The research consists of three parts. The first part reviews literature and theories of this new phenomenon and collects comparable data on the transparency of sponsored content, native advertising and branded journalism through research exchanges in Finland, Estonia and the US. The interviews of the first part focus on the intermediaries and producers of these new forms of advertising, the media-, advertising and communication agencies, combining the findings into a pyramid of meanings. The second part focuses on transparency, and brings the Fulbright professor to Finland. The data collection here focuses on ethics and transparency, combining theories of media transparency to interviews of the pressures felt by editors of online media. As the phenomena studied are academically new, research must be developed in close connection to practice where the progress is faster. Hence the third part of the research constructs a transparency model of branded journalism, sponsored content and native advertising, and tests it in the Silicon Valley, US in collaboration with one of the largest research oriented communication agencies, Edelman
The research consists of three parts. The first part reviews literature and theories of this new phenomenon and collects comparable data on the transparency of sponsored content, native advertising and branded journalism through research exchanges in Finland, Estonia and the US. The interviews of the first part focus on the intermediaries and producers of these new forms of advertising, the media-, advertising and communication agencies, combining the findings into a pyramid of meanings. The second part focuses on transparency, and brings the Fulbright professor to Finland. The data collection here focuses on ethics and transparency, combining theories of media transparency to interviews of the pressures felt by editors of online media. As the phenomena studied are academically new, research must be developed in close connection to practice where the progress is faster. Hence the third part of the research constructs a transparency model of branded journalism, sponsored content and native advertising, and tests it in the Silicon Valley, US in collaboration with one of the largest research oriented communication agencies, Edelman