Speaker 1: Welcome back to Drill. I'm Amy Westervelt. I know we've
Speaker 1: been away for a little bit. That's for two reasons. First,
Speaker 1: I've been working on a book that's done at least
Speaker 1: the first draft now. And second, we've been working on
Speaker 1: a few different seasons for this year, so we've got
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff coming your way today. An update
Speaker 1: on something that we've covered a few times in the past, advertorials.
Speaker 1: I'm joined by doctor Michelle Amazon from Boston University. Doctor
Speaker 1: Amazone has done some of the best research on how
Speaker 1: people actually take in information from advertorials, whether they're able
Speaker 1: to differentiate between advertorial and editorial content, all that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. She's just completed a new study looking at
Speaker 1: how different interventions might work to help readers navigate an
Speaker 1: information ecosystem that includes lots of advertorials. She particularly looked
Speaker 1: at how labeling on social media could help people figure
Speaker 1: out what's what, and also whether surrounding these ads could
Speaker 1: help people be inoculated to some of the misleading information
Speaker 1: that's often included in them. It's a really interesting study
Speaker 1: and we had a super interesting conversation to hope you
Speaker 1: enjoy it.
Speaker 2: I'd love to know just a little bit of the
Speaker 2: background on what prompted you guys to undertake this study,
Speaker 2: What made you think, Okay, we need to look at
Speaker 2: what might be done about this stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, I have been studying persuasion and misinformation for
Speaker 3: probably a decade now, and I started looking into native advertisements,
Speaker 3: just broadly, not specific to the fossil fuel industry. I
Speaker 3: published a number of studies about the use of native advertising,
Speaker 3: how difficult it is for the public to be able
Speaker 3: to identify native advertising and distinguish it from news reporting,
Speaker 3: news articles, and I think at one point I had
Speaker 3: a study where I contrasted two native advertisements. One was
Speaker 3: from I think it was Colhan, so it was a
Speaker 3: fashion designer that ad was kind of imitating, mimicking soft news.
Speaker 3: The alternative native advertisement was from Chevron, which was examining
Speaker 3: global energy consumption, and that was more hard news oriented,
Speaker 3: And so the study looked at the differences between the
Speaker 3: two of those how difficult it was for consumers to
Speaker 3: recognize that this was commercial content and not genuine news reporting.
Speaker 3: And that got me thinking, okay, well, how dangerous is
Speaker 3: it for fashion retailers to be using native advertisement compared
Speaker 3: to companies such as Chevron and other fossil fuel providers
Speaker 3: leveraging it. And so that's what got me thinking about
Speaker 3: who is using this type of advertising strategy. And I
Speaker 3: live in Massachusetts, and I was aware that in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 3: our state Attorney General sued Exxon for the claims they
Speaker 3: were making in their advertisements. And I noticed that one
Speaker 3: of the exhibits in the lawsuit was a native advertisement
Speaker 3: that was created by T Brand Studio, and so I
Speaker 3: think that was the impetus. So I've continued to do
Speaker 3: more studies on this. I've been working on a book.
Speaker 3: I have a book coming out from MIT Press later
Speaker 3: this year about native advertising. And it became apparent that
Speaker 3: it wasn't just happening in Massachusetts. You know, there's many
Speaker 3: states and municipalities who have brought forth these types of lawsuits,
Speaker 3: but there's not a whole lot of concrete evidence as
Speaker 3: to what exactly the impacts are. And so we decided, well,
Speaker 3: let's see if we can tease that out.
Speaker 2: It's interesting because I've written about the native advertising stuff
Speaker 2: a bit and cited your research, so thank you. And
Speaker 2: actually the last time I wrote about it, I talked
Speaker 2: to someone that you know, was doing this stuff, but
Speaker 2: probably not as much as other outlets, and so the
Speaker 2: question was sort of like, why why continue to do it?
