Group Appeals of Parties in Times of Economic and Identity Conflicts and Realignment

Stuckelberger, Simon; Tresch, Anke

doi:10.1177/00323217221123147

Cited by 8 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 55 publications

(150 reference statements)

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“…The extensive use of location targeting specifically appears to be a practical choice for election campaigns globally. Campaigns know where their constituencies are and also likely have easy access to past election outcomes, and knowledge about regional supporter strongholds, which they can leverage to find the right audience for their campaign (Stuckelberger and Tresch, 2022). It's also noteworthy that campaigns lean towards targeted advertising over explicit demographic exclusion.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Additionally, when considering microtargeting, campaigns typically allocate budgets towards a single targeting criterion, with untargeted ads receiving more spending than those using multiple criteria. Thus, while targeting is widespread, most elections don't heavily rely on microtargeting strategies (Stuckelberger and Tresch, 2022).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…From the perspective of political campaigns, the use of targeting and exclusion strategies on social media platforms is incentivized due to its ability to effortlessly reach new audiences and exert control over the visibility of their messages. The availability of granular targeting criteria on Facebook and Instagram enables campaigns to direct their resources towards the "right" segment of voters, thereby avoiding "inefficient" expenditure on individuals deemed unlikely to be persuadable by the party or candidate (e.g., Kruikemeier et al, 2022; Stuckelberger andTresch, 2022). We argue that campaigns can combine the following strategies for leveraging online political microtargeting on Meta platforms: targeting based on a) location b) socio-demographic; c) interest and behaviour; and d) custom and connected audience-based strategies.…”

Section: Targeting and Exclusion Strategiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Socio-demographic targeting aims at groups with shared characteristics, such as age, gender, income, or education level. Recent research has found that parties use age, and gender in their online advertising to link their party to group members, consequently amplifying their appeal to said socio-demographic groups (Stuckelberger and Tresch, 2022). With regard to interest and behaviour, strategies encompass elements such as political issues, lifestyle choices, and technological habits (Hersh, 2015).…”

Section: Targeting and Exclusion Strategiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Who Does(n't) Target You?

Votta,

Kruschinski,

Hove

et al. 2024

JQD

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Political campaigns are increasingly investing in targeted advertising on social media platforms to reach voters. Despite critical implications for citizens and elections, little is known about the targeting strategies deployed by political parties — especially in countries beyond the global north. This paper provides a comprehensive descriptive analysis of political microtargeting practices on Facebook and Instagram across 95 countries during 113 national elections. By analyzing the Meta Ad Targeting dataset, we explore targeting strategies of 54k political advertisers who ran 2.5 million ads between August 2020 and December 2022. The findings indicate that election campaigns worldwide utilize targeted advertising. Most commonly, spending is allocated towards a single targeting criterion, however, in wealthier countries and electoral systems with proportional representation, a greater amount of money is spent on microtargeting by combining multiple criteria. Furthermore, targeting strategies vary along ideological lines of political parties who seek out voters more typically aligned with each side of the political spectrum. Nonetheless, parties use microtargeting irrespective of political ideology. Our findings offer the first comparative analysis of political microtargeting on Meta platforms for countries across all continents. Methodologically, we introduce a semi-automatic method to identify worldwide political advertisers using multiple data sources. Our study deepens the understanding of how country and party contexts explain differences in targeting strategies, highlighting the need for more research beyond the global north. Finally, our results have important implications for policy makers, and other stakeholders who seek to develop regulations to address the challenges posed by political microtargeting techniques.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Targeting and Exclusion Strategiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Targeting and Exclusion Strategiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Who Does(n't) Target You?

Votta,

Kruschinski,

Hove

et al. 2024

JQD

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…While policy appeals are most widely studied type of appeal (Evans and Graaf 2013;Evans and Tilley 2012a), a growing body of literature distinguishes appeals to social groups from conventional policy appeals (Dolinsky 2022;Huber 2022;Stuckelberger and Tresch 2022;Thau 2019). What exactly are these group appeals?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parties’ Group Appeals as Representative Claims: A New Perspective on Parties’ Efforts to Connect with Voters

Dolinsky,

Huber

2023

Preprint

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Social groups and group identity significantly influence the political process, affecting voters’ understanding of politics as well as parties’ efforts to connect with voters. While scholars have traditionally concentrated on policy as the connecting thread between parties and voters, i.e., what parties are saying, recent studies highlight the importance of group appeals, shifting focus to whom parties are saying it. These studies, however, predominantly treat group appeals as a strategic tool for maximizing votes, resulting in a relatively narrow understanding of this phenomenon. In this paper, we propose a broader perspective on this phenomenon by approaching group appeals through the lens of Representative Claim Theory, wherein group appeals are viewed as the first step in the process of political representation—the claim-making—and election campaigns are the venue where the claim-making occurs. This approach allows us to better evaluate how parties forge connections with voters based on social group identities, revealing the importance of intangible aspects of belonging, recognition, and the expression of shared identity in the way political parties connect with voters

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When Group Appeals Backfire: Explaining the Asymmetric Effects of Place-Based Appeals

Haffert,

Palmtag,

Schraff

2024

Brit. J. Polit. Sci.

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Group-based identities are an important basis of political competition. Politicians consciously appeal to specific social groups, and these group-based appeals often improve the evaluation of parties and candidates. Studying place-based appeals, we advance the understanding of this strategy by distinguishing between dominant and subordinate social groups. Using two survey experiments in Germany and England, we show that group appeals improve candidate evaluation among subordinate (rural) voters. By contrast, appeals to the dominant (urban) group trigger a negative reaction. While urban citizens’ weaker local identities and lower place-based resentment partly explain this asymmetry, they mainly dislike group-based appeals because of their antagonistic nature. If the same policies are framed as benefiting urban and rural dwellers alike, candidate evaluation improves. Thus, people on the dominant side of a group divide reject a framing of politics as antagonistically structured by this divide, even if they identify with the dominant group.

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Group Appeals of Parties in Times of Economic and Identity Conflicts and Realignment

Cited by 8 publications

References 55 publications

Who Does(n't) Target You?

Who Does(n't) Target You?

Parties’ Group Appeals as Representative Claims: A New Perspective on Parties’ Efforts to Connect with Voters

When Group Appeals Backfire: Explaining the Asymmetric Effects of Place-Based Appeals

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