MANAGING PRACTICE, ERASING ETHICS: ANALYSIS OF CHARTERS AND CODES TO FRAME DEPUBLICITARIZATION PRACTICES

Abstract

How do the actors deal with the ethical and deontological issues to the use of native advertising, a range of commercial contents imitating other non-advertising content? To answer this question, we make a content analysis of seven codes of ethics and white papers about native advertising as written by representatives of the marketing and information sectors, as well as consumers and the legislative authority. Combine with six interviews, the results unfold several tensions regarding the definition of the native ads, the answers to the ethical issues, the legitimation of deception and the self-regulation. Finally, we highlight that these codes raise a paradox : the standardisation of native advertising accelerates its uses while maintaining a kind of cynism regarding its ethical issues