FT uses original methods to raise awareness about ad-blocking and the EU copyright reform generates polarised opinions

Friday, September 16, 2016      Future Media Lab.       0

Continuing with our bi-weekly news roundup, George Sims shares the news that caught his eye over the last two weeks. The news round-up is a way for the Future Media Lab. team and members of the Future Media Lab. network to share articles about innovations and developments in the media sector, including references to relevant media policy debates.

Here are George's choices for this week:

FT removing every third word to illustrate the amount ad revenue lost to ad blockers:

For the month of August, a number of non-subscription articles on the Financial Times website were displayed with a third of the words missing. This was done to illustrate the damage that ad-blocking does to the revenue of online publishers, the percentage of removed words representing the percentage of revenue lost by the company to ad-blockers. This innovative approach may have more impact than the messages used by a number of other publishers warning users of the threat posed by ad-blocking to online publishers, as only a small percentage of the general public is aware of this problem.

Industry trade groups have come together to create a "coalition for better ads"

The coalition, backed by powerful industry giants such as Google, GroupM, Unilever and Procter & Gamble, includes the 4As, ANA, Digital Content Next, DMA, World Federation of Advertisers, European Publishers Council, News Media Alliance, BVDW Germany, IAB, IAB Europe and all IAB regional groups. The goal of the coalition is to impose a better set of industry standards for online advertising, in order to improve user experience and reduce the proliferation of ad-blockers:  “Our members recognize that there is room for improvement with the current consumer online advertising experience, as indicated in part by the emergence of ad blocking,”  said Nancy Hill, President and CEO, American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s). 

“Editors cannot live with you, Mark, as a master editor.”

Mark Zuckerberg was accused by Espen Egil Hansen, editor-in-chief and CEO of Aftenposten, of “abusing his power as the world’s most powerful editor”, after Facebook repeatedly deleted a post by the Norwegian publication that featured Nick Ut’s world-famous photograph of naked nine-year-old Kim Phúc running away from a US napalm bombing in Vietnam. Facebook then proceeded to reinstate the picture after accusations of censorship provoked public outcry on the net. In his statement of defence, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg claimed that his company was merely “a technology company”, thereby ignoring the editorial responsibility that comes with being, like it or not, the world’s most widely used media access platform.

The EU Copyright Reform package was made public this week, generating some extremely polarized opinions. The European Magazine and Newspaper publishers associations have hailed the decision as “historically important step in guaranteeing media pluralism as an essential basis for freedom of opinion and democracy in the digital world”, claiming that this form of legal framework was long overdue.

Among other things, the Commission’s proposal recognizes publishers as rightholders in EU copyright law, offering them a legal framework for protection against copyright infringement and content scraping.

On the other side of the spectrum, Google have called many elements of the proposal “worrying”, while the CCIA (a lobbying firm that represents the interests of internet giants such as Amazon, Google, Twitter and Facebook) have called it “backward-looking, to the detriment of Internet users’ fundamental rights and Europe’s creativity, innovation and research”.

A massive number of articles expressing extremely varied opinions have been posted online, each backed by a different set of interests. 

Americans’ trust in mass media drops further: Gallup’s yearly trust in mass media poll reflects an increasing lack of confidence in mass media readership. Since 1997, the percentage of Americans who say that they have a “great deal” or “a fair amount” of trust in the information provided by mass media outlets has dropped from 53 to 32%, an 8 percent drop from last year’s 40%. The poll also distinguishes different political affinities, showing that Republicans’ trust in national media has sunk from 32% to a mere 14%. According to Gallup, this dramatic depreciation is probably linked to this year’s highly mediatized election campaign and Republican contender Donald Trump’s harsh criticism of the media.

“The benefit of being an older brand is that they often get invited to experiment with new platforms early” Aimee Schier, CNN

Under the direction of Aimee Schiers, CNN Digital are experimenting with new platforms and partners such as Snapchat in the race to occupy a prime position in the burgeoning digital media market. CNN Digital’s massive expansion and move to mobile platforms began in March of this year and the News broadcasting company has been adapting its methods to new market trends ever since.