Election campaigning, as a type of political campaigning, is the activity of political parties and candidates for a certain period of time before an election to try to persuade voters to vote for them. Given that the outcome of an election is the selection of a particular candidate as the new representative of the people, it is of course crucial in a modern, mature society that this process be as democratic, equal, fair and transparent as possible. These are the reasons that make it necessary, as a rule, to regulate the election campaign. However, with the development of technology in the digital age, electoral campaigns, like many other areas, face new challenges.
This Master's thesis examines the evolution of election campaigning up to the modern, digitally intertwined era. Using the notorious Cambridge Analytica scandal as a case study, the emergence of microtargeting as the most modern tool of digital election campaigns and its impact on democratic processes in society is presented.
Microtargeting can be understood as the use of algorithmic analysis techniques to stimulate people's political awareness and behaviour in line with hidden political interests, which can be carried out by exploiting extremely large amounts of personal data, often without the active knowledge and understanding of the users. This violates the privacy and data protection rights of voters.
As legislation needs to keep pace with the development of technologies in society, the pitfalls arising from the use of political microtargeting techniques make it especially important to address this area, but at the same time, it is necessary to be very vigilant, as regulating and restricting microtargeting as a form of political speech infringes on the freedom of expression of political actors.
|
