Are microtargeted campaign messages more negative and diverse? An analysis of Facebook Ads in European election campaigns

Abstract Concerns about the use of online political microtargeting (OPM) by campaigners have arisen since Cambridge Analytica scandal hit international arena. In addition to providing conceptual clarity on OPM and explore such techniques in Europe, this paper seeks empirically disentangle differing behaviours when they message citizens through microtargeted rather than non-targeted campaigning. More precisely, I hypothesise that negative campaigning are more diverse terms topics OPM. To investigate whether these expectations hold true, text-as-data analyse an original dataset 4,091 Facebook Ads during last national elections Austria, Italy, Germany Sweden. Results show while ads might indeed be thematically diverse, there does not seem a significant difference non-microtargeted negativity. conclusion, discuss implications findings for campaigns how future research could conducted.