Search

Data-driven campaigning has become one of the key foci for academic and non-academic audiences interested in political communication. Widely seen to have transformed political practice, it is often argued that data-driven campaigning is a force of significant democratic disruption because it contributes to a fragmentation of political discourse, undermines prevailing systems of electoral accountability and subverts 'free' and 'fair' elections. In this article, we present one of the very first cross-national analyses of data-driven campaigning by political parties. Drawing on empirical research conducted by experts in six advanced democracies, we show that the data-driven campaign practices seen to threaten democracy are often not manifest in party campaigns. Instead, we see a set of practices that build on pre-existing techniques and which are far less sophisticated than is often assumed. Indeed, we present evidence that most political parties lack the capacity to execute the hyper-intensive practices often associated with data-driven campaigning. Hence, while there is reason to remain alert to the challenges data-driven campaigning produces for democratic norms, we argue that this practice is not inherently disruptive, but rather exemplifies the evolving nature of political campaigning in the 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In 2023, the Canadian government passed legislation empowering the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to require streaming platforms to ensure the “discoverability” of Canadian content. These debates about discoverability provisions primarily focused on the promotion of Canadian content, with little emphasis on gender and racial equity. Analysis: Through interviews with stakeholders in the Canadian screen industry, we explore views on recommendation systems and questions of gender and race bias in streaming recommendations. Conclusion and implications: Interviews revealed concerns beyond promoting “Canadian” content that the broadcast reform initiative focuses on, including concerns about streaming recommendations’ tendencies to promote a narrow range of content and their failure to “see” and recommend content from racialized women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]