No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
The price of precision: Voter microtargeting and its potential harms to the democratic process
Abstract
This paper explores the potentially perverse effects of voter microtargeting, delineating how the very same techniques that empower political candidates to be more efficient and effective in their campaigning may also undermine the political and social fabric of the democracies in which those candidates seek office. The first part of the paper reviews the apparent attraction and stated goals of voter microtargeting and the technical processes upon which it relies. The second part draws out the ethical and political implications of the practice, pointing to some troubling empirical findings. The paper considers how microtargeting contributes to (1) an increased willingness and ability to deliver messages on wedge issues that would be extremely divisive in a more public forum; (2) voter discrimination and de facto disenfranchisement, (3) a chilling of political participation due to perceived violations of voters' privacy, and (4) a general trend toward single issue politics that leads to increased partisanship among voters and ambiguous political mandates for elected representatives. The final part of the paper introduces Soap Box: a project (initiated by the author) to develop a website that will act as a clearinghouse for targeted political advertising. The website aims to make these messages available to all-comers, forcing campaigns to account for and reconcile the different positions they present to different audiences. The paper concludes with a discussion of the limits of an approach that seeks to combat the more worrisome aspects of voter microtageting by exposing the tailored messages to greater public scrutiny.
... When behavioral targeting is used for political purposes, it implies the decision of who is targeted with what kind of messages based on information about demographics or "consumer and lifestyle habits" (Gorton, 2016, p. 62;Zuiderveen Borgesius et al., 2018). In fact, campaigners decide which voters to address and which ones to neglect (Barocas, 2012;Endres & Kelly, 2018). For this purpose, it is of relevance which voters can still be reached and influenced with persuasive messages (Endres & Kelly, 2018). ...
... For this purpose, it is of relevance which voters can still be reached and influenced with persuasive messages (Endres & Kelly, 2018). Three main criteria have been defined for the processes of targeting and tailoring in a political context: First, the likelihood that the voter votes; second, the likelihood that the voter supports a party or a candidate; and third, personal stances on certain topics (Barocas, 2012). So far, a rising share of studies has dealt with the effects of PMT on outcomes relevant to persuasion and democratic behavior. ...
... One negative consequence of PMT might be a fragmentation of societal and democratic public debates (e.g. Barocas, 2012;Ribeiro et al., 2019). That is, when voters are only confronted with selected worldviews and contents due to PMT, they may not be aware about the variety of considerations that exist about an issue or during an election campaign (Barocas, 2012). ...
With the increasing availability of big digital voter data, there are rising concerns that online political micro-targeting (PMT) may be harmful for democratic societies. However, PMT may also be beneficial to democracy because it targets voters with content that matches with their predispositions, potentially increasing political interest. For both, harmful and beneficial outcomes of PMT, we lack empirical evidence on the side of citizens. In a two-wave panel survey study, we tested the reciprocal relationships over time between perceived online PMT, trust in democracy, and political interest. We found that perceived online PMT leads to a decrease of trust in democracy, but also to an increase in political interest. The effect on political interest was independent from age. No reciprocal effects of trust in democracy and political interest on perceived PMT were observed. Overall, the results suggest that the democratic implications of PMT are more nuanced than previously assumed.
... Data-driven targeting practices also received a growing amount of journalistic attention (Baldwin-Philippi, 2017) and scholarly inquiry (Bodó et al., 2017). Research has focused on the use of data-driven techniques during elections (Kreiss and McGregor, 2018;Kreiss, 2016) from the perspective of political elites (Dobber et al., 2017), discussed the (possible) ways to regulate targeting (Dobber and Borgesius, 2019), and focused on the normative implications of targeting, specifically discussing the challenges that political targeting brings for democracy (Bayer, 2020;Zuiderveen Borgesius et al., 2018;Barocas, 2012). This latter strand of research argued that, on the basis of democratic theory, targeting might have negative implications for democracy as it could lead to voter manipulation, discrimination, and violations of privacy on a micro-level, and to more power to well-funded parties on a macro-level (Tufekci, 2014). ...
... They suggest that if one message is directed to one group of voters, and another message to another (group of) voter(s), this might lead to "more ambiguous political mandates for elected representatives" (p. 3), see also Barocas (2012). Third, microtargeting -'dark posts' -that contain false or disinformation, cannot be countered in real time by fact checkers or journalists. ...
This study examines how mainstream political actors and other organizations use political targeted messages. For this purpose, a data set from ProPublica is used. The study examines 55,918 sponsored Facebook ads that were posted by 236 political actors (i.e., political elites and other organizations) in the United States. (1) Topic classification was used to identify policy issues, (2) network analysis to identify the main policy issues from the various political actors, and (3) Sankey diagrams to visualize microtargeted messages. Our findings indicate that actors focus on traditionally owned issues (i.e., the Democratic Party: environmental policy, social issues, and social welfare; the Republican Party: foreign affairs, law, and government finances). No clear evidence for a focus on wedge issues can be found, however, some first indications (e.g., a focus on reproductive rights, LGBTQ+) are present in a targeted media environment. All in all, the current study helps us to understand in what way political actors deploy targeted messages.
... Yet, in the digital age, targeted advertising has become dramatically more granular and complex with advances in computation, as well as decreasing attachment to political parties [18]. "Microtargeting" is now used to "activate" narrow segments of the public who are likely to take action with the nudge of tailored messaging [8,9]. For example, George W. Bush's 2004 presidential campaign produced microtargeting segments of Michigan voters, such as "Archie in the Bunker," "Flag & Family Republicans," and "Wageable Weak Democrats" [13]. ...
... Because political interest and engagement tend to vary according to socioeconomic background, there is concern that microtargeting reinforces and compounds inequalities in political involvement and knowledge [8]. Relatedly, some have suggested that microtargeting erodes participatory democracy by focusing attention on a small minority of the public, rather than encouraging broad engagement [8,9,22]. Others still have pointed to the "consumerization of the political" and an erosion of self-determination critical for a healthy democracy [18]. ...
In spite of mounting concerns about the use of microtargeting in politics and attendant regulatory pressure, spending on digital advertising and ad tech has significantly increased over the past decade. In this article, I explore how political ad tech firms pursue continuity for the high stakes business of political microtargeting. Specifically, I present findings from a discourse analysis of the websites of 34 political ad tech firms who have developed microtargeting tools. Applying van Leeuwen’s framework for legitimation in discourse to this analysis, I find that the firms legitimate microtargeting through four key discourses: Rationalization (“Microtargeting is the Right Approach”), mythopoesis (“Microtargeting is How you Win”), moral evaluation (“Microtargeting is the Democratic Thing to Do”), and Authorization (“Everybody’s Doing It”). I argue that these discourses offer insight for understanding and contextualizing ongoing discussions about the future of microtargeting in politics.KeywordsPolitical ad techMicrotargetingPolitical campaigningPolitical communication
... Indeed, various scholars converge in their diagnosis that online microtargeting presents a severe danger for democratic representation. It is said to fragment the electorate, to make politics less responsive and more exclusive, and to establish a less dialogical relationship between citizens and political actors (Howard 2005;Barocas 2012;Franz 2013;Jamieson 2013;Couldry and Turow 2014;Gorton 2016;Shorey and Howard 2016;Hofmann 2017). ADM-based microtargeting therefore altogether emerges as a tool that has adverse consequences for political representation in liberal democracies. ...
... First, microtargeting is said to fragment the public because it enables parties to single out voters and to influence voters individually with the right message, even in ways that involve inconsistent and arbitrary political messages (Barocas 2012;Jamieson 2013;Couldry and Turow 2014;Gorton 2016). 2 This kind of political marketing might seal voters off in information bubbles and contribute to polarization. Moreover, advocating different messages to different segments may also ultimately make it impossible for an elected candidate to act on the mandate he or she won and to realize accountability in any meaningful sense (Franz 2013: p. 128). ...
Political microtargeting has been depicted as a severe danger for democratic representation. It is said to fragment the electorate, help manipulate voters, and make politics overall less responsive and inclusive. However, the present paper aims to show why these are not general consequences to be expected from political microtargeting. It argues that a greater consideration needs to be given to context for a more differentiated understanding of microtargeting. The paper adds to existing research by situating political microtargeting within research on party politics. First, it shows that based on core assumptions about party competition and the strategic incentives it involves, one would not expect that microtargeting practices undermine democratic representation. Major constraints resulting from party competition hardly allow parties to be less responsive and inclusive when employing microtargeting. Second, the presence of such constraints furthermore depends on the larger political and institutional context that shapes the intensity of competition.
