Advertising (Media Studies)

The paid promotion of goods, services, or ideas by an identified sponsor through any form of media. Because advertising is paid for, as distinct from publicity, the advertising message's content and placement can be controlled by the sponsor. Through the analysis of audience characteristics, or demographics, advertisers try to target their messages based on audience's particular needs or desires. Typically, advertising is the biggest source of income for American media outlets.

In America, the earliest advertisements were in the form of signboards at inns. The 18th century witnessed the publication of the first newspapers, and through them, sponsors sold goods or services. By the early 20th century, modern advertisers began applying psychological principles to their advertisements and moved away from a long description of their products' benefits, using instead images and minimal copy in newspapers and other print formats to appeal to the emotions and create a desire for their products. This shift, used to great effect in radio and later television advertising, coupled with the obvious profit motivation, has created skepticism among the public, who believe that advertisements are meant to persuade rather than inform. Although government legislation and oversight is the main deterrent against false or deceptive advertising, the media have established some codes, and the advertising industry itself has developed standards.

As media forms and technologies changed throughout the 20th century, so too did the types of advertising messages. Currently, in addition to traditional print, outdoor, and broadcast advertising formats, many Internet-advertising techniques have become increasingly popular and have resulted in ethical debates that tend to focus on format over content. These techniques include “in-line” text ads that highlight certain words that, when clicked, bring the individual to an advertisement. Also, “contextual advertising” displays advertisements along with other search results in response to entering search words in a search engine. Critics of these techniques argue that they blur the line between real news or information and advertisements. Others say that they are less intrusive than print or broadcast advertising genres, as the interactive nature of the internet allows the audience to choose the advertisements it wants to read. For more information, see Turow (1997).