دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی بازاریابی آموزش عالی و ادعاهای گمراه کننده در اطلاع رسانی های دانشگاه - اشپرینگر 2018

Abstract

In 2013 this journal published the paper ‘Integrity in Higher Education Marketing: A typology of misleading data-based claims in the university prospectus.’ It argued that UK universities were using data and statistics in a misleading way in their advertising and proposed a nine-part typology to describe such claims. The present paper describes the subsequent responses in national media and academic writing. It then analyses recent developments in the regulation of university marketing in the UK, where the Advertising Standards Authority has publically rebuked universities and issued new guidance. Rulings against six UK universities are analysed and the paper considers the extent to which the new guidance addresses the nine types of misleading claims. The paper goes on to consider how issues such as this come to be addressed by regulators and what incentives will encourage universities to ensure the integrity of their marketing.

Discussion

The ASA and CAP have taken measured and proportionate action to draw attention to misleading university marketing. By bringing nine examples to public attention and issuing guidance to the sector they have made clear what they believe universities can and cannot claim. They have also helpfully reframed the issue by emphasising that to decide what is potentially ‘misleading’ you need to think from the perspective of what a typical reader might understand by the message, not what the writer intended. Against this backdrop of new guidance though, we must remember that there are more than 130 universities and many other higher education (HE) institutions in the UK. Each of these publishes advertising material through websites, social media, prospectuses, print and broadcast media. In the random sample for the author’s 2013 paper there were an average of 116 data based claims per prospectus – this was without even looking at websites or social media. So we could be talking about more than 15,000 ‘data based claims’ a year, just in the printed prospectuses of mainstream universities. It does not seem reasonable to expect an organisation such as ASA, with responsibilities across the whole range of consumer issues, to pro-actively police university marketing.