... Bimber, 2014, but also see Nickerson and Rogers, 2014, for an overview of microtargeting) and accompanied critical takes of the phenomenon and its threats to democratic societies (e.g. Barocas, 2012;Tufekci, 2014). All these studies have an Anglo-Saxon focus, which raises the question of whether political parties can "campaign in Europe as they do in North America?" (Bennett, 2016: 261). ...
... A positive reinforcing spiral could lead citizens to not guarding their personal data and to welcome microtargeted messages from political parties, which should become increasingly precise as the campaigns gather more and more data. Such a development could negatively influence the quality of the public discourse (Gorton, 2016), the ability of journalists to scrutinize political campaigns (Jamieson, 2013), or raise questions about the mandate of the elected politicians (Barocas, 2012). Naturally, the importance of privacy to society (e.g. ...
Tailored political messages are increasingly prevalent in election time, but we know little about how people perceive such data-driven and potentially privacy-infringing techniques. This article examines how demographics relate to privacy concerns and attitudes toward “political behavioral targeting” (PBT), how privacy concerns and attitudes toward PBT relate over time, and explore their relation with autonomy, electoral deliberation, and chilling effects. Using a three-wave panel study, administered in the Netherlands (N = 879), we examine a potential reciprocal relation between attitude toward PBT and privacy concerns, which may form a negative reinforcing spiral dynamic over time. This dynamic could result in undesirable behavior of the voter from a democratic viewpoint (e.g. chilling effects). We find that demographics fall short in explaining privacy concerns. More importantly, we find evidence for a reinforcing spiral dynamic and, by doing so, contribute to the discussion about the threats and promises of PBT to society.
... First, we show that Facebook allows the targeting of negative or divisive messages which might contribute to politicizing issues or feed into citizens' attitudes toward them. By selecting receptive users for these messages while excluding others, targeted paid media has the chance to affect public opinion formation and enhance already existing tendencies of polarization (Zuiderveen Borgesius et al. 2018;Barocas 2012). Second, our study reveals unfairness in the use of paid media for smaller parties due to limited resources, and personal capacities. ...
Facebook plays a key role in election campaigns because it provides strategic marketing affordances for political parties’ electoral goals. Organic media allow to engage regularly with broader audiences through publicly visible Facebook posts. Paid media advertisements draw on personal data to target tailored messages only at selected users. Thus, political parties can misuse them to highlight contradictory issues or drive negative narratives to susceptible voters. However, studies are lacking about how and to what extent parties adapt the use and content of their messaging strategies to Facebook’s organic and paid media affordances. To provide answers to these questions, this study draws on data from a manual content analysis to compare the timing and content strategies of all posts, sponsored post, and ads which were distributed by six parties in a four-week time span before the 2018 German state election in Hesse. Our results add to the political marketing literature by showing that parties use organic and paid media as independent messaging strategies. Both are published at rather different times in the campaign and with different campaign functions, issues, and degrees of negativity. Further, we show that parties’ organic and paid messaging strategies are dependent on party characteristics and electoral competition.
... Recent elections have taken the customization of online content in political campaigns to a new level as the Trump campaign starting in 2019 has been reported using several hundred 1000 distinct ads (Wong, 2020). The idea behind this targeting is the same as in commercial advertising: to reach citizens with content that is best attuned to their dispositions -which also includes not trying to reach certain citizens at all and instead saving the effort of addressing those voters who are very certain to not support a party or candidate (Barocas, 2012;Shorey and Howard, 2016). And similar to commercial advertising, businesses try to lure politicians with the promise of highly effective data-driven campaigns -a narrative that is then often perpetuated by media who garner attention with stories about potent personalized advertisements (Baldwin-Philippi, 2017). ...
This commentary discusses an important disconnect between different literatures dealing with the power of algorithms – a disconnect that has important implications for the narratives about the role of algorithms in today’s societies that the humanities and social science construct. Theoretical work has regularly depicted algorithmic systems in the hands of large tech companies as powerful devices for effectively influencing behaviors through persuasive targeted information offers in online environments. However, this account goes against existing empirical evidence on the effectiveness of algorithm-based targeting. The paper highlights the different stories about the power of algorithms that these literatures tell and discusses why addressing this gap matters. In a nutshell, while the idea of people being steered by powerful algorithmic systems is arguably an intriguing aspect of digital-era capitalism, it risks distracting from more mundane, but also more relevant aspects of algorithms operating in online environments and how they can sustain power relations.
... Digital social media have thus been seen as tools of self-expression and the search for identity (Mondoux, 2011;Papacharissi, 2010), as new, more "democratic" information media and, especially, as sources of digital traces through the production of personal and behavioural data (Ménard, Mondoux, Ouellet & Bonenfant, 2016;Berthier & Teboul, 2018). As part of this new dynamic, political communication has also shifted, with the help of digital tools and traces, towards personalisation and microtargeting (hypersegmentation of a large target audience- Barbu, 2013) through the use of data that is produced by individuals (Barocas, 2012;Woolley & Howard, 2018) and processed by recommendation algorithms (Boyd & Reed, 2016;Shorey & Howard, 2016). ...
This Open Access book examines the ambivalences of data power. Firstly, the ambivalences between global infrastructures and local invisibilities challenge the grand narrative of the ephemeral nature of a global data infrastructure. They make visible local working and living conditions, and the resources and arrangements required to operate and run them. Secondly, the book examines ambivalences between the state and data justice. It considers data justice in relation to state surveillance and data capitalism, and reflects on the ambivalences between an “entrepreneurial state” and a “welfare state”. Thirdly, the authors discuss ambivalences of everyday practices and collective action, in which civil society groups, communities, and movements try to position the interests of people against the “big players” in the tech industry. The book includes eighteen chapters that provide new and varied perspectives on the role of data and data infrastructures in our increasingly datafied societies.
... A downside is that the ability to target and tailor political pledges may raise questions about the mandate of the elected party (Barocas, 2012). A party that ran a massmediated campaign and promised to shut down all coal power plants has a clear mandate. ...
Social media platforms take on increasingly big roles in political advertising. Microtargeting techniques facilitate the display of tailored advertisements to specific subsegments of society. Scholars worry that such techniques might cause political information to be displayed to only very small subgroups of citizens. Or that targeted communication about policy could make the mandate of elected representatives more challenging to interpret. Policy information in general and pledges, in particular, have received much scientific scrutiny. Scholars have focused largely on party manifestos, but policy information and pledges communicated via online advertisements offer a new arena with new dynamics. This study uses Facebook’s ad library to describe how Dutch political campaigns advertise policy information and pledges in the run-up to the 2019 European Elections. The results show that much policy information is displayed to small subsegments of society. These findings provide evidence for concerns about pledge obfuscation, voter manipulation and mandate interpretation.
... Digital social media have thus been seen as tools of self-expression and the search for identity (Mondoux, 2011;Papacharissi, 2010), as new, more "democratic" information media and, especially, as sources of digital traces through the production of personal and behavioural data (Ménard, Mondoux, Ouellet & Bonenfant, 2016;Berthier & Teboul, 2018). As part of this new dynamic, political communication has also shifted, with the help of digital tools and traces, towards personalisation and microtargeting (hypersegmentation of a large target audience- Barbu, 2013) through the use of data that is produced by individuals (Barocas, 2012;Woolley & Howard, 2018) and processed by recommendation algorithms (Boyd & Reed, 2016;Shorey & Howard, 2016). ...
The metaphor that ‘data is the new oil’ points to the perception of data as a valuable resource in the form of raw material for algorithmic processing at the centre of data capitalism and its underlying process of datafication. While many point to broader consequences of datafication for social life there is still a need for analytical models to understand the complexity, scale, and dynamics behind these transformations. To focus on data as value is one such approach that is pursued in this chapter. The point of departure is Dewey’s Theory of Valuation (1939), which is discussed in relation to anthropological, sociological, and economic theories of value. The second section presents an analytical model for the study of the dynamics of data capitalism and the process of datafication. This is then illustrated with two examples that highlight the relations between the inner dynamics of data capitalism before the chapter ends with some conclusive recommendations for future empirical research.
... Digital social media have thus been seen as tools of self-expression and the search for identity (Mondoux, 2011;Papacharissi, 2010), as new, more "democratic" information media and, especially, as sources of digital traces through the production of personal and behavioural data (Ménard, Mondoux, Ouellet & Bonenfant, 2016;Berthier & Teboul, 2018). As part of this new dynamic, political communication has also shifted, with the help of digital tools and traces, towards personalisation and microtargeting (hypersegmentation of a large target audience- Barbu, 2013) through the use of data that is produced by individuals (Barocas, 2012;Woolley & Howard, 2018) and processed by recommendation algorithms (Boyd & Reed, 2016;Shorey & Howard, 2016). ...
