Platform ad archives: promises and pitfalls

Leerssen, Paddy; Ausloos, Jef; Zarouali, Brahim; Helberger, Natali; Vreese, Claes H. de

doi:10.14763/2019.4.1421

Cited by 51 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 7 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…While these databases offer a glimpse into the strategy and funding sources of online advertisements, scholars have rightly critiqued their architectures as providing insufficient levels of transparency (Leerssen et al, 2019). Chief among the flaws of existing ad archives is their keyword search requirement: a deliberate design choice that prevents users from accessing aggregate-level data.…”

Section: Introduction Of New Featuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scandalous Design: How Social Media Platforms’ Responses to Scandal Impacts Campaigns and Elections

Bossetta

2020

Social Media + Society

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Given the role of social media in the modern election, scholars should not only study how platforms function for political actors; we should also study how platforms function as political actors. This essay therefore introduces the concept of scandalous design, which refers to programmatic changes in how social media operate in response to scandal. On the one hand, scandals can encourage changes in the architectural design of social media as products—that is, how platform providers introduce or manipulate features to mitigate the consequences of scandal. On the other, the concept of scandalous design recognizes the agency of these platforms as companies, who alter their organizational protocols in pursuit of furthering their business interests and generating goodwill with governments. The essay’s main argument is that deconstructing platforms’ responses to scandal can provide an empirical glimpse into how social media companies position themselves as political actors. I break down scandalous design into four typological groups: the introduction and manipulation of platform features, and changes to platforms’ analog and digital protocols. The typology is buttressed by recent empirical examples from elections in the United States, European Union, India, Brazil, and China. Without cognizance of how platforms’ operation—both digitally as products and politically as actors—evolves in response to scandal, scholars risk overlooking a key mechanism that contextualizes social media’s role in contemporary elections.

show abstract

Section: Introduction Of New Featuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scandalous Design: How Social Media Platforms’ Responses to Scandal Impacts Campaigns and Elections

Bossetta

2020

Social Media + Society

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…While the Ad Library opens up a data stream for analyzing political ads, several scholars have noted shortcomings that directly impact research. Leerssen, Ausloos, Zarouali, Helberger, and de Vreese (2018) critique the Ad Library along the vagaries of defining a "political" ad, its verification processes, and a lack of detail regarding targeting practices. Bossetta (2020) further highlights how the Ad Library's search requirement limits scholars' understanding of political advertising at an aggregate level.…”

Section: Theoretical Motivationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

FBAdLibrarian and Pykognition: open science tools for the collection and emotion detection of images in Facebook political ads with computer vision

Schmøkel¹,

Bossetta²

2021

Journal of Information Technology & Politics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We present a methodological workflow using two open science tools that we developed. The first, FBAdLibrian, collects images from the Facebook Ad Library. The second, Pykognition, simplifies facial and emotion detection in images using computer vision. We provide a methodological workflow for using these tools and apply them to a case study of the 2020 US primary elections. We find that unique images of campaigning candidates are only a fraction (<.1%) of overall ads. Furthermore, we find that candidates most often display happiness and calm in their facial expressions, and they rarely attack opponents in image-based ads from their official Facebook pages. When candidates do attack, opponents are portrayed with emotions such as anger, sadness, and fear.

show abstract

“…Facebook's Ad Library 12 , for example, is an attempt to introduce carefully designed observability, here with regard to (political) advertisement. Despite the limitations of the existing setup (see Leerssen et al, 2019) Larsson, 2016) to crisis communication during disasters (e.g. Bruns & Burgess, 2014), as well as the technical mechanisms behind ranking and recommendation (e.g., Airoldi et al, 2016;Rieder et al, 2018).…”

Section: Observe Platform Behaviour Over Timementioning

confidence: 99%

Towards platform observability

Rieder¹,

Hofmann²

2020

Internet Policy Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The growing power of digital platforms raises the question of democratic control or at least containment. In light of the transforming impact of platforms on markets, the public sphere, elections, and employment conditions, governments, and civil society alike are demanding more transparency and accountability. Shedding light on the principles and practices of algorithmic ordering promises to limit the power of platforms by subjecting their hidden operations to regulatory inspection. This article questions the popular image of an openable 'black box' . Based on a critical reflection on transparency as a panacea for curtailing platform power, we propose the concept of observability to deal more systematically with the problem of studying complex algorithmic systems. We set out three broad principles as regulatory guidelines for making platforms more accountable. These principles concern the normative and analytical scope, the empirical and temporal dimension, and the necessary capacities for learning and knowledge generation.Issue 4

show abstract

Platform ad archives: promises and pitfalls

Cited by 51 publications

References 7 publications

Scandalous Design: How Social Media Platforms’ Responses to Scandal Impacts Campaigns and Elections

Scandalous Design: How Social Media Platforms’ Responses to Scandal Impacts Campaigns and Elections

FBAdLibrarian and Pykognition: open science tools for the collection and emotion detection of images in Facebook political ads with computer vision

Towards platform observability

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About