The impact of unpaid messages must also be taken into account.
What role did paid political advertising on social networks, particularly microtargeting, play in the last European elections? The study “Microtargeting in Germany in the 2019 European Elections” by Simon Hegelich and his team at the Technical University of Munich provides initial insights. The central results of the study, which were commissioned by the North Rhine-Westphalia State Media Authority, the Bavarian State Center for New Media, the Berlin-Brandenburg Media Authority and the Rhineland-Palatinate State Center for Media and Communication, were presented today at the Munich Media Days 2019.
The demand for greater transparency of paid political advertising in social networks is definitely justified, because the political parties in Germany have begun to experiment with microtargeting, i.e. paid personalized advertising, but sometimes use it very differently. This is what the study by the team led by the political and data scientist Prof. Dr. Devoted to Simon Hegelich.
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Microtargeting analysis
The researchers had access to the advertising archives of Facebook and Google to analyze microtargeting in Germany during the 2019 European elections. What was evaluated was how much paid political advertising was booked by which party and according to which principle it was played out. Basically, the data shows that microtargeting still plays a minor role in Germany. Further results in detail: The CDU invested by far the most money in political advertising, with almost 560,000 euros, roughly equally divided between Facebook and Google, and pursued a microtargeting strategy just like the other parties. The AfD, on the other hand, invested the least with only around 45,000 euros, roughly equally divided between Facebook and Google, and did not do any microtargeting.
High reach is achieved primarily with political messages that are not booked as advertisements, where the boundary between advertising and information becomes increasingly blurred for the viewer. This form of political communication in particular now needs to be examined more closely in terms of its content and mechanisms and, if necessary, included in regulation. Further analyzes show that the AfD achieved ten times as much interaction and therefore a much greater organic reach on social networks than the other parties. Given these results, the question arises as to whether their success can be explained by authentic user behavior.
Simon Hegelich says: “In our analyses, we found that microtargeting has so far only made up a small part of the parties’ activities in election campaigns. At the same time, we see the extreme reach that the AfD achieves with its posts. These are not marked as advertising and so there is a worrying distortion in the online political discourse. So far, however, this has not been covered by the platforms or by regulation.”
When does something become political advertising?
Another problem that arose from the analysis of the advertising archives: It is unclear which criteria the platforms use to classify an advertisement as political. While Google refers to well-known political actors, Facebook tries to link political advertising to the content. This repeats the transparency problem on a different level.
BLM President Siegfried Schneider assesses the present results on behalf of the media companies involved: “We now know that political advertising on social media has arrived in the parties’ digital election campaigns and can also influence political discourse. Above all, the study shows the lack of transparency of political advertising on social media. In contrast to broadcasting, there is currently no regulation here.”
The results of the study are available for download blm.de.
This might also be of interest:
TikTok is now banning political advertising
Article image: Shutterstock / By BigTunaOnline
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