This chapter examines the transnational Twitter followee-network of the Quantified Self (QS) and Maker movements. Based on a media ethnography as a pre-study, the following questions are addressed: How is the organisational elite of both pioneer communities connected? What patterns and peculiarities can be identified in terms of account types and thematic orientation? What similarities and differences exist between countries and between each community? The chapter sets out to explain the ways in which the organisational elite of the QS movement is represented as a network of opinion leaders, made up mostly of QS conference and meetup organisers with strong connections to tech entrepreneurs. The Maker movement is represented as a network of heterogeneous organisations which range from organisational accounts to tech companies, community platforms, and journalistic outlets as well as specific maker events and projects. Globally, both networks are dominated by members of their organisational elites which are located in the San Francisco Bay Area, which then go on to unfold their transnational influence. On this empirical basis, we argue that critical data studies should pay much more attention to the role played by pioneer communities and their partly invisible engagement in the global spread of imaginaries that promise to transform society through technology and data practices.
... Digital social media have thus been seen as tools of self-expression and the search for identity (Mondoux, 2011;Papacharissi, 2010), as new, more "democratic" information media and, especially, as sources of digital traces through the production of personal and behavioural data (Ménard, Mondoux, Ouellet & Bonenfant, 2016;Berthier & Teboul, 2018). As part of this new dynamic, political communication has also shifted, with the help of digital tools and traces, towards personalisation and microtargeting (hypersegmentation of a large target audience- Barbu, 2013) through the use of data that is produced by individuals (Barocas, 2012;Woolley & Howard, 2018) and processed by recommendation algorithms (Boyd & Reed, 2016;Shorey & Howard, 2016). ...
How to make sense of China as a global data superpower? This chapter attempts to offer new insights that are historicised and holistic, considering China’s internal conflicts and its relations with the external world. It starts by outlining and debunking two myths about China, fetishising it as either dystopia or utopia. Then the dialectics of power and counter-power are introduced to shed light on the more complex Chinese reality that can only be fully comprehended, as this chapter argues, through the lenses of history and conflict. To illustrate this perspective, one that differs remarkably from the conventional wisdom that fixates on the powers that be (political and/or economic), this chapter provides an overview of the history of the computing and data industries in China that goes back to the early 1950s and traverses the Maoist and post-Mao eras with a certain continuity, while highlighting the crucial importance of geopolitics and national security concerns as well as internal class struggles and existential threats to the working people. Data power and counter-power are not only antithetical to each other, they also necessitate, reproduce, co-create, and strengthen one another; although in different historical contexts the specific constitution would vary. The chapter ends with an overall assessment of the Chinese model being neither utopic nor dystopic. Critical data studies should see China as an open-ended process of power/counter-power dynamism, full of conflicts.
... Digital social media have thus been seen as tools of self-expression and the search for identity (Mondoux, 2011;Papacharissi, 2010), as new, more "democratic" information media and, especially, as sources of digital traces through the production of personal and behavioural data (Ménard, Mondoux, Ouellet & Bonenfant, 2016;Berthier & Teboul, 2018). As part of this new dynamic, political communication has also shifted, with the help of digital tools and traces, towards personalisation and microtargeting (hypersegmentation of a large target audience- Barbu, 2013) through the use of data that is produced by individuals (Barocas, 2012;Woolley & Howard, 2018) and processed by recommendation algorithms (Boyd & Reed, 2016;Shorey & Howard, 2016). ...
After a triumphalist phase, digital social media are now under fire for a variety of reasons: they are accused of collecting and circulating personal data, producing fake news, personalising messages (creating echo chambers), radicalising opinion, and disrupting election processes. The legitimacy of election processes and digital social media’s contribution to the public sphere are now being questioned, and it is important to document and analyse these new dynamics of political communication. In particular, we need to consider the role played by automation of the production and circulation of political messages through the use of algorithms and artificial intelligence processes. What is the impact of personalised messages on the public sphere and public opinion, and what is at stake when thousands of “personalised” messages can be automatically created and delivered through microtargeting? With the future of the sense of “vivre-ensemble” at stake, can critical approaches save the day?
... Digital social media have thus been seen as tools of self-expression and the search for identity (Mondoux, 2011;Papacharissi, 2010), as new, more "democratic" information media and, especially, as sources of digital traces through the production of personal and behavioural data (Ménard, Mondoux, Ouellet & Bonenfant, 2016;Berthier & Teboul, 2018). As part of this new dynamic, political communication has also shifted, with the help of digital tools and traces, towards personalisation and microtargeting (hypersegmentation of a large target audience- Barbu, 2013) through the use of data that is produced by individuals (Barocas, 2012;Woolley & Howard, 2018) and processed by recommendation algorithms (Boyd & Reed, 2016;Shorey & Howard, 2016). ...
Data practices are acknowledged as an important mode of governing education (Ozga, Trust in numbers? Digital Education Governance and the inspection process. European Educational Research Journal, 15 (1), 69–81. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474904115616629 , 2016) with education becoming increasingly ‘datafied and digitised’ (Jarke and Breiter, Datafying education: How digital assessment practices reconfigure the organisation of learning (Research Network “Communicative Figurations” No. 11). https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.1.2866.5686 , 2016; Williamson, Big data in education: The digital future of learning, policy and practice . Sage, 2017). Within schools, there has been an intensification in practices of generating, analysing, visualising and intervening with educational data (Selwyn, “There’s so much data”: Exploring the realities of data-based school governance. European Educational Research Journal, 15 (1), 54–68. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474904115602909 , 2016). There has, however, so far been less attention paid to exploring how data practices work ‘on the ground’. Drawing from an ethnographic study in an English secondary school, this paper shows how data practices—people, policies, discourses, digital and material tools—became part of a wide-ranging data apparatus that reconfigured the possibilities for education.
This chapter considers how the curriculum was reconfigured through algorithmic triage devices that created unequal access to a broad curriculum for different groups of students. It also explores how teachers’ roles were orientated away from more ‘holistic’, personal or relational understandings of pupils’ learning, instead engaging with data as a more legitimate form of knowledge and professionalism.
... Digital social media have thus been seen as tools of self-expression and the search for identity (Mondoux, 2011;Papacharissi, 2010), as new, more "democratic" information media and, especially, as sources of digital traces through the production of personal and behavioural data (Ménard, Mondoux, Ouellet & Bonenfant, 2016;Berthier & Teboul, 2018). As part of this new dynamic, political communication has also shifted, with the help of digital tools and traces, towards personalisation and microtargeting (hypersegmentation of a large target audience- Barbu, 2013) through the use of data that is produced by individuals (Barocas, 2012;Woolley & Howard, 2018) and processed by recommendation algorithms (Boyd & Reed, 2016;Shorey & Howard, 2016). ...
This chapter interrogates “data justice” through the lenses of feminist and legal studies to reconfigure data justice as a multidimensional, interdisciplinary practice in IT-design. First, we look at how data justice is framed in feminist research and feminist-informed critical data and design perspectives, as well as how it is conceptualised in law, particularly in the context of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and legal debates around privacy in Europe. Second, we recommend conceptual shifts, design approaches, and legal measures towards data justice. Our chapter contributes to new perspectives in critical data studies by showing that data justice can provide a conceptual ground that serves both the needs of legal formalisation as well as feminist imperatives of contextualisation and specificity.
... Digital social media have thus been seen as tools of self-expression and the search for identity (Mondoux, 2011;Papacharissi, 2010), as new, more "democratic" information media and, especially, as sources of digital traces through the production of personal and behavioural data (Ménard, Mondoux, Ouellet & Bonenfant, 2016;Berthier & Teboul, 2018). As part of this new dynamic, political communication has also shifted, with the help of digital tools and traces, towards personalisation and microtargeting (hypersegmentation of a large target audience- Barbu, 2013) through the use of data that is produced by individuals (Barocas, 2012;Woolley & Howard, 2018) and processed by recommendation algorithms (Boyd & Reed, 2016;Shorey & Howard, 2016). ...
The COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to shift data power—the power of data structures as well as the power exerted by data on social life—in two directions. Key state functions and infrastructure are transferred to private corporations at the expenses of state sovereignty and oversight, while individual control over personal information such as political preferences and biomedical data is delegated to quasi-monopolistic platforms. Data activism as the civil society response to data power and the field of critical data studies in its role of the scholarly interpreter of a datafied society can both help us make sense of these challenges. Dialoguing with political sociology, this chapter explores data activism as a counterforce to predominant data power, takes stock of its most recent evolutions, and identifies pathways for critical data studies in the post-pandemic world. First, it distinguishes five focal strategies for data activists as they grappled with the challenges of the first pandemic within a datafied society: counting, debunking, making, witnessing, and shielding. It then singles out three challenges for data activism in the post-pandemic world, namely the question of infrastructure, the diffusion of data poverty, and scarce digital literacy. This chapter concludes by deriving lessons learnt from data activism during the pandemic that point to potential new perspectives for critical data studies in the post-pandemic world.