Speaker 2: And the thing that really resonated with her the most
Speaker 2: because a lot of times newsrooms will just sort of say, oh, well,
Speaker 2: you know, we have a wall between an edit and
Speaker 2: the advertisers aren't influencing our reporting and all that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff, And I said, yeah, but that's not really
Speaker 2: the concern. The concern is that readers confuse these things
Speaker 2: for each other. And I pointed her to the studies
Speaker 2: that have been done on that, and that was the
Speaker 2: thing where she was like, oh really, Yeah, so it
Speaker 2: does seem like something that at least some newsrooms might
Speaker 2: be looking for ways to minimize. But I wanted to
Speaker 2: ask you about the experiment that you ran, was kind
Speaker 2: of mimicking a social media feed?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: Is that accurate to say?
Speaker 3: Correct?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And maybe I could have you walk through the
Speaker 2: two possible interventions that people were seeing in their feed
Speaker 2: and why you decided to look at those two things
Speaker 2: in particular.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I can preface it with the reason why
Speaker 3: we choose to format this as a social media post
Speaker 3: is because not only do these native ads live on
Speaker 3: the news organizations websites, but oftentimes these news organizations that
Speaker 3: are creating these ads, it's not an external ad agency,
Speaker 3: it's these in house content studios that are creating it.
Speaker 3: Often they are contractually obligated to amplify these native advertisements,
Speaker 3: meaning it's not just residing on their websites, but the
Speaker 3: news organizations have to amplify these ads on their social
Speaker 3: media sites. And what some of my previous research has
Speaker 3: shown is that when native advertisements are shared on social media,
Speaker 3: frequently the disclosures that are required by the Federal Trade
Speaker 3: Commission that distinguish them as commercial content. Half the time
Speaker 3: those disclosures disappear. And they are supposed to stick with.
Speaker 3: They're supposed to travel with the native advertisement no matter
Speaker 3: where it appears oh interesting.
Speaker 2: So when it shows up on social that like paid
Speaker 2: for by thing there.
Speaker 3: Wow, all the time it disappears wow. So that's why
Speaker 3: we decided to Okay, well, let's show this in a
Speaker 3: social media feed format. I do have to acknowledge that
Speaker 3: the New York Times, for the most part, they follow
Speaker 3: the rules. They're labeling is good in terms of having
Speaker 3: labeling or disclosures, and they generally stay with the content
Speaker 3: when it appears on social media, so I want to
Speaker 3: be sure that that's clear because in this study we
Speaker 3: are focusing on a New York Times creative ad, but
Speaker 3: they could make their disclosures more prominent, they could use
Speaker 3: more clear language. We adopted the language that the New
Speaker 3: York Time uses, which is paid post, So that was
Speaker 3: one of the interventions, is the disclosure. The New York
Speaker 3: Times uses the language paid post, which not everybody knows
Speaker 3: what that means, and that is one of the challenges
Speaker 3: of the current regulation of native advertising is that the
Speaker 3: FTC does not require any sort of standardization in terms
Speaker 3: of what the disclosures say, so the news outlet can
Speaker 3: call it whatever they want and they do so that
Speaker 3: makes it more confusing for the public when one outlet
Speaker 3: is calling it this, another outlet is calling it something else,
Speaker 3: and so forth. So one of the interventions we had
Speaker 3: was the disclosure, and since this was an experiment, we
Speaker 3: had certain people who saw the disclosure and then other
Speaker 3: people we did not show them the disclosure, So that
Speaker 3: was one of our manipulations. And then the other intervention
Speaker 3: we looked at was what we call an inoculation message,
Speaker 3: so it was a forewarning about the type of content
Speaker 3: that people may see in their social media feeds, and
Speaker 3: we had it, We had the source of that message
Speaker 3: as the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterrez, and you just
Speaker 3: basically talked about what's happening with the climate emergency and
Speaker 3: warning people to make sure the information that you see
Speaker 3: that you rely on on social media from credible sources
Speaker 3: who have relevant expertise and who aren't motivating to greenwash
Speaker 3: their activities or to cherry pick data, so essentially encouraging
Speaker 3: people to be media literate. So that was the other intervention.
