Journalism, advertising, or something in between? : how the school of the New York Times teaches journalists about native advertising

Abstract

In the face of unprecedented changes to the digital media landscape, the news publishing industry has adapted to increased competition online through a variety of means, including the adoption of native advertising. Journalism is defined and maintained through professional norms as boundaries between what is and what is not journalism. These efforts are primarily rhetorical and shape the ways in which journalists are socialized into the profession. Recent literature shows how boundary work is used in today’s complex media ecosystem to limit the inclusion of some new journalistic actors while trying to maintain the status quo established by legacy news organizations. These boundaries are reproduced in journalism and media education programs. Although transparency around native advertising practices is notably absent in news publisher communications, a training course on offer at The School of the New York Times provides insight into how The New York Times conceptualizes and operationalizes native advertising at T Brand Studio, its in-house native content department. The course, titled “Thinking About the Other Side? An Introduction to Content Marketing,” was designed and launched by T Brand Studio in 2015 specifically to instruct job-insecure journalists how to put their journalistic experience to use creating native advertisements. Using participatory observation in the MOOC-style course, textual analysis of course materials, and expert-interview of the School’s instructional designer, this single case study was coded toward themes that reveal what is taught, the instructional practices used, and the implicit values found throughout the course. The themes constructed from examination of the course reveal how the course conceptualizes native advertising, describes the skills needed to do native advertising work, and promotes the ideal qualities and dispositions of a journalist–turned–native advertiser through a vocational approach. A third theme explores the implicit values that underly the course’s teachings and instructional practices. Findings of this study reveal how The New York Times reinforces industry-created boundaries between journalism and advertising through its native advertising course. The course is taught using a vocational approach that leaves little room for the exploration of theory or critical thinking. As The New York Times continues to shape the industry’s ideas of what is and what is not journalism, its entry into education with the launch of The School of the New York Times provides it with a new platform upon which its own ideals and needs are served through the socialization of journalists and native advertisers. Scholars interested in the reproduction of power through corporate media’s involvement in education will find value in this study’s revelations about the ways in which “Thinking About the Other Side” is constructed exclusively through the lens of T Brand Studios. The study also offers practical value as journalists and newsrooms consider native advertising as an alternative career path or as a new source of revenue.