The Information Age”. However, as this series was aimed at creating a grand-theory of sorts, most of the mentions of Castells' work in this research will refer to the first part of trilogy (Castells, 2009) or articles, focusing on certain aspects of his theory (2000). In a nutshell, Castells, while arguing that humanity is leaving the industrial stage and entering the post-industrial or information age, focuses on number of transformations society goes through: cultural, social, political, economic. As for this work, Castells research is important in building the basis of information capitalism concept, so his analysis of economics will be prioritized.
According to those studies, in modern world networks are the source of power and value. Those networks are not a new form of social organization, but the modern reliance on those networks can be seen as the “key feature of social morphology” (Castells, 2009, p. 5). One of the reasons behind it, as Castells puts it, is the spread of Internet and other communicative technologies, which allows to decentralize the activity and increase its effectiveness. Our society, however, still remains capitalist by nature, but the most important mean of production today is information. Of course, Castells mentions that to a certain extent, information has been always been a vital component of all societies and economic systems in human history. But in this new network economy information is vital to economic success. This causes an “informational shift”, focus on manipulation of information, not just its utilization or spread. And this novel approach is what allows to call modern economic system “information capitalism”.
Another fundamental work, investigating the notions of labor, value and information in digital economy was performed by Tiziana Terranova, an Italian scholar and activist. In her essay, headlined “Free Labor: Producing Culture for the Digital Economy” Terranova discusses the idea that one of the most important sources of value in the digital economy is free labor performed by users often without their own knowledge or consent (2000). She mentions that “chats, real-life stories, mailing lists, amateur newsletters” are the new forms of labor, which, while not directly produced by capitalism, still serve as sources of monetary value (pp. 37-38). This can be illustrated by the frackfeed website — it is evidently a profit motivated venture, which uses both the community-generated format of the meme and users’ attention in order to provide material gains. And while the text mentions that this situation does not necessarily mean that corporate actors are the “bad boys”, harvesting the results of users’ activities, free collective labor is still channeled into the monetary flow (p. 38). This is due to the fact that Terranova sees this process as an inevitable, and the behavior of capitalists as inherent to their nature. Here the voluntary nature of free labor is important. If nobody is forced to perform specific tasks, then the classic approach to labor is inapplicable. This is why the concluding part of text calls for “a need to think beyond the categories that structure much Net debate these days” (p. 54). According to the article, new technologies, new paradigms and new types of possible behavior require an abstract rethinking of the concepts of labor, rather than another re-investigation of Marxist theory.
These foundational works were expanded upon by multiple scholars, with particular attention to the certain elements of information capitalism as a system. In this regard, the works of Christian Fuchs are of high relevance, especially due to the fact that he, while investigating certain issues within the theory of information capitalism, developed an actual framework of labor in information capitalism. In 2010 Christian Fuchs had published a paper headlined “Labor in Informational Capitalism and on the Internet” (2010). As it follows from the name, the article discussed the evolution of labor and production caused by technical and economic progress, applying Marxist labor theory with its concepts of value, exploitation and redistribution.
And while he was not the first scholar to investigate this problem, his view of the issue is rather original. The main argument of this work is centered around significantly expanding and even redefining the notion of economic class. One of the main reasons for this is that emergence of Internet has created a whole new set of practices, some of which put users into the ambiguous state, when they both consume
some product, service or content (which is often free for them), and create value for the capitalists who are willing to commodify it. And while the fusion of the producers and consumers can be seen as a manifestation of participatory culture, the capitalization of the issue makes it an instance of audience commodification. Another reason for redefining the notion of class is the transformation of the knowledge labor concept, which is, once again, facilitated by the Internet. Fuchs, trying to fit all the changes economics and production undergo with the original theory of labor, sees prosumers (people how consume the content and at the same time create it) as unpaid knowledge workers, who are being exploited in their noble impulse to collaborate for the greater good. In another article Fuchs comes to a conclusion that there is a new type of the exploitation of commons, created by digital technologies. This type is different from the classic marxist types, but he states that it “poses a threat of the destruction of the fundamental foundations of life itself (nature, health, education, etc).” (Fuchs, 2011, p. 116) This is due to the fact, that “the multitude” — contemporary proletariat, those who produce material or informational commodities — does not control those commodities (p. 99). For Fuchs, those are the characteristic traits of information capitalism, which he sees as an antagonistic system, producing new outlets both for class struggle and capitalist domination (2008).
