Ad-funded disinformation: Framing and overflows in the programmatic advertising market

Whereas previous research shows that the programmatic advertising market has been exploited to circulate disinformation, the role of digital advertising in funding disinformation remains understudied. So far, the literature on digital marketing has treated disinformation as an externality unrelated to marketing practice. Adopting the Constructive Market Studies (CMS) framework, especially Callon’s concept of framing and overflowing, this study examines how the increasing focus on engagement metrics and click monetization disentangles online traffic from its sources. This framing leads to three overflows: (1) flooding the Internet with inauthentic clicks through bots, (2) the emergence of synthetic content, and (3) nudging content creators to publish incendiary content. The paper argues that digital marketers should not overlook how their ads and budgets finance deceiving and inflammatory content and that due diligence is essential in digital marketing.