... Digital social media have thus been seen as tools of self-expression and the search for identity (Mondoux, 2011;Papacharissi, 2010), as new, more "democratic" information media and, especially, as sources of digital traces through the production of personal and behavioural data (Ménard, Mondoux, Ouellet & Bonenfant, 2016;Berthier & Teboul, 2018). As part of this new dynamic, political communication has also shifted, with the help of digital tools and traces, towards personalisation and microtargeting (hypersegmentation of a large target audience- Barbu, 2013) through the use of data that is produced by individuals (Barocas, 2012;Woolley & Howard, 2018) and processed by recommendation algorithms (Boyd & Reed, 2016;Shorey & Howard, 2016). ...
Local governments in the Netherlands are increasingly undertaking data projects for public management. While the emergence of data practices and the application of algorithms for decision making in public management have led to a growing critical commentary, little actual empirical research has been conducted. Over the past few years, we have developed a research method that enables researchers to enter organisations not merely as researchers but also as experts on data ethics. Through participatory and ethnographic observation, the DEDA (Data Ethics Decision Aid) gives us special insight into ethics in local government. Where most research has focused on the theoretical aspects of data ethics, our approach offers a new perspective on data practices, by looking at how data ethics is done in public management. Our research provides insight into the state of data awareness within organisations that are mostly portrayed—within critical data studies—as homogeneous and monolithic entities. The distinct method developed at Utrecht Data School allows researchers to immerse themselves within organisations and closely observe data practices, discourses on ethics, and how organisations address challenges that arise as a consequence of datafication. For the purpose of this chapter, we analyse our field work with the DEDA through the lens of Mark Moore’s Strategic Triangle of Public Value . We show how our field work can give insight into how the three angles of the strategic triangle are shaped in practice. From this analysis we draw three conclusions. First, that ethical awareness of data projects is often low because data literacy among civil servants is limited. Second, that by not recognising the choices civil servants have to make as ethical or political choices, they can make decisions that go beyond their mandate. Third, that there is a dangerous tendency where ethical deliberation is sometimes seen as an obnoxious bureaucratic box ticking exercise, instead of being considered as a vital part of the design and build-up of a data project.
... Digital social media have thus been seen as tools of self-expression and the search for identity (Mondoux, 2011;Papacharissi, 2010), as new, more "democratic" information media and, especially, as sources of digital traces through the production of personal and behavioural data (Ménard, Mondoux, Ouellet & Bonenfant, 2016;Berthier & Teboul, 2018). As part of this new dynamic, political communication has also shifted, with the help of digital tools and traces, towards personalisation and microtargeting (hypersegmentation of a large target audience- Barbu, 2013) through the use of data that is produced by individuals (Barocas, 2012;Woolley & Howard, 2018) and processed by recommendation algorithms (Boyd & Reed, 2016;Shorey & Howard, 2016). ...
Data power is a highly ambivalent phenomenon and it is precisely these ambivalences that open up important perspectives for the burgeoning field of critical data studies: First, the ambivalences between global infrastructures and local invisibilities. These challenge the grand narrative of the ephemeral nature of a global data infrastructure and instead make visible the local working and living conditions, and resources and arrangements required to operate and run them. Second is the ambivalences between the state and data justice. These consider data justice in relation to state surveillance and data capitalism and reflect the ambivalences between an “entrepreneurial state” and a “welfare state”. Third is the ambivalences of everyday practices and collective action, in which civil society groups, communities, and movements try to position the interests of people against the “big players” in the tech industry. With this introduction, we want to make the argument that seeing data power and its irreducible ambivalences in a pointed way will provide an orientation to the chapters of this book. To this end, we first give a brief outline of the development of critical data studies. In part, we also want to situate the data power conferences, the most recent of which this volume is based on. This will then serve as a basis for taking a closer look at three facets of the ambivalence of data power.
... Digital social media have thus been seen as tools of self-expression and the search for identity (Mondoux, 2011;Papacharissi, 2010), as new, more "democratic" information media and, especially, as sources of digital traces through the production of personal and behavioural data (Ménard, Mondoux, Ouellet & Bonenfant, 2016;Berthier & Teboul, 2018). As part of this new dynamic, political communication has also shifted, with the help of digital tools and traces, towards personalisation and microtargeting (hypersegmentation of a large target audience- Barbu, 2013) through the use of data that is produced by individuals (Barocas, 2012;Woolley & Howard, 2018) and processed by recommendation algorithms (Boyd & Reed, 2016;Shorey & Howard, 2016). ...
The crisis emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic has elevated the relevance of the welfare state as well as the role of platforms and data infrastructures across key areas of public and social life. Whilst the crisis shed light on the ways in which these might intersect, the turn to data-driven systems in public administration has been a prominent development in several countries for quite some time. In this chapter I focus on the UK as a pertinent example of key trends at the intersection of technological infrastructures and the welfare state. In particular, using developments in UK welfare sectors as a lens, I advance a two-part argument about the ways in which data infrastructures are transforming state-citizen relations through on the one hand advancing an actuarial logic based on personalised risk and the individualisation of social problems (what I refer to as responsibilisation) and, on the other, entrenching a dependency on an economic model that perpetuates the circulation of data accumulation (what I refer to as rentierism). These mechanisms, I argue, fundamentally shift the ‘matrix of social power’ that made the modern welfare state possible and position questions of data infrastructures as a core component of how we need to understand social change.
... Digital social media have thus been seen as tools of self-expression and the search for identity (Mondoux, 2011;Papacharissi, 2010), as new, more "democratic" information media and, especially, as sources of digital traces through the production of personal and behavioural data (Ménard, Mondoux, Ouellet & Bonenfant, 2016;Berthier & Teboul, 2018). As part of this new dynamic, political communication has also shifted, with the help of digital tools and traces, towards personalisation and microtargeting (hypersegmentation of a large target audience- Barbu, 2013) through the use of data that is produced by individuals (Barocas, 2012;Woolley & Howard, 2018) and processed by recommendation algorithms (Boyd & Reed, 2016;Shorey & Howard, 2016). ...
In Aotearoa New Zealand (Aotearoa NZ), Māori (the Indigenous peoples of New Zealand) have long been objects of surveillance by state institutions and agents. State representations have centred on constructions of difference and deviance, on understandings of Indigenous peoples as dangerous, and on the management of Indigenous resistance to colonialism. This chapter considers how contemporary state surveillance practices in Aotearoa NZ, enabled by the expanded use of big data and linked government datasets, function to regulate and manage Māori. Through this lens, we explore continuities of current data practices for Indigenous peoples with the racialised logics and social orders set in place as part of global systems of imperialism and colonialism. Recognising that resistance has always been a part of Indigenous responses to colonialism, we also explore how Māori Data Sovereignty (MDSov), as part of broader Indigenous Data Sovereignty (IDS) movements globally, provides opportunities to counter and disrupt prevailing data relations and to imagine alternative futures.
... Digital social media have thus been seen as tools of self-expression and the search for identity (Mondoux, 2011;Papacharissi, 2010), as new, more "democratic" information media and, especially, as sources of digital traces through the production of personal and behavioural data (Ménard, Mondoux, Ouellet & Bonenfant, 2016;Berthier & Teboul, 2018). As part of this new dynamic, political communication has also shifted, with the help of digital tools and traces, towards personalisation and microtargeting (hypersegmentation of a large target audience- Barbu, 2013) through the use of data that is produced by individuals (Barocas, 2012;Woolley & Howard, 2018) and processed by recommendation algorithms (Boyd & Reed, 2016;Shorey & Howard, 2016). ...
New employment demands of a burgeoning Indian software service industry are spawning neo-educational structures, especially in the domain of data sciences through vibrant market mechanisms offering a scalable and industry-focused learning system. Since the 1990s, Indian software firms have developed expertise in carrying out outsourced back-office tasks and mid-level IT services like data entry, managing call centres, and performing software quality testing for foreign companies taking advantage of a technically trained local workforce. The trend of automating manual work practices in the IT industry has generated a different kind of demand for data sciences directed at upskilling and job readiness. India is witnessing a market-oriented groundswell of data science and IT skill tutoring ‘shops’, resituating science and engineering education. In this chapter we report from ethnographic research conducted in two IT skill training parks to underpin arguments about emerging neo-educational learning structures suited to a data science education for new livelihood opportunities in an IT-accredited India. Our chapter makes a case for looking at ‘data studies’ from an ethnographic perspective uncovering a ‘program’ of upward mobility through IT skilling and employment. What directions might data studies about tutoring data science skills in the Indian context lead to? Excerpts presented here from field research imagine new livelihoods, aspirations, and technology skills that are more often than not a reflection of the power of data science education.