1.2. Market Practices and the Web
As the central problem of this thesis exists exclusively online, and the parties involved utilize Internet as a communication tool, the issue requires investigation into the modern research on this topic. Internet, information technologies and online culture are dynamic, they evolve fast, and what was true knowledge ten years ago, can be completely outdated today. This further proves the need to study current state of the art.
In this regard, the relevant works for this thesis are the studies of the new types of (unconventional) advertising with relation to the online realm, as well as the investigations of certain types of online communication. One of them is the reevaluation of the “Hidden Persuaders” theory, which is more than 50 years old, carried out by Michelle R. Nelson, an associate professor of advertising at the University of Illinois (2008). While the original work was built around the premise, which is still relevant and can be summarized as “advertising agencies are using depth interviews to identify hidden consumer motivations, which are then used to entice consumers to buy goods” (p. 113), it was focused on television advertising and the usage of focus-groups. Those technologies, considered cutting-edge in the 1950s, are definitely outdated today. This notion is the main motivation for Nelson, who
revisits the selected chapters and conclusions of an original study, trying to relate them to the modern conditions. And even though the idea of online advertising is mostly ignored by this work, some of its conclusions can help to create a connection between the classic view of advertising and marketing and the current state of affairs. Nelson, inter alia, states that
…in 1968, 15% of those surveyed considered themselves “serious resistors” of advertising, compared with … 60% […today] and that the “most people of cognitive ability in Western capitalistic cultures understand the persuasive intent of advertising, are quite adept at deciphering its meanings” (p. 122). This, in turn, causes the corporations to try and “deactivate our advertising early warning systems. These tactics today include new and old “hidden” persuaders discussed earlier, such as product integration, stealth marketing, and video news releases.” For examples of these techniques, the author refers to the works of other researchers who claim that, for instance, “Philips Electronics paid $2 million to be the sole sponsor of a single episode of 60 Minutes (Steinberg, 2005) and Coca-Cola has shifted money into product placement in games (Grover, Lowry, Khermouch, Edwards & Foust, 2004).”
When it comes to the reevaluation of somewhat classic concepts and ideas, there is another work which is highly relevant to this thesis’ scope: a study of the “cool capitalism” (McGuigan, 2009). Its author investigates the notion of “cool” in relation to capitalism, which was first outlined by Thomas Frank in 1997. The original work presented a study of how counter-culture movements of the 1960s were appropriated by actors like the advertising industry or the clothing business (Frank, 1997). McGuigan’s book expands this idea, studying how capitalist actors incorporate the dissent, the protest, the disaffection with capitalism into the capitalist system itself. Similarly to the Nelson’s work, the book admits that “for capitalism to command hearts and minds, it is necessary to mask out its much less appealing back region, manifestations of which are perpetual sources of disaffection” (McGuigan, p. 2). The sources of this disaffection can differ, but the inherent pursuit of profit by all possible means is the main factor. Thus, when it comes to disguising that “less appealing back region”, especially in relation to advertising, marketing or PR, presenting promotional materials without disclosing them is a viable and popular tactic.
