Business models for open access are still evolving, and advertising is one possible option to bring in funds (or increase readership through cross-promoting related journals or conferences).

Jan Erik Frantsvåg of the University of Tromsø has conducted a study of advertising and OA journals and shares the results in the latest issue of First Monday. From the abstract:

In a number of articles or books, advertising is pointed to as a possible way of financing open access (OA) journals. Very little work seems to have been done on finding out how advertising actually functions as a source of financing for OA journals. A survey was carried out to explore the field, both why journals did not employ advertising, and how advertising was employed. The findings show little uptake of advertising among OA journals, and indicate that there is a lack of understanding of how advertising could best be employed.

We've added a link to this article in our growing list of Editorial Resources.