Redefining the Medium and Its Messages

What is the connection between advertising revenues and the forms and functions of media? It has long been assumed that media managers have regarded the public as their principal customers, that publications and programs were themselves the primary products that the media delivered, and that commercial messages should be independent from noncommercial messages. These assumptions implied a hierarchy of communication elevating content over commerce.

Generally, these assumptions are no longer valid. The new assumptions are the exact opposites of their predecessors: media managers now regard advertisers, not the public, as their principal customers; ¹¹⁶ the media now deliver readers and audiences as "products" to the advertisers; ¹¹⁷ and the wall between commercial and noncommercial editorial content has been breached. Today, content is not categorically elevated over commerce; in fact, the two are often made indistinguishable.

Examples are legion. Saturday morning cartoons frequently are guises for extended toy and cereal commercials. ¹¹⁸ More recently, advertisers have become bolder, airing full­length children's programs that star animated commercial characters; these characters are drawn from corporate logos that are typically identified with snack food ads. ¹¹⁹ Even family­hour programming is now integrally blended with commercialism. For example, a well­known fast­ food clown, decked in the company colors, reads to children "from a book emblazoned with the company's golden arches symbol." ¹²⁰ One consequence of this phenomenon is the conversion of regular programming into program­length commercials, or at least the blurring of lines between the two.

Additionally, media increasingly cater to advertisers by mixing commercial and noncommercial messages in a wide variety of formats: infomercials, ¹²¹ documercials, ¹²² commercial video news releases, ¹²³ product placements, ¹²⁴ and advertorials ¹²⁵ are imaginative ways to pitch products. As the commercial line is pushed further into traditionally noncommercial quarters, even "reports" and "editorials" in newspapers and magazines are too often prepared to satisfy advertisers. ¹²⁶

In all of this, product­friendly "reporting" appears to honor objective journalistic standards while it advances the special financial interests of advertisers. These practices tend to camouflage their true commercial bent and thereby capitalize on the public's trust of noncommercial journalistic integrity. Commenting on such practices, Washington Post reporter Paul Farhi has observed that "even the most reputable broadcasters and publishers are knocking new holes in the wall that traditionally has separated news and entertainment from their advertising departments." ¹²⁷ When this occurs, of course, "hard news" can all too easily collapse into "soft sell," with the result that critical reporting becomes unlikely or even impossible. ¹²⁸