... Digital social media have thus been seen as tools of self-expression and the search for identity (Mondoux, 2011;Papacharissi, 2010), as new, more "democratic" information media and, especially, as sources of digital traces through the production of personal and behavioural data (Ménard, Mondoux, Ouellet & Bonenfant, 2016;Berthier & Teboul, 2018). As part of this new dynamic, political communication has also shifted, with the help of digital tools and traces, towards personalisation and microtargeting (hypersegmentation of a large target audience- Barbu, 2013) through the use of data that is produced by individuals (Barocas, 2012;Woolley & Howard, 2018) and processed by recommendation algorithms (Boyd & Reed, 2016;Shorey & Howard, 2016). ...
The chapter uses the self-monitoring of menstrual cycles via an app as an example for an exploration of the ways in which people engage with data and its ambivalences in their daily lives. Period-tracking apps allow for the tracking and visualising of all kinds of personal data and offer a digitised, ‘smart’ version of the well-known menstruation calendar. In addition to insecurities emerging from ‘taming’ the uncertainties of (menstruating) bodies via quantification and algorithms, Sociology Compass , 8(12), 1344–1359 (2014)], the unanticipated collection of user data by private companies and the potential surveillance[Levy, Idaho Law Review , 51, 679–693 (2015)] raise issues of privacy and data security. This chapter will address these two forms of insecurity by drawing on material from an ongoing empirical study into the everyday use and discussion of period-tracking apps in Germany. For those interviewed, the negotiation of data insecurities can encompass an increased body competence, idiosyncratic interpretations of data or ignoring predictive deficiencies just as attempts of sidestepping dubious data collection or impositions of an algorithmic understanding of menstrual normalcy. Hence, the chapter gives insight into the multi-faceted ways people live with datafication and contributes to everyday perspectives in critical data studies.
... Digital social media have thus been seen as tools of self-expression and the search for identity (Mondoux, 2011;Papacharissi, 2010), as new, more "democratic" information media and, especially, as sources of digital traces through the production of personal and behavioural data (Ménard, Mondoux, Ouellet & Bonenfant, 2016;Berthier & Teboul, 2018). As part of this new dynamic, political communication has also shifted, with the help of digital tools and traces, towards personalisation and microtargeting (hypersegmentation of a large target audience- Barbu, 2013) through the use of data that is produced by individuals (Barocas, 2012;Woolley & Howard, 2018) and processed by recommendation algorithms (Boyd & Reed, 2016;Shorey & Howard, 2016). ...
Tumblr’s Fandometrics is a metrics project that posts weekly fandom rankings for TV shows, movies, music, video games, ‘ships,’ and more. Tumblr describes the rankings as representing “each fandom’s influence across Tumblr.” This influence is determined with a measurement that does not account for sentiment and yet provides prominence and voice to the ‘loudest’ fandoms. Building on work on audience measurement, we argue Fandometrics encourages social jostling by online communities for relevance on the Tumblr platform, and within fandom and wider culture. By equating the strength of communities with their status as influencers or markets, these rankings usher fans towards subjectivities that put data and quantitative rankings at the centre of societal value and inter-community relationships. We argue that as metrics become more visible to users, some communities respond with a kind of affective discipline , at times exaggerating, restraining, cloaking, or reconfiguring positive and negative affect in their online engagement in line with algorithmic requirements for measurement. We identify and discuss the major affective and social implications for the communities ranked by Tumblr’s Fandometrics. Finally, we discuss efforts by some users to resist or withdraw from Fandometrics and/or the communities that value its rankings, and efforts by fans to (re)claim their own data through self-measurement. We argue that with platforms’ increasing concentration of data power, critical data studies must attend to such community-driven alternative models of data and metrics. The fandom metrics phenomenon reflects larger anxieties about value, relevance, and power in increasingly metrified online spaces.
... Digital social media have thus been seen as tools of self-expression and the search for identity (Mondoux, 2011;Papacharissi, 2010), as new, more "democratic" information media and, especially, as sources of digital traces through the production of personal and behavioural data (Ménard, Mondoux, Ouellet & Bonenfant, 2016;Berthier & Teboul, 2018). As part of this new dynamic, political communication has also shifted, with the help of digital tools and traces, towards personalisation and microtargeting (hypersegmentation of a large target audience- Barbu, 2013) through the use of data that is produced by individuals (Barocas, 2012;Woolley & Howard, 2018) and processed by recommendation algorithms (Boyd & Reed, 2016;Shorey & Howard, 2016). ...
Crowdwork platforms such as Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) are a crucial infrastructural component of our global data assemblage. Through these platforms, low-paid crowdworkers perform the vital labour of manually labelling large-scale and complex datasets, labels that are needed to train machine learning and AI models (Tubaro et al., Big Data & Society, 7 (1), 2020) and which enable the functioning of much digital technology, from niche applications to global platforms such as Google, Amazon and Facebook.
In this chapter, we reflect on how a ‘design justice’ approach might be valuable to build on insights gained from a series of exploratory discussions we have engaged in with US-based crowdworkers about how a crowdworker co-operative might work in practice, and begin to sketch out a potential software architecture that could form the basis of future participative approaches to the design and development of a crowdworker co-operative.
We begin by describing and reflecting on our own evolving methodology and how it fits with the ‘design justice’ lens we propose for future work. Following this, we present findings from our discussions with crowdworkers about how a crowdwork co-operative might work in practice, including what values workers would like to see embedded in the design. We then finish with the outline of a prototype software architecture for a crowdworker co-operative that could be used as a starting point in future design work in collaboration with crowdworkers.
... It also helps groups connect and organize (Turow, 2011) and provides a resource for shaping their collective identity in the public eye (Sender, 2018). Yet, in practice, microtargeting relies on "activating" targeted segments of the public, rather than encouraging broad, inclusive engagement (Barocas, 2012;Kim et al., 2018;Schier, 2000). Consequently, new concerns about "political redlining" have emerged. ...
Political campaigns increasingly rely on Facebook for reaching their constituents, particularly through ad targeting. Facebook's business model is premised on a promise to connect advertisers with the "right" users: those likely to click, download, engage, purchase. The company pursues this promise (in part) by algorithmically inferring users' interests from their data and providing advertisers with a means of targeting users by their inferred interests. In this study, we explore for whom this interest classification system works in order to build on conversations in critical data studies about the ways such systems produce knowledge about the world rooted in power structures. We critically analyze the classification system from a variety of empirical vantage points-via user data; Facebook documentation, training, and patents; and Facebook's tools for advertisers-and through theoretical concepts from a variety of domains. In this, we focus on the ways the classification system shapes possibilities for political representation and voice, particularly for people of color, women, and LGBTQþ people.
... In line with Colin Bennett (2016, p. 261), we wonder: "can political parties campaign in Europe as they do in North America?" Such a question is relevant, as some scholars fear that the use of data and targeting techniques hinders public deliberation (Gorton, 2016), weakens the mandate of elected officials (Barocas, 2012), has negative effects on citizens' privacy (Howard, 2006;Rubinstein, 2014;Tene, 2011), and enables campaigns to send tailored messages directly to citizens, thereby avoiding scrutiny from journalists (Jamieson, 2013). As a result, campaigns can potentially make opposite promises to different people, without anyone noticing. ...
Political campaigns increasingly use data to (micro)target voters with tailored messages. In doing so, campaigns raise concerns about privacy and the quality of the public discourse. Extending existing research to a European context, we propose and test a model for understanding how different contextual factors hinder or facilitate data-driven capabilities of campaigns. We applied the model during the 2017 national election campaign in the Netherlands. The results show how data-driven targeting techniques are not only useful in a first-past-the-post system, but also in a proportional representation system, which at first sight seems to be less suitable for such techniques.
... Since psychometrics represent a scientific method of psychological evaluation, conclusions can be drawn about the mental health/state and personality of the individual that far exceed predictions made through the most popular microtargeting methods in use today. Still, Barocas [4] shows how microtargeting in political campaigning can contribute to a chilling effect, in which voters will not express their opinion because of privacy concerns, and how microtargeting could lead campaigns to promote divisive wedge issues and cites Howard as stating that microtargeting can be used for voter disenfranchisement, for example by targeting the communication of certain information to one voter group but not the other. ...
