Regulating Product Placement in the European Union and Canada: Explaining Regime Change and Diversity

Abstract Product placement, the purposeful incorporation of commercial content into non-commercial settings, is a controversial form of advertisement. This paper compares the policy processes and diverging regimes for product placement in the European Union and Canada. While the new EU regime is restrictive, the Canadian regime is much more open to the purposeful incorporation of commercial content via product placement. We find that actor-centered approaches do not sufficiently explain the different outcomes, the different policy trajectories and the different policy frames in these two cases. To explain the differences in policy processes and outcomes, we analyze the different policy frames, the different discourses, and actors' positions at the issue-expansion stage of the policy process. We find that regulators in both the EU and Canada have been successful in framing the issue and that, consequently, different policy regimes have emerged.

[1]  P. Humphreys.  Globalization, Regulatory Competition, and EU Policy Transfer in the Telecoms and Broadcasting Sectors , 2006 .

[2]  Engineering Europeanization: the role of the European institutions in shaping national media regulation , 2002 .

[3]  S. Peltzman.  Toward a More General Theory of Regulation , 1976, The Journal of Law and Economics.

[4]  A. Kanner,et al.  Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood , 2006 .

[5]  Lawrence A. Wenner,et al.  On the Ethics of Product Placement in Media Entertainment , 2004 .

[6]  P. Hall,et al.  Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms , 1996 .

[7]  J. Drexhage.  Proposal for a DIRECTIVE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on the reduction of the impact of certain plastic products on the environment , 2002 .

[8]  Robert M. Entman,et al.  Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm , 1993 .

[9]  J. Richardson,et al.  Policy framing: Interest groups and the lead up to 1996 inter‐governmental conference , 1997 .

[10]  S. Balasubramanian.  Beyond Advertising and Publicity: Hybrid Messages and Public Policy Issues , 1994 .

[11]  Alison Harcourt.  The European Union and the Regulation of Media Markets , 2005 .

[12]  K. Sarikakis.  MEDIATING SOCIAL COHESION: MEDIA AND CULTURAL POLICY IN THE EUROPEAN UNION AND CANADA , 2007 .

[13]  P. Hall.  Policy paradigms, social learning, and the state: the case of economic policymaking in Britain , 1993 .

[14]  G. Stigler.  The Theory of Economic Regulation , 2021, The Political Economy.

[15]  Johan P. Olsen,et al.  The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in Political Life , 1983, American Political Science Review.

[16]  E. Immergut.  The Theoretical Core of the New Institutionalism , 1998 .

[17]  Policy globalization and the “information society”: a view from Canada , 1999 .

[18]  Donald A. Schön,et al.  Frame-critical policy analysis and frame-reflective policy practice , 1996 .

[19]  D. Levi‐Faur,et al.  The politics of product placement in the European Union : Between commercial pressures and social norms , 2008 .

[20]  Rosemary J. Avery,et al.  Verisimilitude or Advertising? Brand Appearances on Prime-Time Television , 2000 .

[21]  J. Prins.  Directive 2003/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council , 2006 .

[22]  V. Schmidt.  Democracy and Discourse in an Integrating Europe and a Globalising World , 2000 .

[23]  B. Baerns.  Separating advertising from programme content: The principle and its relevance in communications practice , 2004 .

[24]  Claudio M. Radaelli,et al.  Policy Change and Discourse in Europe: Conceptual and Methodological Issues , 2004 .

[25]  Charles T. Salmon,et al.  The Hidden History of Product Placement , 2006 .

[26]  Chris Hackley,et al.  Explicit, non-integrated product placement in British television programmes , 2005 .

[27]  Amit M. Schejter.  "Jacob's Voice, Esau's Hands": Transparency as a First Amendment Right in an Age of Deceit and Impersonation , 2007 .

[28]  Donald A. Schön,et al.  Social Sciences and Modern States: Frame-reflective policy discourse , 1991 .

[29]  B. Kohler-Koch.  Framing: the bottleneck of constructing legitimate institutions , 2000 .

[30]  David Young.  Discourses on Communication Technologies in Canadian and European Broadcasting Policy Debates , 2003 .

[31]  Michael Belch,et al.  A Managerial Investigation into the Product Placement Industry , 2005, Journal of Advertising Research.

[32]  V. Schmidt.  The politics of economic adjustment in France and Britain: when does discourse matter? , 2001 .