The Boundary between Advertisement and Mass Media Overlapping Levels in the Press (The Case of Iraq)

Abstract

The advertisement is important in maximizing the resources of journalistic institutions. It helps them to perform their duties and also establishes their independence. However, this type of communication has often overlapped with other types of communication, including media and publicity.

Those in charge of the press bear responsibility in this regard, as some of them harness the advertisement for personal purposes; or detrimental to media content. Many communication authorities have drawn attention to the danger of confusing the concepts and levels of the three activities and have moved towards establishing rules to reduce overlap between them.

The aim of this research is to try to disengage the concept of advertising, media, and propaganda; and to develop a comprehensive vision for each of them to push the newsmen to distance themselves from falling into the trap of misleading readers through the messages contained in each activity; as well as to avoid the misleading pattern in the ads hidden behind the media or convert any of them to a deceptive or ambiguous communication pattern for the public as it might happen using propaganda activity.

As for the choice of the situation in Iraq, the research considers that such situation has a specificity that requires study from the perspective of its transition from the era of media power or the central experience in the management of media to uncontrolled openness of frameless laws, especially after the stormy change that took place on April 2003.

The research believes that the overlap between the three levels of communication seemed deeper and broader, which requires scientific treatment to help those involved in communication; or those involved in press sector, to qualify themselves so that there is no direct threat to their profession or a danger facing the greatness of the message they perform as a result of the lack of boundaries between advertising, media, and publicity .

The research monitored through studying the case of Iraq that the levels mentioned are not clear in terms of function and concept in the minds of some of those involved in communication. Such a situation requires some work of rehabilitation concerning their field. The study, moreover, found that some forces of political and economic finance intervene in order to influence the press through a kind of propaganda paid to threaten the press distracting it from its professional ethics.

The study sees that some governmental institutions perform a pressure on newspapers to drive them to shine their image or to wage a media war against the newspapers that refuse to submit to such reason.

Some private sectors, moreover, intend, deliberately, to adopt selectivity in distributing the advertisements under pressure, or allegations of third parties with what contradicts the standards of publishing.