Picture this: You're surfing on the Internet and suddenly find a website with interesting articles. Some are news stories. They want to share information. Others only look like new stories. In fact, they're advertisements*, or ads. They want to get you to buy something. How do you, the reader, tell the difference between a news story and an ad?
Back when I was growing up, it was easier. We got most of our information from newspapers. Big news stories appeared on the front page, and ads were boxed off and clearly labeled*. But on the Internet, the two often appear together. It can be hard to tell which is which.
That's why my research group did a study. My research team showed kids the home page of a popular digitalmagazine. We asked them to tell us which was a news story and which was an ad.
Most were good at finding some kinds of ads. "It has a coupon* code, a big company logo, and the words 'limited time offer,'" one student wrote about an ad on the site. So what was the problem for kids? Some ads look almost the same as real news stories. They have headlines and information. But they may also have the words "sponsored content". "Sponsored content" is a way of saying that something is an ad. Companies paid money for it to appear so that readers will see their stories, buy their products, and like what the company stands for.
As a reader, you have a right to know who's behind the information. So look for the phrase "sponsored content". (And look carefully. Sometimes, it will be written in small letters.) The Internet is a big sea of information. To use it well, we not only have to know how to swim but also how to stay away from the sharks. Learning to tell the differences between an ad and a news story is an important step to becoming Internet-smart.
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