Among other works, which can be seen as more relevant because of their focus on the actual advertising techniques online, is the investigation of the effect the
disclosure of sponsored content has on potential consumers’ response (Boerman & Van Reijmersdal, 2016). This study’s aim is not to research the hidden advertising itself, but rather the perception of the content, which is positioned as “sponsored” as opposed to organic. The authors provide a major overview of the existing literature on the topic, and conclude that while the levels of consumer awareness of disclosures might be quite low, this awareness, when present, can impact the perception of the brand or product quite strongly. However, the authors do not describe this impact in particular detail, since it can be ambiguous and hard to measure: “disclosing sponsored content can activate persuasion knowledge and this activation in turn results in more brand memory or more negative brand attitudes.” (p. 30) Summarizing the study, they come to a conclusion that “literature on disclosure effects is still immature” (p. 31), which is important for establishing this thesis’ problem as a topical one. Even though this thesis does not address the disclosure effect, the perception of advertisers and consumers as two opposing forces and the disclosure of published content as a mediating practice corresponds to the view grounded in the chosen framework.
Additional insight can be provided by the aforementioned study of companies’ reputation in the digital age (Hearn, 2010). Despite the paper’s focus on theoretical and methodological issues of value, labor and capital, it features investigations of some real-life cases and instances of value-creation through the scope of user activity. In a sense, some ideas from the article can be seen as the continuation of Smythe’s work on audience commodification and Terranova’s investigations of free labor, but in relation to the habitual online activity. Hearn points out that ratings, rankings, and reviews provided by users are all sources of value for companies in question. She discusses how this form of self-expression is distilled, aggregated, and monetized. This, in turn, threatens the online reputation economy, effectively creating a situation where most users are aware of the possible machinations by capitalist actors. This idea is quite valuable for this thesis as it confirms that most of the concerns, voiced by the scholars, mentioned earlier in this chapter are still valid and topical, even after two decades.
There is also a sizable block of studies, which deserves attention despite having a slightly different focus. Among them are the thorough investigations of online culture and more specifically the “meme-culture”. One of the most prominent scholars in the field today is Limor Shifman. Her work “Memes in Digital Culture” attempts to create a new overreaching understanding of memes, including what makes them popular, how can they serve as “new modes of political participation”
and “agents of globalization” (2013, pp. 151, 174). Another influential work in the field focuses on the meme’s development and transformation, building upon the concept of participatory culture (Wiggins & Bowers, 2014). Despite having different scopes and approaches those works offer a similar definition of meme, moving away from original meaning, as established by Dawkins (something that “conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation” (Dawkins, 1989, p. 192)). This new meaning very closely corresponds to what is understood by “meme” today, as Wiggins & Bowers put it: “memes are remixed, iterated messages which are rapidly spread by members of participatory digital culture for the purpose of continuing a conversation”. (2014, p. 1)
The studies, reviewed in this chapter provide a number of valuable insights into the thesis’ central problem. This knowledge will allow to establish and justify a certain outlook of the studied processes and actors involved. The rest of chapter will utilize this outlook, combined with the preliminary theoretical analysis of the practices of hidden advertising for online communities. This, in turn, will provide the presuppositions required to create a theoretical framework, which will serve as an explanatory tool. Unconventional practices of online advertising are complex and dynamic, so establishing a certain theoretical understanding, grounded both in existing research and original investigation, is required to properly study them. Even though this thesis does not aim at analyzing all the unconventional online advertising, and has a specific focus, the proper academic understanding needs to be established, in order to study how companies disguise the advertising, what techniques are utilized and how such processes generally unfold.
1.3. Theoretical Framework as an Explanatory Tool
The extended theoretical framework of information capitalism, mentioned in the previous section, will be used in order to describe the type of communication in scope of this thesis, identify the actors, their motivations and explain their behavior. This extended framework will utilize a number of concepts and ideas, which are related to the theory of information capitalism, such as immaterial labor, audience commodification, and attention economy.
This will in turn allow to establish a certain view of actors and processes, connected to the issue of hidden advertising online. First and foremost, there is a need to distinguish two parties, which, while not directly opposing each other, can be juxtaposed, especially in the neo-Marxist tradition. Those are the capitalist actors (corporations, companies, and organizations, producing certain goods or services)
which ultimately aim at increasing the profit, and the customers, represented by varying target groups. In case of disguised advertising for certain online-communities, those particular communities and their members (users) will be seen as targets of all the marketing and advertising attempts, used by the capitalist actors. Those practices will be described through the prism of audience commodification and cultural appropriation.
