Research Proposal: Fake Sponsored Content
Research Question
How can we spot fake sponsored content? Is there a set giveaway to tell the difference between real or fake sponsorships?
Rationale
Social media influencers are faking sponsored content in hopes of building up their platform, receiving real sponsors, and attracting money. The best way to make money for influencers is to land sponsorships. Influencers who don’t have a large following start fabricating fake sponsored content to make it seem they are making money and are successful. It is difficult to attract sponsors when they don’t have as large of an audience as other influencers. They have to fake it until they make it by replicating the sponsored posts they see since it is easy to emulate. Having sponsorships is a way to show “street cred”. Which boils down to the fact that the more sponsors you have, the more credible you are to the audience. Fake sponsorships pose questions about transparency and credibility. There are currently no regulations in place about fake sponsorships, which means influencers can create any content they want. This is a topic that can be harmful to the brands, the influencer, and the audience. It starts to damage the reputation of the brands and the influencer. It also negatively affects the audience due to the fact they are getting scammed.
In our COM520 course, we have dedicated some time discussing what sponsored content is and how it’s used for gain by both influencers and brands. There was talk about the potential consequences and benefits of the content with the audience, influencers, and brands. This includes companies ruining their reputation and having their name tainted in a negative light. The benefits include the fact that influencers can gain credibility and land future deals. It’s a problem since it creates a space in the digital world where we are being misled. We didn’t go too much over on how to spot fake sponsors and what ways we can. In the activity, there was a small talk where we mentioned how to minimize potential harms. But there wasn’t much talk of ways we can do it and what implementations are in place to regulate it. I decided to pose a research proposal on ways we spot them and bring more awareness to the topic itself.
Proposed Methodology
The methodology that will be used to research this topic is developing an experiment that includes mock-ups of sponsored content. Where we bring in people from the University of Rhode Island. Bring in people who have majors in communications and those who don’t. It helps to see how people who have some background in media literacy can tell or even know of fake content. Those who don’t major in communications may or may not have knowledge of this topic and be able to learn more. We will present them with photos, videos, and advertisements from social media platforms ranging from Instagram to TikTok. Provide a range of different content creators that have different amounts of followers. We will have about ten photos and videos to show them with different content and mediums. We will present it and have them write down whether it is a real or fake sponsorship. They will also give a little explanation as to why they gave the answer that they did.
Before the participants are shown the images they will be pre-interviewed and asked about their knowledge so far. Ask them what they know about sponsored content. If they have encountered fake content and what they believe needs to be done about it. There will be a total of three questions to make it short and have them dive into the experiment. It helps to gain insight into what they know so far or if they know anything about it. It helps to see if they can spot them even with the knowledge they have and can show us how realistic they are. After the experiment, we will have an exit interview with the participants after telling them the answers. We will ask them how they feel about seeing the content if they have a better grasp of what it is, are there any set giveaways that they used to tell them apart, and what changes can be done. Having people experience the content in real-time and having the option to reflect is a good way to gather data on how we spot fake sponsored content.
The overall experiment will have about 30 people involved to have a small group ranging from different majors, genders, and races. All of the participants will be undergraduate students from the University of Rhode Island. Having that variety with the participants will give us different perspectives and insights to differentiate between the sponsored content. We shall go to some classes on campus to recruit students to join the experiment. They will be given a preview of what the experiment is and the content that will be covered. The participants will have full transparency of what will be happening and what they will be doing. They will have a consent form that asks if we can have their permission to be involved in the study. The form will contain all the information as to the procedures that will need to be followed. Each student will be of age to consent and be willing to contribute their time to the experiment. They will receive the document and bring it in to schedule a day for them to complete the experiment. The days will range based on everyone’s availability since each participant will be doing it alone. Once they are done they will complete the exit interview, and it will be the last of their contributions to this research.
Predicted Outcomes
The predicted outcomes from this research will range based on the people who participate and the results we receive. Many of the participants may have a hard time differentiating between what is fake or real sponsored content. There are no expectations for them to be experts or be knowledgeable about this topic. Strictly gain their insights as consumers to what they believe could be fake sponsored content and how could they tell. Many of them may struggle to tell the difference since many can replicate real ones very well. But there is no need to get them all right since the point is to find out if there is a way to tell them apart. The participants will also give opinions as to how to fix this issue and ways to avoid it. They will mention that there needs to be a way to verify the content to prevent them from circulating the digital space. Creates a system where we can see that the sponsored content is legitimate. There will be many who will give new ideas and perspectives that will help with the research. This research hopes to gain insight on how we can spot fake content and if the general public can spot them. Many don’t have background knowledge of this topic which doesn’t discredit them for not knowing how to spot them. The participants will help in generating ways we can look for them and give solutions. The study will help gain information on how society views sponsored content and educate them on what they should look for.
References
Glean.info. (2019, February 13). Fake sponsored content: A dangerous new phenomenon in
influencer marketing. Medium. Retrieved November 24, 2021, from https://medium.com/@GleanTeam/fake-sponsored-content-a-dangerous-new-phenomenon-in-influencer-marketing-920f0c5ce195.
Influencerintelligence.com. (n.d.). Retrieved November 24, 2021, from
https://www.influencerintelligence.com/blog/Tdw/how-to-spot-fake-sponsored-content.
Lorenz, T. (2018, December 18). Rising Instagram stars are posting fake sponsored content. The
Atlantic. Retrieved November 24, 2021, from https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/12/influencers-are-faking-brand-deals/578401/.
Ritschel, C. (2018, December 20). Instagram influencers are faking sponsored content because
they think it attracts real brand deals. Business Insider. Retrieved November 24, 2021, from https://www.businessinsider.com/why-instagram-influencers-are-faking-sponsored-content-2018-12.
Shamsian, J. (2019, January 11). Some instagrammers are posting fake sponsored content with
the hopes of getting real deals. here’s why that could backfire. Insider. Retrieved November 24, 2021, from https://www.insider.com/instagram-influencers-fake-sponsored-content-brand-deals-backfire-2019-1.
