Advertising and the New Search Media

Abstract

This article takes a co-evolutionary approach to considering the influence of internet cultures and revenue sources on the development of the new commercial search media. The extent to which advertising revenues can be relied upon as a defining characteristic of commercial media in the global era is also problematised. A comparative consideration of the cases of Yahoo!, Google and Sensis pays particular attention to informational forms of advertising and the rhetorical, if not strategic, importance of small advertisers. Also considered are the disruptive impacts of new modes of interaction upon the established social relations of media, advertisers and consumers in the production, circulation and uses of symbolic power. While new search media business models are suggestive of new strategies for civilising advertising and capital more generally, the resilience and adaptability of the advertiser-funded business model provides an important point of historical continuity between the new search media and the politics and economics of modern mass (‘old’) media. The more things change, the more they also seem to be at risk of remaining the same.