Speaker 3: Some people saw those messages, other people did not. Those
Speaker 3: were the people in our control group. That people in
Speaker 3: the control group, they saw a social media post about sushi,
Speaker 3: which sounds kind of random, but in the academic literature
Speaker 3: that has been used many times.
Speaker 2: Before, that's so funny.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And then that was so first there was either
Speaker 3: the inoculation message or forewarning or the control message. And
Speaker 3: then people then saw the native advertisement from ExxonMobil, So
Speaker 3: either the one with the disclosure or the one without
Speaker 3: the disclosure. Those were the treatment groups, the two treatment groups,
Speaker 3: and then there was a third group that was again
Speaker 3: the control group who instead of seeing the native advertisement.
Speaker 3: They just saw a social media post about a restaurant review,
Speaker 3: which is anonymous, and it was they we blurred out
Speaker 3: the name of the.
Speaker 2: Restaurant just because it didn't really matter. Do you have
Speaker 2: a sense of how well these things work on social
Speaker 2: versus on the outlet's own website. I'm just thinking, like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm a climate reporter, have been for a long time.
Speaker 2: My own mother still occasionally sends me native as articles
Speaker 2: that she's seen on climate. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3: I believe that. So I opened my book with a
Speaker 3: vignette about me grading my students' papers one of them,
Speaker 3: not one of them, a handful of them. We're citing
Speaker 3: a native advertisement they saw. Yeah, so I'm shocked, and
Speaker 3: I'm trying to figure out how did they how did
Speaker 3: this happen? And well, I won't give away the story.
Speaker 3: You'll have to get my book.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh wow, that's fascinating.
Speaker 3: Yes, So, I mean even you know, it's it's everybody.
Speaker 3: It's college students, it's it's senior citizens, it's it's even
Speaker 3: college professors who get fooled by this stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Okay. On the it sounds to me like
Speaker 2: from the results of your study, the inoculation messages work
Speaker 2: much better than the like the disclosures are necessary and
Speaker 2: should you know and should and could be much more
Speaker 2: large and prominent, but the inoculation messages seem to be
Speaker 2: much more effective.
Speaker 3: Their functions are slightly different the disclosure. The function of
Speaker 3: that is to allow people to recognize that the content
Speaker 3: is commercial in nature, whereas the inoculation and is supposed
Speaker 3: to make people more resilient to influence.
Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, So I can see how that would work
Speaker 2: on social I wonder how it would work on a
Speaker 2: website and whether you've looked at that at all, because
Speaker 2: I know sometimes these ads will intentionally be run next
Speaker 2: to like legit reporting, and I'm thinking especially around the
Speaker 2: potential of carbon capture, Like they'll often run this native
Speaker 2: ad that's like very positive about the potential of carbon
Speaker 2: capture right next to a reported piece that's like pretty critical,
Speaker 2: and it has the effect sometimes I think of people thinking, oh,
Speaker 2: like there's two sides to the story or whatever, like
Speaker 2: there's the juries out but right.
Speaker 3: Or sometimes they'll even sponsor a newsletter, like there's a
Speaker 3: lot of environmental newsletters that are sponsored by a fossil
Speaker 3: fuel property Yeah, so I don't think I've designed any
Speaker 3: studies to test that, but I agree with your conjecture
Speaker 3: that that probably muddies the waters for.
Speaker 2: Consumers. I wonder if you have talked to any outlets
Speaker 2: in your research about how much might they be willing
Speaker 2: to do to counteract the potentially negative impacts of these ads.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you've heard anything from them on
Speaker 2: that front.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean, I guess who were you talking to.
