TY - GEN
T1 - Selling Political Data
T2 - 17th International Conference on Information for a Better World: Shaping the Global Future, iConference 2022
AU - Cotter, Kelley
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85126221917
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85126221917#tab=citedBy
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-030-96957-8_18
DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-96957-8_18
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85126221917
SN - 9783030969561
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
SP - 195
EP - 208
BT - Information for a Better World
A2 - Smits, Malte
PB - Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Y2 - 28 February 2022 through 4 March 2022
ER -