Targeted social media advertising based on psychometric user profiling has emerged as an effective way of reaching individuals who are predisposed to accept and be persuaded by the advertising message. This article argues that in the case of political advertising, this may present a democratic and ethical challenge. Hypertargeting methods such as psychometrics can “crowd out” political communication with opposing views due to individual attention and time limitations, creating inequities in the access to information essential for voting decisions. The use of psychometrics also appears to have been used to spread both information and misinformation through social media in recent elections in the U.S. and Europe. This article is an applied ethics study of these methods in the context of democratic processes and compared to purely commercial situations. The ethical approach is based on the theoretical, contractarian work of John Rawls, which serves as a lens through which the author examines whether the rights of individuals, as Rawls attributes them, are violated by this practice. The article concludes that within a Rawlsian framework, use of psychometrics in commercial advertising on social media platforms, though not immune to criticism, is not necessarily unethical. In a democracy, however, the individual cannot abandon the consumption of political information, and since using psychometrics in political campaigning makes access to such information unequal, it violates Rawlsian ethics and should be regulated.
... Another not further discussed challenge concerns data protection issues, because, with the ubiquitous IoT, everything we do will leave a trace. The emerging discipline of Psychoinformatics demonstrated already in first studies what insights can be derived from digital traces of the IoT with respect to psychodiagnostics on individual level (see for a review [40,128,129]; see also a recent interesting work on the potential of psychological targeting [130] perhaps in parts also endangering democratic processes [131]). To present the reader with a short summary of the most important research avenues to be tackled in the near future, according to this review/hypothesis paper, we add the following short bullet points: ...
The present article gives an overview on central challenges humans face at the dawn of complex digital societies and the Internet of Things (IoT), i.e., a world completely connected to the Internet. Among the many challenges to be handled in digital societies is a growing fragmented life style leading to loss of productivity as well as moments for self-reflection. In all this, it is of tremendous importance to understand the impact of digital worlds on our brains and psyches and to reveal possible unintended side-effects of technology use. Does human nature change due to constant interactions with virtual realities? In this context, we also face the challenge to design digital worlds according to our mammalian-emotional heritage deeply anchored in subcortical areas of the human brain. Here, we refer to emotional needs as carved out by Panksepp’s Affective Neuroscience Theory and how they can or cannot be fulfilled in digital worlds. Aside from a review of several key studies dealing with the raised challenges, some first solutions to successfully meet the mentioned problems are provided to achieve sustainable and healthy digital worlds, with whom humans can interact carefree on a daily basis.
To the detriment of liberal democracy, governments have struggled to prevent the exploitation of personal data for voter manipulation in the digital era. Laws pertaining to political microtargeting are often piecemeal and tend to derive from a combination of laws on electoral advertising and privacy. Evidence indicates that this approach is insufficient to curtail microtargeting. However, little is known about the regulation of microtargeting outside of the European and US contexts within which the bulk of anti‐microtargeting research has been undertaken. Accordingly, this paper aims to shed light on the preparedness of the law in Australia and New Zealand to mitigate the potential harms of political microtargeting. A comparative analysis of legislation pertaining to microtargeting is therefore undertaken using a blended approach of comparative law and content analysis. This paper: (1) identifies current legislation relevant to microtargeting in Australia and New Zealand; (2) assesses patterns of similarity and difference between each country's laws in relation to microtargeting; and (3) evaluates the preparedness of current legislation to curtail microtargeting in an evolving social media landscape. It finds that in both countries, legislation is sufficiently robust to mitigate microtargeting in some limited circumstances, but a cohesive regulatory approach is needed to constrain the most insidious microtargeting operations.
The availability of online data has altered the role of social media. By offering targeted online advertising, that is, persuasive messages tailored to user groups, political parties profit from large data profiles to send fine-grained advertising appeals to susceptible voters. This between-subject experiment ( N = 421) investigates the influence of targeted political advertising disclosures (targeting vs. no-targeting disclosure), political fit (high vs. low), and issue fit (high vs. low) on recipients’ party evaluation and chilling effect intentions. The mediating role of targeting knowledge (TK) and perceived manipulative intent (PMI), two dimensions of persuasion knowledge, are investigated. The findings show that disclosing a targeting strategy and a high political fit activated individuals’ TK, that is, their recognition that their data had been used to show the ads, which then increased the evaluation of the political party and individuals’ intentions to engage in future chilling effect behaviors. High political fit decreased individuals’ reflections about the appropriateness of the targeted political ads (i.e., PMI), which then increased party evaluation. Issue fit did not affect individuals’ persuasion knowledge.
Targeted political advertising (TPA) on social media builds on tailoring messages to (groups of) individuals’ characteristics based on user data. Questions have been raised about the impact of TPA on recipients and society. In this study, we focus on the fit of TPA, that is, the congruence between TPA and recipients’ preferences, and draw on congruity theories, social identity theory (SIT), and persuasion knowledge. In a two-wave panel study (N = 428) during a Viennese state election, we investigated the relationships between individuals’ perceived fit and misfit of TPA on perceptions about the manipulative intent as well as the benefits and harms for democracy. The findings showed that perceived fit of TPA at Time 1 decreased perceived manipulative intent and increased perceived benefits of TPA at Time 2. The perceived misfit of TPA at Time 1 did not influence individuals’ perceptions at Time 2, and perceptions about the harms of TPA to democracy stayed stable. Findings imply that political campaigners might benefit from targeting but raise questions about individuals’ defense mechanisms against the persuasive technique.
This paper discusses the new phenomenon of platform ad archives. Over the past year, leading social media platforms have installed publicly accessible databases documenting their political advertisements, and several countries have moved to regulate them. If designed and implemented properly, ad archives can correct for structural informational asymmetries in the online advertising industry, and thereby improve accountability through litigation and through publicity. However, present implementations leave much to be desired. We discuss key criticisms, suggest several improvements and identify areas for future research and debate.
This chapter examines the relationship between theories of freedom of the media and new approaches to regulation of Internet intermediaries. It outlines two approaches to media freedom: an international human rights approach supported by regional human rights courts and the UN which adopts a positive approach to the role of law, the state and media regulation to support fundamental rights, and a US approach which stresses negative rights against the state. It argues that much-needed new interventions to support ethical approaches of new media and the sustainability of existing media are difficult to reconcile with a negative rights approach. The chapter argues that a new, conditional approach to media freedom should be developed in order to create a new social contract for the media and democracy.
Political advertising on social media heavily capitalizes on the fact that citizens leave behind data traces through their online behaviors. Even though this allows parties to target citizens based on their age, gender, or even specific interests, there is often a mismatch between the parties and the individuals’ party preferences. This study investigates how different degrees of targeting disclosures (demographic/location-based targeting disclosure versus preference-based targeting disclosure) and the political fit of targeted ads (high fit versus low fit) affect participants’ party evaluation and online privacy behaviors. Two dimensions of persuasion knowledge, perceived manipulative intent (PMI) and targeting knowledge (TK), act as mediators. Results from an online experiment (N = 430) reveal that the degree of targeting disclosure did not activate these dimensions. However, high political fit of the ads led to lower PMI and higher TK. In addition, political fit improved party evaluations via PMI and TK and reduced privacy behaviors via PMI. We conclude that citizens do not activate their defense mechanisms against targeted ads when the targeting comes from a favored party.
Previous research has found that digital advertising companies such as Facebook and Google function similarly to political consultants, influencing the messaging choices of political clients. This paper situates those insights in the theory of parties as extended networks and presents the first quantitative descriptive analysis of all companies that have provided federal political committees with digital advertising services in national elections. Network analysis measures of political groups registered with the Federal Election Committee in the United States (n = 2,064) and the types of companies they hired for digital political advertising services (political agencies, commercial agencies, digital advertising platforms, or other; n = 1,022) over three midterm and general elections (2006–2016) show that the number of political committees and companies have both dramatically increased since 2008 and that Facebook and Google have become the two most central members of the network. As influencers of the targeting and content of campaign messages, these companies should be considered consequential members of electoral party networks. This study contributes to research on political consulting and to the theory of parties as extended networks by demonstrating how opening the inclusion criteria for subject selection can uncover unexpected players, such as the private, previously considered nonpartisan, nonpolitical companies present here.
Background: There is vigorous international debate on the effects of political micro-targeting on campaigning practices and the integrity of democracy. It arguably encourages a more fragmented and transactional politics where localized promises go unchallenged.
Analysis: If political micro-targeting requires a precisely segmented audience, a specific location, and a focused policy message, then how much political micro-targeting actually occurs in Canadian elections? This article analyzes a sample of Facebook ads on two critical dates during the 2019 federal elections.
Conclusions and implications: Only a small minority of ads met these criteria for political micro-targeting. The findings suggest the need for a more nuanced understanding of the practice and greater transparency.
