The influence of advertisers on editorial content

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject Communications - Public Relations, Advertising, Marketing, Social Media, grade: Distinction, Macquarie University, course: ICOM 891 Communication Research Methodologies, language: English, abstract: There are cases when commercial pressure on editors becomes very obvious; especially when it fails to succeed and becomes publicly known. This could either be because the advertiser not only threatens to, but actually does withdraw its advertising from a newspaper as reaction to unwanted content, or because information about business agreements between client and newspaper leaks out to the public. Both incidents of exercising influence on editors were observable at the Los Angeles Times, a daily newspaper in South California, USA. In contrast to quantitative surveys, this research will illustrate the influence of commercial pressure on newspapers, using the L.A. Times as a particular case study.