The Mood of Information A Critique of Online Behavioural Advertising

The Mood of Information explores the relatively recent phenomenon of online behavioural advertising (OBA): a form of advertising that lays foundations for the future of advertising by creating maximum levels of relevance to the user in real-time, or as the user navigates around the web. OBA records and delivers advertising by tracking what users are doing and offers advertising tailored to them specifically. This is a circular system where advertising is served, received, acted upon, and data is sent back to those acting on behalf of advertisers and the process begins again. It is a self-maintaining system. This monitoring of users' web-browsing has caused significant privacy concerns with European regulators and the FCC, particularly in types of OBA that involve internet service providers and behavioural advertising companies working together. The author argues that to better understand new forms of advertising we should look less at how images are presented semiotically and instead look at the structures, politics, ways in which consumers use digital information, and the technical structures that support the delivery of advertising.

Dr. Andrew McStay is Lecturer at Bangor University, UK, and author of Digital Advertising (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). He maintains a blog at:http://advertising-communications-culture.blogspot.com