Such a view can be justified by the notion that Internet culture and the tradition of habitual online communication (which includes many components, such as specific vernacular, a set of platform-dependent formal and informal rules, etc.) is a by-product of non-commercial communication between users. The focus on the user-generated content, which is inherent to the Web 2.0 paradigm, along with what can be described by the term participatory culture, are some of the factors responsible for the creation of such by-products. Hence, the utilization of certain aspects of said culture/ tradition by actors, who do so in order to capitalize on it and use it to market certain product to the group who is creating and developing it, can be seen as an instance of audience commodification. This means that any given online community, which corresponds to a certain product’s target group, can be used as a source of income. In the world of information capitalism specifically tailored and highly targeted advertisement is much more effective, compared to the classical catch-all types of promotional campaigns (Rosenkrans, 2009; Park, Shenoy & Salvendy, 2008). Information today is another mean of production, and correctly using the right information can drastically cut the costs of the advertising (compare putting up a billboard with posting a message online) and enhance its effectiveness thus increasing the profit of capitalist actors.
Furthermore, users’ attention can also be seen as a commodity in terms of attention economics. Attention, as a derivative of time constraints, threshold of human perception, and the scarcity of resources in general, is limited. Each person or user, has a limit of the consumption of information. This means that even the most elaborate and correctly-executed promotional campaign can be ineffective if it does not receive the adequate attention from its target group. In a sense, Internet’s influence on the issue can be seen as twofold and somewhat ironic — modern technologies provide capitalist actors with new opportunities to create value, at the same time increasing the scarcity of users’ attention (Terranova, 2012).
One of the ways to reach the product’s target group and get their attention, is to find out where this attention usually resides and place the promotion there. However,
there are numerous complications when it comes to actually implementing such a strategy (Kelly, Kerr & Drennan, 2010; Chait, 2015). For instance, a company, trying to promote a product, locates a platform, which demographics perfectly corresponds with its target group. A possible course of action here is to use the platform’s existing mechanisms in order to publish the sponsored content. This can be carried out in various forms: pop-ups, banners, openly promotional posts, etc. But as it was mentioned before, the attention of each person is limited by multitude of factors. Unless the advertisement or a product is highly relevant or interesting for a particular user, it is safe to assume, that it will have to contend for his attention with other content and/or promotions (Pagendarm & Schaumburg, 2001). Moreover there are numerous tools, such as browser plugins which are specifically created to hide or block the traditional forms of online advertising.
Naturally, some companies turn to the unconventional modes of advertising. The simpler, less sophisticated techniques may include monitoring and reaction to the mentions of the promoted product and its competitors, as well as using influencers or manual attempts to affect the chosen online community (Saravanakumar & SuganthaLakshmi, 2012). And while those methods allow to produce content with a certain degree of subtlety when it comes to the promotional component, it is still not enough to guarantee that users will pay some of their (limited) attention to that message.
In order to achieve that the advertisement has to take form of content which: • Is typical for the chosen platform/website/online community;
• Does not stand out as promotional/sponsored content;
• Will be perceived by users as an instance of content, which they willingly consume (original/user-generated/entertaining/etc).
Thus, the advertising has to be disguised. Or, to be more precise, the promotional part of the message has to be subtle, indirect, and hidden by the extra meanings, which will make users perceive it as normal content. This can be reached by appropriating the existing culture of a chosen community/target group, and utilizing its component to create said disguise.
In context of this work, which is focused on the online advertising practices, digital culture is the one which is being appropriated by the capitalist actors and utilized in order to “fake” the belonging to the corresponding social groups. According to Shifman, memes are one of the most active components of online
culture and can be seen as a part of the “(post)modern folklore” or shared culture of online (or even civic) participation (2013, p. 15). However, her definition of the meme is quite broad and apart from the actual memes/reaction images includes videos, slogans and even separate practices or formats of communication. And while akin to the most folklore genres it is often impossible to pinpoint the creators of said traditions and practices (certain degree of anonymity, inherent to the online realm, contributes to that), carriers of that tradition can be defined. The perpetual transformations of the online culture and the blurred lines between users who create content and those who consume it can be explained in the tradition of participatory culture (Jenkins, Clinton, Purushotma, Robison & Weigel, 2006).
