Advertising in the Age of New Media Media Research Paper

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Advertising in the Age of New Media
A number of media organizations in this era of new media are largely mining users’ personal data to attract advertisers. This is in an attempt to ensure that there is free access to information and articles published by those media companies. Through data mining, media organizations are able to determine what a specific user is more interested in and are thus able to align advertisers with the users’ behavior. New media has presented new opportunities for advertising because as noted by Stafford and Faber (ix), it entails interactive communication that is enhanced by technological advancements. However, this practice of advertising raises some privacy concern because mining of personal data from users is intrusive. While the intention of such media organizations is to increase the number of advertisers so that they can remain free, the privacy of users is paramount and should be respected regardless of the intention. As such, it is more important to protect users’ privacy, even if this will require the introduction of a subscription fee and a limitation to advertising.
Privacy of users relates to the absence of knowledge of users personal information which should be protected using all possible means. Protection of personal information has moral importance in terms of prevention of harm, enhancement of autonomy, promotion of informational justice, and prevention of informational inequality (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Prevention of harm entails ensuring that personal information is not used to pose any physical, mental or emotional danger to the individual. In line to this, access to personal information in target advertising poses such a threat to users because they are not aware of the type of individual accessing the data. Enhancement of autonomy implies that users are their own individual and they have the ability to make personal decisions in the absence of outside forces (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). However, advertising using personal information, as practiced by media organizations, influences a person’s ability to choose. While that is the aim of advertising, using personal data to do so is in contrary to the autonomy right that every individual of sane mind holds. Informational inequality applies to the concept of maintaining fairness in the use of personal data. Users are not always sure that media organizations using such personal data will uphold their part of terms and conditions and as such, there is always the possibility that the data may be used for other purposes. Finally, informational injustice relates to the use of personal data to discriminate a person. These are the reasons why governments have enacted privacy laws and as such, media organizations should also take a moral ground, regardless of what the law says.
Protection of privacy is important because it allows people to take control over their own lives. Through the protection of privacy, individuals can determine what kind of advertising materials they want to reach them. Further, as noted by Esteve (40) users whose data is mined by media organizations lack control of their information because media companies...