A review of political advertising online during the 2019 European Elections and establishing future regulatory requirements in Ireland

Zhu

2022

Policy & Internet

Online political advertising has grown rapidly over the last two decades and played an important role in campaigns and elections. Arising with it are concerns around issues such as data privacy and transparency, which have sparked calls for regulation. Whilst change has begun to be implemented, in many contexts moves to regulate online political advertising have been limited. In this article, we explore one such case, asking whether attempts to regulate have been hindered by the particular characteristics of digital technology or by wider political factors. Presenting new interview data examining the experiences and perceptions of regulators, policy makers, civil servants, civil society groups and academics in the United Kingdom, we distil three barriers: political reticence, logistical challenges and conflicting policy proposals. Our findings suggest that efforts to regulate online phenomena need to apply a media and politics-centric lens, considering how the technological traits of digital media and political factors can affect efforts to regulate.

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The barriers to regulating the online world: Insights from UK debates on online political advertising

Zhu

2022

Policy & Internet

“…As online political advertising has rapidly become a feature of contemporary election campaigns, studies of usage have emerged in the United States (Barrett, 2022; Edelson et al, 2018; Ridout et al, 2021), the United Kingdom (Dommett & Bakir, 2020; Power & Mason, 2023), Canada (Bennett & Gordon, 2020), Brazil (Silva et al, 2020), Ireland (Kirk & Teeling, 2021), Germany (Medina Serrano et al, 2020), across Europe (Kruschinski & Bene, 2022), and beyond. Whilst existing research has mapped campaigns' increasing reliance on online political advertising, and raised concerns about the democratic impact of this activity (Kim et al, 2018; Zuiderveen Borgesius et al, 2018), the vast majority of scholars studying online political advertising fail to define the object of study (Coppock et al, 2020; Edelson et al, 2018; Fulgoni et al, 2016; Hager, 2019; Harker, 2020; Kim et al, 2018; Kruikemeier et al, 2016; Ridout et al, 2021; see Jaursch, 2020 for a notable exception).…”

Section: A Critical Review Of Online Political Advertising Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

What is an online political advert? An interrogation of conceptual challenges in the formation of digital policy response

Zhu

2023

Policy & Internet

Despite British and European policymakers’ quest to regulate online political advertising, it is not clear what exactly constitutes an online political advert. As with many areas of digital governance, it is therefore necessary to impose definitional criteria, yet the process of doing so is by no means straightforward. Using qualitative interviews, we set out to clarify alternative routes for definition by distilling policymakers’ understanding of what it means for a piece of content to be an ‘advert’, ‘online’, and ‘political’. Presenting a series of decision trees that trace policymakers’ ideas, we reveal different traits that could be used to create a definition. In addition, we use our interviews to offer insight into the policymaking approach needed when defining complex and contested digital phenomena. Given the array of possible definitional approaches, we argue that policymakers will find it valuable to adopt an argumentative and communicative approach if efforts to gain consensus are to succeed (Majone 1989). This article accordingly provides a practical tool for future attempts to define online political advertising, and casts light on the strategies policymakers may use when seeking to define and regulate complex digital phenomena.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

“…Even when it comes to political advertising, previous studies have highlighted limitations in the type of data provided through archives. They do not, for example, contain complete information about targeting parameters (Ofcom, 2021: 38) or ‘reflect the full range of information platforms possessed’ (Dommett, 2021; see also Kirk and Teeling, 2022: 10), meaning that many questions about advertising on these platforms cannot be answered.…”

Section: Complete and Consistent?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When downloading data from the archives, there can be variations in the information collected dependent on which interface is used and when data are downloaded. Kirk and Teeling (2022), for example, describe how they ‘found several discrepancies between the information extracted from Facebook’s Ad Library (API access) and the Ad Library Report (no API access). At times, there were more adverts listed for an advertiser than appeared in the Ad Library.…”

Section: Complete and Consistent?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Monitoring digital election campaigns: Assessing the transparency ecosystem in the United Kingdom

Power

2023

Politics

Digital election campaigning has undergone increased levels of scrutiny in recent years, with numerous calls for improved transparency. One key innovation has been the creation of online advertising archives offered by social media platforms such as Facebook, Google, and Snapchat. In this article, we compare what we know about digital campaigning in the United Kingdom from official election returns and Facebook and Google’s online advertising archives. We analyse whether both transparency sources provide agreed standards of completeness, consistency, accuracy, and accessibility. We find that – despite the United Kingdom having an effectively world-leading transparency regime – this is not the case. We therefore consider a number of potential reforms to increase knowledge of the workings of campaigns at the national level.