Concerns about the use of online political microtargeting (OPM) by campaigners have arisen since the Cambridge Analytica scandal hit the international political arena. In addition to providing conceptual clarity on OPM and explore the use of such techniques in Europe, this paper seeks to empirically disentangle the differing behaviours of campaigners when they message citizens through microtargeted rather than non-targeted campaigning. More precisely, I hypothesise that campaigners use negative campaigning and are more diverse in terms of topics when they use OPM. To investigate whether these expectations hold true, I use text-as-data techniques to analyse an original dataset of 4,091 political Facebook Ads during the last national elections in Austria, Italy, Germany and Sweden. Results show that while microtargeted ads might indeed be more thematically diverse, there does not seem to be a significant difference to non-microtargeted ads in terms of negativity. In conclusion, I discuss the implications of these findings for microtargeted campaigns and how future research could be conducted.
During the last decades populism has become a mainstream ideology in Western democracies (Mudde, 2004; 2016).
At the same time, the popularisation of digital platforms has facilitated the process of political communication while
social networks have become one of the preferred communicative tools for political populists to spread their messages.
Drawing on the idea that computational technologies allow a particular performance of populism (Baldwin-Philippi,
2019), this paper aims to foster a better theoretical understanding of how innovation in communication technologies
contribute to the success of populism. It is argued that the characteristics of populism (a focus on ‘the people’, technological
savviness and chameleonism) allow it to overcome most of the obstacles put in place by digital networks. In particular,
populism is in an ideal situation to deal with the phenomena of context collapse in social media (Boyd; Marwick,
2011). Finally, it is argued that in the era of personalized politics (Bennett, 2012), populists can make use of real-time
data-driven techniques to develop successful communicative strategies addressed to mass audiences in order to construct
the populist self in the image and likeness of the people. This form of populism is called data-driven populism.
The Cambridge Analytica–Facebook scandal led to widespread concern over the methods deployed by Cambridge Analytica to target voters through psychographic profiling algorithms, built upon Facebook user data. The scandal ultimately led to a record-breaking $5 billion penalty imposed upon Facebook by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in July 2019. The FTC action, however, has been criticized as failing to adequately address the privacy and other harms emanating from Facebook’s release of approximately 87 million Facebook users’ data, which was exploited without user authorization. This Essay summarizes the FTC’s response to the Cambridge Analytica–Facebook scandal. It concludes that the scandal focuses attention on the need to explore the potential for embedding due process-type inquiries and protections within the enforcement actions by regulatory agencies such as the FTC. These protections are increasingly important in addressing the problem of “black boxing the voter” that is now presented by data- and algorithmic-driven companies such as Cambridge Analytica and Facebook.
Giriş Tarım devrimi ve endüstri devriminin ardından gerçekleşen dijital devrimi üçüncü dalga olarak tanımlayan Toffler'e göre (2008: 17), bu dalga yeni bir yaşam tarzını ve uygarlığı da bera-berinde getirmiştir. Ortaya çıkan bu yeni yapı ve uygarlık bi-reylerin ilişkileri, iletişimleri ve davranış kalıpları üzerinde etki-li olmuştur. Dijital teknolojilerin gelişip yaygınlaşmasıyla birey-ler dijital alana katılma imkanı bulmuş, internet tüm dünyayı sararak bireyler ve toplumlar açısından küresel bir ortam ya-ratmıştır. Bireyler toplumsal yaşamdaki faaliyetlerini bu ortama taşımıştır. Bu sebepten ötürü iş adamları, siyasetçiler, devletler, sivil toplum kuruluşları dijital teknolojilerin egemen olduğu, büyük veri ve algoritmaların toplumun kültürel ve sosyal yapı-sını analiz etmeye imkan verdiği bu yeni ortamda hedef kitlele-riyle etkili bir iletişim kurmaya çalışmaktadır. Veriyi ve kitle iletişimindeki tüm yeni medya ağlarını birbi-rine bağlayan dijitalleşme, tüm sinyallerin bit adı verilen bir ve sıfırlardan oluşan parçaları şeklinde tanımlanabilir. Dijital tek-nolojilerin sağladığı imkanlarla veriler kolaylıkla işlenebilmek-1 Araş. Gör., Mustafa Kemal Üniversitesi İletişim Fakültesi, Tübitak Bursiye-ri,
Researchers in psychology have long known that preferences are constructed in the decision-making process, influenced by choice environments that trigger unconscious biases and heuristics. As a result, choices, including those of voters, can be manipulated by political information. Personalised political messages, designed to influence based on detailed personal profiles, can undermine voter autonomy. We suggest that these practices should therefore be regulated, and discuss policy options and approaches, specifically the appropriate balance between freedom of political speech and privacy rights and interests, the implications of voter analytics for the electoral process, and how and by whom sophisticated voter analytics practices should be regulated.
The last decade has seen the meteoric rise of data campaigning as a central concern of political campaigns. This article offers insight into how journalists and political professionals construct practices of data campaigning as all-powerful despite the limited empirical findings to that effect. Specifically, this research delves into how journalistic coverage of campaigns’ use of data and analytics has often relied on inflated accounts of the objectivity of analytics, the belief that more data necessarily means more and better knowledge, and narratives of objective outsiders – notably geeks, hackers, nerds, and scientists – that situate analytics staffers as strange and different, and as uniquely qualified to access the truth. To do this, I engage in critical discourse analysis of popular coverage of data campaigning in the US in the years 2008–2016. Ultimately, denaturalizing these narratives helps reveal how they contribute to defining this “new” campaign strategy as fundamentally concerned with finding objective answers to solvable problems and are key to political professionals’ maintenance of organizational power.
This article investigates the Trump campaign’s strategic use of digital platforms and their affordances and norms that contribute to a technological performance of populism. To do so, I build on theories of populism as a performance, rather than a set of identifiable qualities, and make a theoretical intervention calling for the need to add a material and technological focus to how scholars approach the concept in our contemporary media environment. This article presents a model for understanding populist affordances as those that center “the people” to various degrees, and applies that model in a case study of how campaigns in the 2016 US presidential race engaged in a technological performance of populism across a variety of platforms, including email, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and campaign-created mobile apps. Central to this analysis are campaign strategies of controlled interactivity, amateurism, participatory/user-generated content, and data-driven campaigning.
This paper examines how Canadian constituency campaigns perceive and use data in elections. We apply a conceptual framework for data-driven campaigning, developed from existing literature, to participant observations and interview responses from the Conservative, Liberal and NDP campaigns in a single riding during the general election of 2015. The rhetoric of “big data” notwithstanding, we find significant variation in the extent and nature of the use of data at the constituency level, and that the increasing use of data in electioneering may have a centralizing effect on traditionally stratarchical political party organization.
In recent elections, campaigns have based their contact decisions on individual microtargeted propensity scores generated using “Big Data” rather than the more traditional geographic-based contacting. Shifts in campaign strategy have implications for who is contacted and ultimately who participates in elections. As campaigns focus more of their outreach towards individuals who the data indicate are more likely to turn out and more likely to vote for their candidate, some groups may be systematically excluded from contact. We investigate this using voter files and survey data from the 2012 US elections to compare who the Republicans identified for campaign contact using microtargeted propensity scores and who would have been identified for contact if they used a strictly geographic-based approach. Our findings suggest that young people are much less likely to be designated for contact when campaigns rely on microtargeted data than older individuals, the latter of whom are more likely to be contacted under both geographic and microtargeting strategies.
Mediated Politics explores the changing media environments in contemporary democracy: the internet, the decline of network news and the daily newspaper; the growing tendency to treat election campaigns as competing product advertisements; the blurring lines between news, ads, and entertainment. By combining new developments in political communication with core questions about politics and policy, a distinguished roster of international scholars offers new perspectives and directions for further study. Several broad questions emerge from the book: with ever-increasing media outlets creating more specialized segments, what happens to broader issues? Are there implications for a sense of community? Should media give people only what they want, or also what they need to be good citizens? These and other tensions created by the changing nature of political communication are covered in sections on the changing public sphere; shifts in the nature of political communication; the new shape of public opinion; transformations of political campaigns; and alterations in citizens' needs and involvement.
What happens to democracy and free speech if people use the Internet to listen and speak only to the like-minded? What is the benefit of the Internet's unlimited choices if citizens narrowly filter the information they receive? Cass Sunstein first asked these questions in 2001'sRepublic.com. Now, inRepublic.com 2.0, Sunstein thoroughly rethinks the critical relationship between democracy and the Internet in a world where partisan Weblogs have emerged as a significant political force.Republic.com 2.0highlights new research on how people are using the Internet, especially the blogosphere. Sunstein warns against "information cocoons" and "echo chambers," wherein people avoid the news and opinions that they don't want to hear. He also demonstrates the need to regulate the innumerable choices made possible by technology. His proposed remedies and reforms emphasize what consumers and producers can do to help avoid the perils, and realize the promise, of the Internet.
