Abstract
This article argues that new media technologies are likely to elicit changes in the content, tone, and potential electoral impact of those campaign messages micro-targeted through them, with a resulting increase in the level of unaccountable, deceptive, pseudonymous campaigning. Access to data-mined information will increase the likelihood that the candidate with the larger war-chest will gain an advantage by changing the composition of the electorate. In a world of micro-targeted messaging, reporters have greater difficulty holding sponsors accountable and policing deception.
About the author
Kathleen Hall Jamieson is the Elizabeth Ware Packard Professor at the Annenberg School for Communication of the University of Pennsylvania and Director of its Annenberg Public Policy Center.
- 1
Excluding money spent by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) which sponsored its ads with Obama for America and the Republican National Committee (RNC), spending totaled $361,641,510.
- 2
Source: Kantar Media CMAG.
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