[ecrea] CFP Sponsored Editorial Content: special issue of Digital Journalism

CFP Sponsored Editorial Content: special issue of Digital Journalism

With apologies for cross-posting

Call for papers for a special issue of Digital Journalism: Sponsored 
Editorial Content

Amid falling display advertising and subscription revenues, sponsored 
content has offered publishers the potential for increased earnings, and 
marketers a means to tackle ad-avoidance and boost engagement (Harms et 
al., 2017). Sponsored content is now the second most important revenue 
generator (44%), after advertising (70%) and ahead of subscription 
(31%), according to a worldwide newsroom survey (ICFJ 2017). Sponsored 
editorial content is material with similar qualities and format to 
content that is typically published on a platform, but which is paid for 
by a third party. Advertising that resembles editorial long predates the 
digital age, but brands are increasingly involved in the production of 
publisher-hosted branded content, including material described as paid 
content, sponsored content, native advertising, programmatic native, 
content recommendation and clickbait.

Sponsored content has been the focus of considerable industry interest 
over recent years, amid continuing controversy (Wojdynski and Golan, 
2016). The inclusion of paid content designed to be ‘native’ to its 
editorial environment has generated most concerns, ranging from 
deception and reader awareness (Wojdynski and Evans, 2016) to the impact 
on editorial integrity, credibility and trust in publishing (Levi, 2015; 
Piety, 2016; Einstein, 2016). Much research to date has examined 
regulatory requirements and adherence, forms of labelling and 
identification and reader awareness and attitudes (Wu et al., 2016; 
Iversen and Knudsen, 2017; Amazeen and Wojdynski, 2018; Campbell and 
Evans, 2018). Researchers have examined the adoption of sponsored 
content in newsrooms (Coddington, 2015; Conill, 2016), including work 
that explores ‘norm entrepreneurship’ amongst professionals adopting 
more affirmative perspectives of content curation against critical 
conceptualisations such as erosion of the ‘firewall’ between ‘church’ 
and ‘state’, editorial and advertising (Carlson, 2014). Others have 
examined the emergence of ‘hybrid editors’ (Poutanen et al., 2016), 
alongside the proliferation of sponsored content production arrangements.

Building on such studies, this call invites both conceptual and 
empirical papers that explore the implications of sponsored content for 
the practices and study of digital journalism, and for research agendas, 
across Western and non-Western media systems. Despite the overall growth 
in scholarship, there has been comparatively little work examining how 
sponsored content is managed and produced across digital publishing 
operations, how demarcations between content producers are constructed, 
and how more liquid identities and affiliations are performed. The 
merging of editorial and marketing content takes place with increasing 
levels of automation and with a range of intermediary agencies and 
processes involved. As practices and formats multiply, there needs to be 
greater academic convergence to examine sponsored content along a 
continuum of transactional relationships between media and sources 
involving payment or other consideration. Research is also needed to 
integrate considerations of practice and policy-making by exploring the 
varieties of governance of sponsored content across digital journalism, 
from the application of formal regulations to rule-making and 
self-governance at all levels, including non-acceptance. Examining the 
operation of governance, together with further studies on audience 
perceptions and responses, can inform wider discussions about regulatory 
design for digital communications.

This special issue invites contributions on the organisation and 
practices of digital publishers surrounding sponsored editorial content, 
on the identities, attitudes and reflexivity of journalists and other 
content producers, and on the influence of modes of governance on 
behaviour. Papers are also invited that consider the implications of 
sponsored content for some of the core themes and debates within 
journalism studies surrounding power, control, agency, ethics and 
regulation, and for the study and teaching of converging communications 
activities. Both empirical and theoretical manuscripts; quantitative, 
qualitative, and mixed methods approaches; single-country and 
comparative research are welcome. Possible topics include, but are not 
limited to:

history and development of sponsored content in digital journalism,
emergent forms and formats across programmatic native advertising, 
content recommendation, and sponsored editorial content,
institutional arrangements, attitudes and practices surrounding 
sponsored content in digital publishing,
media business models and the role, or rejection, of sponsored content,
relationships between data, journalism, algorithms, automation and 
sponsored content,
changing relationships, tensions and convergence across journalism, 
public relations and advertising,
reader awareness, attitudes and responses,
modes and effectiveness of governance of sponsored content.

Information about Submissions

Proposals should include the following: an abstract of 500-750 words 
(not including references) as well as background information on the 
author(s), including an abbreviated bio that describes previous and 
current research that relates to the special issue theme. Please submit 
your proposal as one file (PDF) with your names clearly stated in the 
file name and the first page. Send your proposal to (j.hardy /at/ uel.ac.uk) 
<mailto:(j.hardy /at/ uel.ac.uk)> by the date stated in timeline below. Authors 
of accepted proposals are expected to develop and submit their original 
article, for full blind ­review, in accordance with the journal's 
peer-review procedure, by the deadline stated. Articles should be 
between 6 500 and 7 000 words in length. Guidelines for manuscripts can 
be found here.

Timeline:

Abstract submission deadline: April 8, 2019

Notification on submitted abstracts: April 30, 2019

Article submission deadline: November 4, 2019

The call can also be found here:

http://explore.tandfonline.com/cfp/ah/rdij-digital-journalism-sponsored-content


Editorial information: Digital Journalism

Guest Editor: Jonathan Hardy, University of East London
Editor-in-Chief: Oscar Westlund


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