Speaker 3: I mean, I've talked to reporters like climate reporters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, climate reporters buy and large really want their outlets
Speaker 2: to do something about this.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, many of them are quite a guest at
Speaker 3: what's happening, and some of them have actually left their
Speaker 3: employer because the employer is accepting fossil fuel money and
Speaker 3: creating ads around them. I've also talked to reporters who
Speaker 3: have talked to people from the content studio, the people
Speaker 3: from the content studio, the product marketers or whatever you
Speaker 3: want to refer to them, as they will try and
Speaker 3: talk with reporters to coordinate to find out what they're
Speaker 3: writing about. So, despite that presumed firewall between the newsroom
Speaker 3: and the business side of things, it's very porous, and
Speaker 3: you know, the reporters don't have much recourse, right, they
Speaker 3: can leave if they don't like it. Yeah, in terms
Speaker 3: of them saying to management, oh, we need to make
Speaker 3: these more clear, we need to make native advertisements more clear,
Speaker 3: I don't know. I mean, Jill Abramson got forced out
Speaker 3: of The New York Times because in part she thought
Speaker 3: native advertising was a bad idea. And another point is
Speaker 3: that years ago, I believe it was the New York
Speaker 3: Times they swore off. They committed that they would no
Speaker 3: longer take tobacco industry ad dollars any kind. Yeah, but
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty one, Philip Morris International came back to them,
Speaker 3: came back to a lot of the majors that the
Speaker 3: legacy media in the US, and ran a native advertising campaign,
Speaker 3: not about cigarettes, but about their what do they call it,
Speaker 3: tobacco harm reduction efforts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's right. And some people.
Speaker 3: Pointed out, wait a minute, the New York Times and
Speaker 3: the Boston Globe are carrying this. They had committed that
Speaker 3: they would no longer take tobacco money, and how they're
Speaker 3: violating it. So I don't know how strong these commitments
Speaker 3: are when they make them.
Speaker 2: I just have one more question for you. I know
Speaker 2: that the social media platforms themselves have been very resistant
Speaker 2: to any kind of labeling or content moderation or things
Speaker 2: like that. Increasingly so in the last six months, I know,
Speaker 2: I've seen people saying that even just the like verifiable
Speaker 2: information kind of labels our censorship. So I'm curious for
Speaker 2: your take on that. And i know that, you know,
Speaker 2: even research like yours is being targeted as sort of
Speaker 2: like censorship, So I'm curious what you think about that. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I actually fielded a quick poll in January after
Speaker 3: Mark Zuckerberg made his statement about getting rid of the
Speaker 3: third party fact checking and found that I think it
Speaker 3: was two thirds of Americans do want content moderation on
Speaker 3: social media, and the majority of them think that fact
Speaker 3: checking is beneficial, and they were significantly us favorable towards
Speaker 3: what did he call it, community notes, Right, that's what
Speaker 3: he was going to pivot. So, I mean, we have evidence.
Speaker 3: I mean, not that there was any question that that
Speaker 3: Zuckerberg was doing this for any reason other than to
Speaker 3: bend to the new administration. Nonetheless, here's empirical evidence suggesting
Speaker 3: that the public wants these sorts of labels. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: it's not censorship.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. You can still access the content, right.
Speaker 2: You can still read it, you just have some context
Speaker 2: for it, all right. Thank you so much for taking
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you so much. Amy.
Speaker 1: That's it for this week, Thanks for listening. In case
Speaker 1: you missed it, last year we did a pretty exhaustive
Speaker 1: report on adveritorials, looking at which outlets were making the
Speaker 1: most of them for fossil fuel companies, how much money
Speaker 1: they were making, and what various researchers had to say
Speaker 1: about that, including Doctor Amazine. You can find that on
Speaker 1: our website Drilled dot Media, along with lots of other coverage.
Speaker 1: Our producer this week is Peter duff Our. Music is
Speaker 1: Bird in the Hand by Foreknown. Thanksgin for insting, and
Speaker 1: we'll see you next time.