Of course, patterns described above are not inherent to every form of capitalist activity online, however when it comes to advertising to selected online communities, such a scenario is quite common. However, such view by itself is mostly suitable just for the theoretic analysis. Since the thesis aims to study the empirical data, more specific analytical framework is required. For this thesis the concepts and ideas from the field of communication theory will be used, since it allows to trace any particular signal or message, follow it trough the nodes and, using theoretical and empiric knowledge, deconstruct it to explain the phenomenon of hidden advertising for particular communities.
2. Communication Theory and Models
Most of the works, mentioned in the previous chapters, are either focused solely on the theory of the discussed issues or only use the empirical data in a descriptive manner. But since this thesis will feature the empirical study of online-content, which will be gathered, analyzed and deconstructed, there is a need for a different methodological model. The type of content in scope of this thesis — posts, which combine visuals, text and a set of underlying informal aspects, such as vocabulary, inside humor, etc — dictates the need for a specific, tailored analytical framework. Word mining, sentiment analysis or other types of predominantly text-based analytical tools would not be useful for studying the semantics of such messages, which calls for deconstruction and analysis of each particular post/picture/entry.
Such an investigation has to be performed, while staying in line of the information capitalism framework, selected as an explanatory tool. One of the important aspect of this framework is the notion of the strong opposition of two forces (akin to most, if not all, works in Marxist tradition). Hence, the communication between those two parties has to be deconstructed and analyzed. The communication in this case can also be reduced to sending messages, or signals. This is why certain aspects of communication theory will be utilized to establish the analytical framework. The most well-known and influential work in this field is “The Mathematical Theory of Communication”, established by Claude E. Shannon in his article for the Bell System Technical Journal (1948). This work is highly-technical and focuses a lot on the practical implications of proposed model for engineering, military, and other purposes, as well as on technologies, available at the time. However, this work also discusses the basic issues of communication and proposes a following diagram of communications system.
Figure 2. Shannon’s model of communication (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
However any investigation of Shannon’s theory would not be complete without referencing a text, written as a pre-face to “The Mathematical Theory of Communication” by Warren Weaver (1963). This can be seen as the first attempt to expand the original theory and extrapolate the technical issues, which occupied Shannon’s the most, in order to allow for the analysis of semantics of the message and its effectiveness. As Weaver himself describes it: “semantic problems are concerned with the identity, or satisfactorily close approximation, in the interpretation of meaning by the receiver, as compared with the intended meaning of the sender” (p. 4). This makes Weaver’s article highly relevant for this work, since it aims to analyze meanings and messages, and not just the technicalities of a signal, traveling from its source to the destination (especially since the Internet made this process much faster and simpler then before). Semantic problem of communication in Weaver’s text is explained, inter alia, through a notion of language and identity (national identity). Another important aspect of this work, the problem of effectiveness is also of high relevance for this thesis. Here is how Weaver defines it:
…the effectiveness problems are concerned with the success with which the meaning conveyed to the receiver leads to the desired conduct on his part. It may seem at first glance undesirably narrow to imply that the purpose of all communication is to influence the conduct of the receiver. But with any reasonably broad definition of conduct, it is clear that communication either affects conduct or is without any discernible and probable effect at all. (p. 5) Those two expansions of Shannon’s theory are crucial for this thesis as they allow for a broader interpretation of this particular communication theory, along with employment of similar concepts and ideas. Another classic text which has to be mentioned here is Wiener’s take on the issue of communication as exchange of information (1948). While some notions, contained in it are contradicting with “The Mathematical Theory of Communication”, it is still useful for this research. Especially since the most contradictions are based in approach, methodology and goals, the authors had — while Shannon and Weaver were excited by telecommunications and information science, Norbert Wiener was working on a field of cybernetics. And even though two approaches share a statistical, quantifiable view of information networks, they are different, when it comes to transmission of signals/ messages and the nodes/actors, involved in the process. Cybernetics, in its early form, as formulated by Wiener can be characterized by two aspects: equality of human, natural (animal) and mechanical systems in their ability to handle input and output signals during the incessant process of communication; and their ability to
incorporate feedback in order to react differently in the future . The notion of 4
feedback is the most valuable for this research, since it allows for expanding communication models and adding a feedback loop.