Political campaigns today are won or lost in the so-called ground war--the strategic deployment of teams of staffers, volunteers, and paid part-timers who work the phones and canvass block by block, house by house, voter by voter.Ground Warsprovides an in-depth ethnographic portrait of two such campaigns, New Jersey Democrat Linda Stender's and that of Democratic Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut, who both ran for Congress in 2008. Rasmus Kleis Nielsen examines how American political operatives use "personalized political communication" to engage with the electorate, and weighs the implications of ground-war tactics for how we understand political campaigns and what it means to participate in them. He shows how ground wars are waged using resources well beyond those of a given candidate and their staff. These include allied interest groups and civic associations, party-provided technical infrastructures that utilize large databases with detailed individual-level information for targeting voters, and armies of dedicated volunteers and paid part-timers. Nielsen challenges the notion that political communication in America must be tightly scripted, controlled, and conducted by a select coterie of professionals. Yet he also quashes the romantic idea that canvassing is a purer form of grassroots politics. In today's political ground wars, Nielsen demonstrates, even the most ordinary-seeming volunteer knocking at your door is backed up by high-tech targeting technologies and party expertise. Ground Warsreveals how personalized political communication is profoundly influencing electoral outcomes and transforming American democracy.
The political campaign is one of the most important organizations in a democracy, and whether issue, or candidate, specific, it is one of the least understood organizations in contemporary political life. With evidence from ethnographic immersion, survey data, and social network analysis, Philip Howard examines the evolving act of political campaigning and the changing organization of political campaigns over the last five election cycles, from 1996 to 2004. Over this time, both grassroots and elite political campaigns have gone online, built multimedia strategies, and constructed complex relational databases.
The use of wedge issues such as abortion, gay marriage, and immigration has become standard political strategy in contemporary presidential campaigns. Why do candidates use such divisive appeals? Who in the electorate is persuaded by these controversial issues? And what are the consequences for American democracy? In this provocative and engaging analysis of presidential campaigns, Sunshine Hillygus and Todd Shields identify the types of citizens responsive to campaign information, the reasons they are responsive, and the tactics candidates use to sway these pivotal voters. The Persuadable Voter shows how emerging information technologies have changed the way candidates communicate, who they target, and what issues they talk about. As Hillygus and Shields explore the complex relationships between candidates, voters, and technology, they reveal potentially troubling results for political equality and democratic governance. The Persuadable Voter examines recent and historical campaigns using a wealth of data from national surveys, experimental research, campaign advertising, archival work, and interviews with campaign practitioners. With its rigorous multimethod approach and broad theoretical perspective, the book offers a timely and thorough understanding of voter decision making, candidate strategy, and the dynamics of presidential campaigns.
Source: Democracy Now! JUAN GONZALEZ: When you follow your friends on Facebook or run a search on Google, what information comes up, and what gets left out? That's the subject of a new book by Eli Pariser called The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You. According to Pariser, the internet is increasingly becoming an echo chamber in which websites tailor information according to the preferences they detect in each viewer. Yahoo! News tracks which articles we read. Zappos registers the type of shoes we wear, we prefer. And Netflix stores data on each movie we select. AMY GOODMAN: The top 50 websites collect an average of 64 bits of personal information each time we visit and then custom-designs their sites to conform to our perceived preferences. While these websites profit from tailoring their advertisements to specific visitors, users pay a big price for living in an information bubble outside of their control. Instead of gaining wide exposure to diverse information, we're subjected to narrow online filters. Eli Pariser is the author of The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You. He is also the board president and former executive director of the group MoveOn.org. Eli joins us in the New York studio right now after a whirlwind tour through the United States.
Digital media strategies are a crucial component of contemporary political campaigns. Established political elites use database and Internet technologies to raise money, organize volunteers, gather intelligence on voters, and do opposition research. However, they use data-mining techniques that outrage privacy advocates and surreptitious technologies that few Internet users understand. Grassroots political actors and average votersbuild their own digital campaigns, researching public policy options, candidate histories, lobbyist maneuvering, and the finances of big campaigns. I examine the role of digital technologies in the production of contemporary political culture with ethnographic and survey evidence from four election seasons between 1996 and 2002. Democracy is deeper in terms of the diffusion of rich data about political actors, policy options, and the diversity of actors and opinion in the public sphere. Citizenship is thinner in terms of the ease in which people can become politically expressive without being substantively engaged.
Five Myths About Campaign Ads. The Washington Post. Brader T. 2012. Five Myths About Campaign Ads
- T Brader
Brader, T. 2012. Five Myths About Campaign Ads. The Washington Post.
Obama Campaign Banks on High-Tech Ground Game to Reach Voters
- J Calmes
Calmes, J. 2012. Obama Campaign Banks on High-Tech Ground Game to Reach Voters. New York Times.
The Very Very Personal Is the Political
- J Gertner
Gertner, J. 2004. The Very, Very Personal Is the Political. New York Times Magazine.
Kochs Help Republicans Catch Up on Technology. Reuters. Henderson P. 2012. Kochs Help Republicans Catch Up on Technology
- P Henderson
Henderson, P. 2012. Kochs Help Republicans Catch Up on Technology. Reuters.
For Sale: Detailed Voter Profiles
- S Issenberg
Issenberg, S. 2012. For Sale: Detailed Voter Profiles. Slate.
Internet's Broader Role in Campaign
- A Kohut
Kohut, A. et al. 2008. Internet's Broader Role in Campaign 2008. Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
Like It or Not, You're Being Tracked. Campaigns & Elections
- M Laslo
Laslo, M. 2011. Like It or Not, You're Being Tracked. Campaigns & Elections.
Campaigns to Track Voters with "Political Cookies
- Leber J.
Leber, J. 2012. Campaigns to Track Voters with " Political Cookies. " Technology Review.
Obama's 2012 Campaign Is Watching You. Politico. Levinthal D. 2012. Obama's 2012 Campaign Is Watching You
- D Levinthal
Levinthal, D. 2012. Obama's 2012 Campaign Is Watching You. Politico.
The Political Scene: The Relaunch. The New Yorker. Lizza R. 2007. The Political Scene: The Relaunch. The New Yorker
- R Lizza
Lizza, R. 2007. The Political Scene: The Relaunch. The New Yorker.
Conservative Super PACs Turn to Social Media and Internet to Expand Reach. The Guardian. Pilkington E. and Michel A. 2012. Conservative Super PACs Turn to Social Media and Internet to Expand Reach
- E Pilkington
- A Michel
Pilkington, E. and Michel, A. 2012. Conservative Super PACs Turn to Social Media and Internet to Expand Reach. The Guardian.
Voter Data Crucial to Romney's Victory
- M Reston
Reston, M. 2012. Voter Data Crucial to Romney's Victory. Los Angeles Times.
The Next Generation of Voter Data. Polimetrix. Rivers D. and Stults B. 2005. The Next Generation of Voter Data
- D Rivers
- B Stults
Rivers, D. and Stults, B. 2005. The Next Generation of Voter Data. Polimetrix.
Doing Digital for Romney: An Interview with Zac Moffatt. The Atlantic. Scola N. 2012. Doing Digital for Romney: An Interview with Zac Moffatt. The Atlantic
- N Scola
Scola, N. 2012. Doing Digital for Romney: An Interview with Zac Moffatt. The Atlantic.
An Introduction to Microtargeting in Politics
- M Steitz
- L Quinn
Steitz, M. and Quinn, L. 2007. An Introduction to Microtargeting in Politics. New Politics Institute.
GOP Faces Digital Divide
- K P Vogel
Vogel, K.P. 2012. GOP Faces Digital Divide. Politico.
Silent Marketing: Micro-Targeting
- T Agan
What Happens When Politics Becomes A Matter of Social Engineering: 2012. http://profoundheterogeneity.com/2012/06/big-data-what-happens-when-elections-becoming-social-engineering-competitions
- Big Data
Voter Privacy in the Digital Age. California Voter Foundation
- K Alexander
- K Mills
Help Us Find Out How Politicians Are Targeting You Online. ProPublica. Beckett L. 2012. Help Us Find Out How Politicians Are Targeting You Online
- L Beckett
Obama's White Whale. Slate. Issenberg S. 2012. Obama's White Whale. Slate
- S Issenberg
Political Targeting. Predicted Lists. Malchow H. 2008. Political Targeting
- H Malchow
California Voter Foundation. Alexander K. and Mills K. 2004. Voter Privacy in the Digital Age
- K Alexander
- K Mills
How Microsoft and Yahoo Are Selling Politicians Access to You. ProPublica. Beckett L. 2012. How Microsoft and Yahoo Are Selling Politicians Access to You
- L Beckett
The Persuaders. PBS. Rushkoff D. 2004. The Persuaders. PBS
- D Rushkoff
Big Brother Inc. Vanity Fair. Verini J
- J Verini