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Call for Papers

Journal of Advertising

Surveillance and Ethics in Advertising

Guest Editors

Drs. Claire M. Segijn, Joanna Strycharz, & Sophie C. Boerman

Submission Deadline: March 31, 2024

Manuscripts are currently being solicited for a special issue of the Journal of Advertising (JA) dedicated to Surveillance and Ethics in Advertising.

Background

Developments in digital technologies have greatly transformed the landscape of advertising around the world (Huh & Faber, 2022; Huh & Malthouse, 2020). The technical possibilities and low costs of collection and processing of consumer data have led to the domination of the landscape by digital data-driven advertising (e.g., personalized advertising, social media advertising, computational advertising, programmatic advertising, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered advertising; Huh & Malthouse 202; Li, 2019; Rodgers, 2021). This contributes to so-called ‘dataveillance’, which is the “automated, continuous, and (unspecific) collection, retention, and analysis of digital traces by people or groups, by means of personal data systems by state and corporate actors, to regulate or govern their behavior” (Strycharz & Segijn, 2022, p. 576, based on Büchi, Festic, and Latzer 2022; Degli-Esposti 2014). While extant research has focused on examining consumer privacy concerns, the surveillance by advertisers who collect consumers’ information raises a number of broader societal and ethical issues (see ‘potential topics’ list) and might have consequences for the advertising practice (Segijn & Strycharz, 2023).

Surveillance and ethics involve different parties, such as the advertising, tech, and media industry, consumers, and regulators (Segijn & Strycharz, 2023). Companies need to think about responsibilities and ethics around data collection, storage, and processing. Examples include their role in information asymmetry (Mittelstadt et al., 2016) and their responsibility of transparency in these processes, defined here as “the degree of disclosure of the ways in which firms collect, process, or share (exchange) personal data with the purpose of generating personalized communication” (Segijn et al., 2021, p. 123). Additionally, the monopoly of a limited number of technology firms and their role in hardware, technological support, and data aggregation, raises ethical questions (Segijn & Strycharz, 2023).

For consumers, it creates new divides and vulnerabilities (Finn & Wadhwa, 2014). Limited awareness and understanding could lead to information asymmetry (Marwick, 2012; Zarouali et al., 2022), and perceptions of surveillance (Segijn, Opree, & van Ooijen, 2021) could potentially affect consumers’ agency and autonomy online (Büchi et al., 2022; Strycharz & Segijn, 2022).

Finally, regulators may play a role in this debate as well by asking to what extent these new ethical challenges require legal protection for consumers (European Parliament, 2022; FTC, 2022; Helberger et al. 2020). Data security, consumer protection, and privacy protection are of central interest to the regulators in the advertising ecosystem. However, recent research suggests that current consumer empowerment practices are not always effective at improving consumers’ control over data collection (Segijn et al., 2021; Strycharz et al., 2019). The balance between consumer empowerment, ensuring fairness in advertising, while at the same time promoting technological innovations and stimulating the new data economy poses a challenge to the regulators.

Given the centrality of consumer data in advertising practices and increasing amounts of surveillance both online and offline (Yun et al., 2020), this special issue seeks to publish innovative papers that examine the theoretical and managerial implications of surveillance and ethics in advertising. Our hope is to stimulate further research in this area. This special issue also responds to broader calls for a more diverse and contemporary development of advertising theory (Dahlen and Rosengren 2016).

Potential topics

We welcome submissions using diverse perspectives in terms of theoretical, conceptual, methodological, or empirical work, and encourage prospective authors to review recently published papers in Journal of Advertising to understand both the Journal’s rigor and style. We also encourage submissions from multidisciplinary research teams bringing together different perspectives on the topic, as well as (comparative) research focusing on non-WEIRD countries (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic). Relevant topics include, but are not limited to:

• Theoretical frameworks to study (new) ethical & surveillance questions
• Consumer perspectives on and perceptions of surveillance
• Consumer vulnerability, stereotyping, and social sorting
• Privacy concerns and privacy cynicism related to surveillance and ethics
• Transparency and information asymmetry
• Consumer empowerment, agency, and autonomy
• Impact of surveillance on consumer well-being
• Chilling effects and its implications for advertisers
• Industry perspectives on surveillance and ethics
• Consensual advertising models
• Ethics-washing
• Environmental impacts of dataveillance
• The role and responsibilities of the tech industry
• Ethical questions related to the affordances of new technologies
• Power relations between stakeholders
• Fairness in data-driven advertising and algorithmic persuasion
• Technological solutions (e.g., blockchain)
• Regulatory solutions (e.g., blacklists)
• The regulatory perspective on surveillance and ethics
• New methods to study surveillance and ethics (e.g., data donation studies, computational approaches)

Submission Guidelines

Submissions should follow the manuscript format guidelines for JA found at

.