However, before trying to apply those concepts and ideas to the topic at hand, some reevaluation of the communication theory is required. Over the years there have been multiple attempts to improve, expand or rework Shannon’s model by various scholars, mostly from the field of communication science, cybernetics and, of course, media studies.
Most of the newer works, focused on communication theory or models of communication still use the basic template, introduced by Shannon along with the idea of a feedback loop, proposed by Wiener. Modern research on the topic can be characterized by attempts to apply a certain aspect of communication theory, or use a generally similar approach in order to describe a particular mode of communication, such as political communication (Habermas, 2006), non-verbal communication (Mehrabian, 2008) or communication within a family (Koerner & Fitzpatrick, 2002). In a nutshell, most of the earlier works in the field reference the generalized version of Shannon’s model, which can be expressed with the following diagram : 5
However, there are some models which are conceptually different, or employ an original approach and introduce new components. Such frameworks are crucial for the expansion of the generalized model, shown above. The expansion, in turn, is required in order to create a tailored model which will describe the process of disguised advertising for online communities and allow to deconstruct this communication in order to identify signals, messages and actors.
For Shannon, there is a strict separation of communicative technologies/devices and their users. 4
Of course this model is rarely used as-is, scholars modify it depending on the focus of the 5
research, and the particular type of communication, which is being studied. But in general, it can be seen as an ultimate blueprint.
Figure 3. Simplified and generalized model of communication
In this regard Westley and M a c L e a n ’ s M o d e l o f Communication is quite important. (Westley, MacLean, 1957) First, in terms of structure, it is very different from Shannon’s model. It puts a strong emphasis on the environment, the external sources of information (real-life events, news, etc). Those sources are represented by Xn nodes. According to this model, the
communication process begins when an actor receives a message from his surroundings. Since both MacLean and Westley were heavily involved with journalism and journalism studies, this model can be best described in terms of public communication carried out through the mass media. In this case, the A node represents the creator and initial sender of the message, for instance a newspaper, or a network of writers/content creators/PR agencies. Those actors take in the information from the external sources and use it to create content for the audience (node B). However, due to the high amount of available information and various transaction costs, associated with publishing content through conventional media (print, radio, TV), only selected content will reach the audience. This is why Westley and MacLean introduce an intermediary (node C), a “gatekeeper” who narrows down the flow of information and chooses, what content will the eventual audience receive. In terms of journalism the role of editor is a perfect example of a gatekeeper. This framework also features numerous feedback loops, which make the model dynamic, meaning that at any given time any participant of the communication, can influence others. It is also worth mentioning, that the perceptual dimension, sensory experience and subjective interpretation are quite important for this model.
That means that community-specific interpretations can be satisfactorily explained by this model. This model is also non-linear and treats communication as a long and complex process. As it was mentioned above, one of the characteristic traits of online culture is how dynamic it is, and multiple feedback loops allow to study these dynamics. On the other hand, the model emphasizes the role of gatekeeper, who is mostly seen as a separate actor. With quotidian online communication, the role of
Figure 4. Westley and MacLean’s model of communication (https://www.businesstopia.net/
communication/westley-and-maclean-model-communication)
gatekeeper can be attributed to the platform/website. However its gatekeeping potential is mostly realized along the line of the “walled garden” argument. In general, Westley and MacLean’s work is too closely connected to the traditional media, such as TV, radio and print, and thus cannot be used alone in order to sufficiently explain the type of communication in scope of this thesis. But it still provides some valuable insight, which can be combined with other concepts in the field, allowing for creation of a particularistic model.
