The persuasiveness of political targeting

In an era where digital technologies shape our daily lives, political campaigning has undergone a revolutionary transformation, using sophisticated voter data to reach individuals with personalized messages. Through a literature review and three empirical studies, this dissertation enhances our understanding of political targeting's nuances and effectiveness. The literature review identifies gaps in existing research, such as the lack of comparative analysis of targeting strategies, dynamic examination of repeated ad exposure, exploration of mechanisms between ad exposure and voting behavior, and individual and contextual moderating effects. To address these gaps, the dissertation presents empirical evidence using three innovative methodologies: a hybrid approach of browser tracking and panel surveys, a combination of mobile experience sampling, panel surveys, and content analysis, and a longitudinal experimental design. These methods capture online political ad exposure in realistic election settings. The dissertation overall finds small persuasive effects of political advertising. Repeated exposure to online political ads increases the likelihood of voting for the advertised party, especially among voters with lower political knowledge and online privacy literacy. Issue-based targeting, where ads address topics important to the voter, is perceived more positively and enhances voting behavior, transcending partisan biases. Ads aligning with both party and issue preferences are most positively received, with no significant difference in effectiveness between party-based and issue-based targeting. This dissertation emphasizes the need for educational initiatives to improve online privacy literacy, and calls for regulatory measures to protect vulnerable groups from manipulative content. It contributes to fostering a healthier information consumption environment during elections.