The word count should be 12,000 words maximum (including references, tables, figures, etc.).

The submission deadline is March 31, 2024

All manuscripts should be submitted through the JA Submission Site. (“Submit an article”). Authors should select “Article Type” (e.g., research article, literature review) on the first page of the submission website. On the second page, authors will be asked if this is for a specific special issue or article collection. Select “Yes” and select “Surveillance and Ethics in Advertising” from the drop-down menu. Please also note in the cover letter that the submission is for the Special Issue on Surveillance and Ethics in Advertising.

• All articles will undergo blind peer review by at least two reviewers.
• The anticipated date for publication of the Special Issue is February 2025.

Any questions about the Special Issue can be sent to the guest editors: Drs. Claire M. Segijn, Joanna Strycharz, and Sophie C. Boerman at surveillanceJA@gmail.com.

References

Büchi, M., Festic, N., & Latzer, M. (2022). The chilling effects of digital dataveillance: a theoretical model and an empirical research agenda. Big Data & Society, 9(1).

Dahlen, Micael and Sara Rosengren (2016), “If Advertising Won’t Die, What Will It Be? Toward a Working Definition of Advertising,” Journal of Advertising, 45(3), 334–345.

Degli Esposti, S. (2014). When big data meets dataveillance: The hidden side of analytics. Surveillance & Society, 12(2), 209-225.

European Parliament (2022). Unpacking ‘commercial surveillance’: The state of tracking. Retrieved from: efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2022/739266/EPRS_BRI(2022)739266_EN.pdf

Finn, R. L., & Wadhwa, K. (2014). The ethics of “smart” advertising and regulatory initiatives in the consumer intelligence industry. info, 16(3), 22-39.

FTC (2020). FTC explores rules cracking down on commercial surveillance and lax data security practices. Retrieved from: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/08/ftc-explores-rules-cracking-down-commercial-surveillance-lax-data-security-practices

Helberger, N., J. Huh, G. Milne, J. Strycharz, and H. Sundaram (2020). Macro and exogenous factors in computational advertising: Key issues and new research directions. Journal of Advertising, 49(4), 377–93.

Huh, J., & Faber, R. J. (2022). Special Section Introduction—Reimagining Advertising Research: 50 Years and Beyond. Journal of Advertising, 51(5), 535-538.

Huh, J., & Malthouse, E. C. (2020). Advancing computational advertising: Conceptualization of the field and future directions. Journal of Advertising, 49(4), 367-376.

Li, H. (2019). Special Section Introduction: Artificial Intelligence and Advertising. Journal of Advertising, 48(4), 333–337.

Marwick, A. (2012). The public domain: Surveillance in everyday life. Surveillance & Society, 9(4), 378-393.

Mittelstadt, B. D., Allo, P., Taddeo, M., Wachter, S., & Floridi, L. (2016). The ethics of algorithms: Mapping the debate. Big Data & Society, 3(2).

Rodgers, S. (2021). Themed Issue Introduction: Promises and Perils of Artificial Intelligence and Advertising. Journal of Advertising, 50(1), 1–10.

Segijn, C. M., & Strycharz, J. (2023). The ethical ramifications of surveillance in contemporary advertising for the industry, consumers, and regulators: current issues and a future research agenda. International Journal of Advertising, 42(1), 69-77.

Segijn, C. M., Strycharz, J., Riegelman, A., & Hennesy, C. (2021). A literature review of personalization transparency and control: Introducing the transparency–awareness–control framework. Media and Communication, 9(4), 120-133.

Segijn, C. M., Opree, S. J., & van Ooijen, I. (2022). The validation of the perceived surveillance scale. Cyberpsychology, 16(3), Article 9.

Strycharz, J., & Segijn, C. M. (2022). The future of dataveillance in advertising theory and practice. Journal of Advertising, 51(5), 574-591.

Strycharz, J., Van Noort, G., Smit, E., & Helberger, N. (2019). Protective behavior against personalized ads: Motivation to turn personalization off. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 13(2), Article 1.

Yun, J. T., Segijn, C. M., Pearson, S., Malthouse, E. C., Konstan, J. A., & Shankar, V. (2020). Challenges and future directions of computational advertising measurement systems. Journal of Advertising, 49(4), 446-458.

Zarouali, B., Boerman, S. C., Voorveld, H. A., & van Noort, G. (2022). The algorithmic persuasion framework in online communication: conceptualization and a future research agenda. Internet Research.