That is why DeFleur’s Mass Communication Model (DeFleur & Ball-Rokeach, 1970) is of high relevance for this work. While it still can be seen as an expanded version of Shannon’s model, it also builds upon some of the ideas, introduced by We s t l e y a n d M a c L e a n . A c c o r d i n g t o i t , m a s s communication is a perpetual, c i r c u l a r p r o c e s s . S t r o n g emphasis on the feedback highlights the role of receiver, who in this model is as important as the sender, and makes this framework specifically applicable to the online communication. Noise may occur at any stage of the communication and influence all the nodes: from the information source/transmitter to the destination/receiver. DeFleur expands Shannon’s definition of noise as an external force which interferes with the signal on the physical level and introduces psychological distractions, which distract the sender or receiver during the communication process thus disturbing the transmission of information. DeFleur’s model, in general, can be used to describe the process of hidden advertisement for online communities, however it is still way too broad, too close to the basic Shannon’s theory and unlike Westley's and MacLean’s framework does not include a perceptual component . 6
Because of that DeFleur’s model is not suitable when it comes to studying subjective perspectives and community-specific aspects of communication. But, if While internal noise, created by psychological distractions is subjective, context-dependent and 6
variable, I believe it is not enough to create the perceptual dimension. That is why Gerbner’s model is important in establishing the role of individual perception.
Figure 5. DeFleur’s model of communication (http://www.sclcr.com/library/browse.php?
seen as a revised version of Shannon’s model, it can be treated as a general blueprint. It is not as strongly related to the technical aspects, and introduces important ideas, such as the circular, perpetual nature of communication. This makes it more applicable to mass online communication then the previous models, especially if it would be modified to feature a perceptual dimension, which is introduced by other scholars.
Among the models which account for the perceptual dimension is the Gerbner’s Model (1956). It is quite different from the previously described works, both in terms of structure and components. The main idea behind it, is that the real events are not that important to the communication process, compared to their perception. According to Gerbner, both people and machines filter the information, received from external sources. This process is defined by the selection (which part of the event is used as an information source), context (the circumstances surrounding the event, its background), and availability (which boils down to physical, psychological or instrumental restrictions). After the information about an external event is filtered, the resulting perception is what all further communication is based upon. The source of signal now is not the event itself, but rather the actor, who perceived it first. This signal can be separated into form and content which, depending on the media channels used, can shape the further communication. In a nutshell, when a receiving party gets the message, it is already interpreted and filtered and can be far from what the original event implied.
The main downside of this model in relation to this paper’s aims and goals is how generic it is. On the other hand, this can also be seen as a strong side, since the lack of concrete focus on a single form of communication make this model relevant for a lot of potential researches. Especially, taking in the account its in-depth investigation of the perceptual component of communication.
Figure 6. Gerbner’s model of communication
But perhaps the most relevant for the purpose of this research is the communication model, proposed by Stuart Hall, a scholar and political activist, one of the f o u n d i n g f a t h e r s o f t h e Birmingham School of Cultural Studies (1980). One of the most important aspects it introduces is the idea of highly active role of the audience (or signal receivers), which is manifested by their reliance on pre-existing knowledge and (social) context in interpreting the message. Because of that, a single message can be perceived differently by two receivers. This process constitutes the decoding part of the communication. Encoding, or producing the message, is also governed by the notions of perception and interpretation. After all, the message is created to be understood by the audience. This implies that through collective action, audience members are able to change the message itself. While this model can be used to describe both interpersonal and mass communication, it was initially created for the television medium.
But despite the fact that this model was not tailored to describe Internet communication, a lot of its components can be used to explain how information exchange occurs online. The idea of the active role of the audience, whose interpretation of the signals can shape the message itself, and even change its meaning. This, along with Gerbner’s idea of the dominating role of perception, as compared to the actual facts/messages, can be used to describe online advertising through content publishing. The similarity in producing (encoding) and receiving (decoding) is also an important idea, especially when in comes to online communication. Unlike in the time era of radio and television, Internet makes the process of information exchange seamless, eliminating most of the potential for message to become changed/corrupted during its transmission. Thus, the underlying aspects, such as context, previous experiences and frameworks of knowledge are more important for the integrity of the message, which is illustrated quite well by the Hall’s model.
