Micro-targeting, the quantified persuasion

During the past three decades there has been a persistent, and dark, narrative about political micro-targeting. But while it might seem that the micro-targeting practices of campaigns have massive, and un-democratic, electoral effects, decades of work in political communication should give us pause. What explains the outsized concerns about micro-targeting in the face of the generally thin evidence of its widespread and pernicious effects? This essay argues that we have anxieties about micro-targeting because we have anxieties about democracy itself. Or, to put it differently, that scholars often hold up an idealised vision of democracy as the standard upon which to judge all political communication.