News in an Era of Content Confusion: Effects of News Use Motivations and Context on Native Advertising and Digital News Perceptions

Abstract

This study examined the effects of news use motivations and differing native advertising contexts (hard vs. soft news) on the ability to perceive commercialized content, evaluations of native advertising, and ensuing digital news perceptions. Based upon the framework of the persuasion knowledge model, an online experiment was conducted among a sample of U.S. adults ( N = 684). Engaging with news for informational motivations conditioned perceptions of advertising as did the contextual effects of hard versus soft news. Furthermore, hard-news approaches to native advertising were perceived more unfavorably by audiences and tarnished the subsequent reporting of actual journalists.