Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Online Political Advertising: Potential Problems and Empirical Research
Evidence
Dr Alessio Cornia
School of Communications
DCU
Open Policy ForumRegulation of Transparency of Online Political Advertising
Dublin, 6th December 2018
The context: an increasingly digital and social media environment
Sources of news 2013-18
Source: Reuters Institute’s 2018 Digital news report Q: Which, if any, of the following have you used in the last week as a source of news?
The context: an increasingly digital and social media environment
Sources of news 2015-18
Source: Reuters Institute’s 2018 Digital news report Q: Which, if any, of the following have you used in the last week as a source of news?
The context: an increasingly digital and social media environment
Political parties have begun to shift their advertising
spend towards digital channels
Source: Council of Europe (2017) Study on the use of internet in electoral campaigns
2015 UK Election campaign:
o 23% of the total advertising budget spent by the main
parties on digital media
o The vast majority of the digital budget spent with
Public debate focused on targeted political advertising (TPA)
o By gathering a vast amount of data (e.g. digital trace data),
campaigns created enhanced profiles that identify and target
specific types of individuals
o Messages are customized and different individuals can be
targeted with different messages
o Niche audiences can be targeted with individualized messages
on specific issues that may concern them personally
Concerns associated with targeted political advertising (TPA)
o As different individuals receive different
messages, TPA “is not done in public”,
and “is therefore not subject to any
monitoring or journalistic scrutiny”
Council of Europe (2017), p. 15
o Inaccurate information can spread among potential voters without “any
oversight or rebuttal”
o Politicians might potentially make different promises to different people
Concerns associated with targeted political advertising (TPA)
o Messages can be targeted on those
constituencies and demographics likely
to “swing” an election…
o …and this could create inequalities in
terms of the available information on
which the voters base their decisions
Council of Europe (2017)
o Groups regarded as less strategically important or less likely to vote risk
being marginalised
Concerns associated with targeted political advertising (TPA)
o Micro-targeted messages could focus on wedge issues, i.e. issues which
are highly divisive in public forums but also have the ability to mobilise
voters (e.g. immigration and welfare)
o This could exacerbate the level of
polarization among citizens
Stroud, 2017; Sunstein, 2017
Little empirical research
o Unexpected election results (e.g. the 2016 UK referendum and US
presidential election) intensify concerns…
o … but it is hard to empirically investigate TPA on social media platforms
because of limited (or lack of) access to data
o Thus, many of these phenomena remain possibilities rather than
empirically demonstrable outcomes
Anstead et al., 2018; Council of Europe, 2017; Kim et al., 2018
Little empirical research
Anstead et al. (2018) Political
advertising on Facebook: The Case
of the 2017 United Kindom
General Election. Paper presented
to the American Political Science
Association general meeting,
Boston
Kim et al. (2018) The stealth
media? Groups and targets
behind divisive issue
campaigns on Facebook.
Political Communication,
DOI: 10.1080/10584609.2018.1476425
Anstead et al. (2018) Political
advertising on Facebook
o Facebook political advertising in
the 2017 UK general election
o Focus on messages sent by
political parties
o Find little evidence that supports
worries
o Facebook political advertising
in the 2016 US election
o Focus on messages sent by
groups, including those who
were not formally part of the
election campaign
o Find strong evidence that
supports worries
Kim et al. (2018) The stealth media?
Anstead et al. (2018) Political advertising on Facebook (2017 UK general election)
o Used a browser plug-in (created by the social enterprise Who Target Me) installed by
more than 11,000 volunteers
o Collected all the adverts that appeared on users’ timelines
o Analysed 783 unique political adverts placed on Facebook by UK political
parties
o Focus on whether political adverts were:
• tailored in a contradictory way for different audiences
• more negative than those used on traditional media and in previous
elections
Main findings “challenge conventional wisdom about Facebook political
advertising” (p. 1):
o Rather than segmentation and contradictory messages (e.g. different
promises to different people), they find that messages adhered closely to
(public) national campaign narratives
o Facebook political advertising was not significantly more negative than
other traditional modes of communication (but analysis limited to adverts
placed by politicians)
Anstead et al. (2018) Political advertising on Facebook (2017 UK general election)
Kim et al. (2018) The stealth media? (2016 US election)
Like the previous study:
o Recruited 9,518 volunteers who used an app that automatically captured
paid adverts on their Facebook feed
Unlike the previous study:
o Analysed adverts on divisive issues (e.g. guns, LGBT, immigration, and race) placed by
groups, including those that were not officially part of the campaign (they did
not file reports to the Federal Election Commission, FEC)
o Focus on:
• Who operate divisive issues campaigns on Facebook
• Who was targeted by these campaigns
Kim et al. (2018) The stealth media? (2016 US election)
Main findings:
o “suspicious” groups (including foreign entities) that are not officially part of the
campaign ran most of the divisive issues campaigns (the volume of ads sponsored by
non-FEC groups was four times larger than that of FEC groups)
o one out of six suspicious groups turned out to be Russian groups
o divisive issue campaigns clearly targeted battleground states…
o ...and specific users (e.g. those of low income where specifically targeted with
ads on immigration and racial conflict; 87% of all the immigration ads were
concentrated among white voters)
Kim et al. (2018) The stealth media? (2016 US election)
They conclude that:
o just as a stealth bomber shoots at a target without being detected by radar…
o ...digital media functions as stealth media – “the system enabling deliberate
operation of political campaigns with undisclosed sponsors/sources, furtive
messaging of divisive issues, and imperceptible targeting” (p. 18)
Conclusion
o How targeted political advertising on social media is defined matters
• Results of the second study differ also because they focused on messages
that promote or demote a political issue, with or without explicit support or
defeat of a candidate, and placed by both actors who are officially part of
the campaign and who are not
o More empirical research is needed to inform regulators and allow
evidence-based decision making
o More transparency and initiatives by platforms that favour researchers’
access to data are needed
Thank you!