Figure 7. Hall’s model of communication (http:// cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php/
All the communication models, outlined above, can be used to explain a certain aspect of the communicative practices, in scope of this thesis. Some of them (for instance, the DeFleur’s model) can be adapted to describe certain forms of online communication, including advertising. However, in order to reach a better scholarly understanding of the problem and to properly analyze cases of disguised advertising for online communities, a tailored, much more specific model will be far more useful. Since this work is interested in perspectives of both sides, involved in this communication, as well as perceptual and factual components of this communication, such a model will incorporate aspects of the existing models, along with the empirical evidence (which will be provided in the next part of this thesis), all while being grounded in the theory of information capitalism.
2.1. Hidden Advertising Online as a Form of Communication
Before such an analytical model is created, the process of hidden advertising for online communities, needs to be explained in terms of online communication. In order to better illustrate it, the initial state of affairs (pre-intervention, before a particular advertising campaign or a single promotional post was published) can be described as a status quo. At the point of status quo two parties can be identified and juxtaposed: companies or organizations, which possess a need to promote or advertise a certain product/service, and the Internet users who constitute the potential target group for such promotions. The groups of users, in turn, possess a certain collective identity or culture, which is complex, fluid, and very dynamic. Ultimately, there may be no online interaction between those two groups whatsoever. And even though the scenarios, where a community can breach this status-quo are possible (for instance, when a member of said community has a perspective/experience, associated with a company or product, which he shares first), they are irrelevant to this study.
But when it comes to (hidden) advertising, the existing state of affairs is changed by the organization, which aims at altering or managing the perception/ public reaction to a certain product. In this case advertisers can be seen as an intermediary, whether this actor is represented by the company itself, or an outside firm/media agency/etc. Advertisers by definition possess knowledge, insight, tools and skills to advertise in accordance with the client’s requirements. This expertise is used to convey the message, aimed at increasing the value, improving the image or raising awareness, but in a way which disguises the primordial motivation of any capitalist actor — increasing the profits.
The result of this activity is content, containing a certain message (along the lines of “X is Y”, where X is any commercial product, service or organization and Y is a positive quality, either abstract, or directly related to the company’s perception of their target group), which is altered or somehow disguised, to make the promotional message indirect. Resulting media object (article, image, text, video — the format is not that important here) is then published online. In case of hidden advertising, it is uploaded to the pages or platforms, which are used by the product’s target group.
First contact of users and the promotional content goes the same way it does with original content. Depending on a platform, users expect to encounter a certain type of content — educational, informational, entertaining, etc. The advertisement is presented to user as one of the fragments of the never-ending information flow, which is modern Internet. This is where the perceptual dimension plays an important role — users can either see the post as an instance of the user-generated content they were expecting to encounter, or the high weight of promotional message, along with insufficient/excessive/incorrect semantic disguise can make some users aware of the true nature of the message.
So, the first chance to react belongs to the community. The possible reactions, for the sake of this research, can be simplified to a binary: accepted as normal content or identified as advertising. If the advertisement is “spotted”, users go through a set of procedures, mainly aimed at notifying other users, and marking promotional content as such. Consequently, if the published content is recognized and proclaimed as promotional by the users, the advertisers can counter-react. This results either in removal of the submission, or in attempts to manage the public reaction. However in some cases this counter-reaction is perceived as an additional evidence towards the promotional nature of the original submission.
This outline of hidden advertising practices as a form of online communication is useful for establishing the backbone of the communication model, which this thesis aims to create. As it was mentioned earlier, there is a number of reasons, calling for the creation of the particularistic model. Among them are:
• A limited scope of this research, with focus on communication that results in a direct introduction of a media object to an audience;
