Abstract

The use of native advertising has sparked a heated debate within traditional news media. While similar formats have a long history within journalism, this new iteration furthers the blurring of boundaries between news and ads by producing ads that look and feel like news but that are clearly labeled as advertising. The novelty of native advertising is that it advocates for openly merging commercial and editorial content, aggravating an existing tension between the professional and commercial logics of journalism. This open relationship between journalists and marketers calls for revisiting the traditional narrative that sustains journalistic autonomy.