Mar 4, 2025 05:44 PM
(This post was last modified: Mar 4, 2025 07:13 PM by C C.)
News article or big oil ad? As native advertisements mislead readers on climate change, Boston University experts identify interventions
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1075288
INTRO: In the battle against climate disinformation, native advertising is a fierce foe. A study published on March 4, 2025 in npj Climate Action led by Boston University (BU) researchers, in collaboration with Cambridge University colleagues, evaluates two promising tools to fight misleading native advertising campaigns put forth by big oil companies.
Many major news organizations now offer corporations the opportunity to pay for articles that mimic in tone and format the publication’s regular reported content. These ‘native advertisements’ are designed to camouflage seamlessly into their surroundings, containing only subtle disclosure messages often overlooked or misunderstood by readers. Fossil fuel companies are spending tens of millions of dollars to shape public perceptions of the climate crisis.
“Because these ads appear on reputable, trusted news platforms, and are formatted like reported pieces, they often come across to readers as genuine journalism,” said the study’s lead author Michelle Amazeen, an associate professor of mass communication and director of the Communication Research Center at BU’s College of Communication. “Research has shown native ads are really effective at swaying readers’ opinions.”
The new study is the first to investigate how two mitigation strategies — disclosures and inoculations — may reduce climate misperceptions caused by exposure to native advertising from the fossil fuel industry. The authors found that when participants were shown a real native ad from ExxonMobil, disclosure messages helped them recognize advertising, while inoculations helped reduce their susceptibility to misleading claims.
“As fossil fuel companies invest in disguising their advertisements, this study furthers our understanding of how to help readers recognize when commercial content is masquerading as news and spreading climate misperceptions,” said study co-author Benjamin Sovacool, a professor of earth and environment in the BU College of Arts & Sciences and director of BU’s Institute for Global Sustainability (IGS).
Amazeen is also a core faculty member at IGS, which provided funding and support for this research in partnership with BU’s Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering.
The research builds on a growing body of work by Amazeen and colleagues at the College of Communication assessing how people recognize and respond to covert misinformation campaigns. By better understanding these processes, they hope that they can prevent misinformation before it takes root and changes people’s beliefs and actions on important issues like climate change... (MORE - details, no ads)
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1075288
INTRO: In the battle against climate disinformation, native advertising is a fierce foe. A study published on March 4, 2025 in npj Climate Action led by Boston University (BU) researchers, in collaboration with Cambridge University colleagues, evaluates two promising tools to fight misleading native advertising campaigns put forth by big oil companies.
Many major news organizations now offer corporations the opportunity to pay for articles that mimic in tone and format the publication’s regular reported content. These ‘native advertisements’ are designed to camouflage seamlessly into their surroundings, containing only subtle disclosure messages often overlooked or misunderstood by readers. Fossil fuel companies are spending tens of millions of dollars to shape public perceptions of the climate crisis.
“Because these ads appear on reputable, trusted news platforms, and are formatted like reported pieces, they often come across to readers as genuine journalism,” said the study’s lead author Michelle Amazeen, an associate professor of mass communication and director of the Communication Research Center at BU’s College of Communication. “Research has shown native ads are really effective at swaying readers’ opinions.”
The new study is the first to investigate how two mitigation strategies — disclosures and inoculations — may reduce climate misperceptions caused by exposure to native advertising from the fossil fuel industry. The authors found that when participants were shown a real native ad from ExxonMobil, disclosure messages helped them recognize advertising, while inoculations helped reduce their susceptibility to misleading claims.
“As fossil fuel companies invest in disguising their advertisements, this study furthers our understanding of how to help readers recognize when commercial content is masquerading as news and spreading climate misperceptions,” said study co-author Benjamin Sovacool, a professor of earth and environment in the BU College of Arts & Sciences and director of BU’s Institute for Global Sustainability (IGS).
Amazeen is also a core faculty member at IGS, which provided funding and support for this research in partnership with BU’s Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering.
The research builds on a growing body of work by Amazeen and colleagues at the College of Communication assessing how people recognize and respond to covert misinformation campaigns. By better understanding these processes, they hope that they can prevent misinformation before it takes root and changes people’s beliefs and actions on important issues like climate change... (MORE - details, no ads)