Citizens’ acceptance of data-driven political campaigning: a 25-country cross-national vignette study

Abstract

This paper investigates how the acceptance of data-driven political campaigning depends on four different message characteristics. A vignette study was conducted in 25 countries with a total of 14,390 respondents who all evaluated multiple descriptions of political advertisements. Relying on multi-level models, we find that in particular the source and the issue of the message matters. Messages that are sent by a party the respondent likes and deal with a political issue the respondent considers important are rated more acceptable. Furthermore, targeting based on general characteristics instead of individual ones is considered more acceptable, as is a general call to participate in the upcoming elections instead of a specific call to vote for a certain party. Effects differ across regulatory contexts, with the negative impact of both individual targeting and a specific call to vote for a certain party being in countries that have higher levels of legislative regulation.

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Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Vliegenthart, R. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2401-2914 Vrielink, J. Dommett, K. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0624-6610 Gibson, R. Bon, E. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5647-5281 Chu, X. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0480-0526 de Vreese, C. Lecheler, S. Matthes, J. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9408-955X Minihold, S. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9130-4998 Otto, L. Stubenvoll, M. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1870-0403 Kruikemeier, S.
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	© 2024 The Authors. Except as otherwise noted, this author-accepted version of a journal article published in Social Science Computer Review is made available via the University of Sheffield Research Publications and Copyright Policy under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © The Author(s) 2024. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
Keywords:	privacy; microtargeting; vignette study; data driven campaigns; elections; data-driven campaigning; acceptance; vignettes; cross-national comparison; privacy regulations
Dates:	Published: October 2024 Published (online): 30 April 2024
Institution:	The University of Sheffield
Academic Units:	The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Politics and International Relations (Sheffield)
Funding Information:	Funder Grant number NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR RESEARCH FUNDING AGENCY COOPERATION IN EUROPE 462-19-032
Depositing User:	Symplectic Sheffield
Date Deposited:	09 Aug 2024 09:40
Last Modified:	30 Sep 2024 10:45
Status:	Published
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Refereed:	Yes
Identification Number:	10.1177/08944393241249708
Related URLs:	Author
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:215285

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Citizens’ acceptance of data-driven political campaigning: a 25-country cross-national vignette study

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