Over half of the world’s population votes in national elections in 2024, including in India, the U.S., the U.K. and France. In most of these campaigns, political advertising was a key tool used by politicians to communicate with voters. Given changes in the media landscape and recent technological developments, it is worth assessing the current role of political advertising in political campaigns around the globe. We seek research that addresses a variety of questions related to the use of political advertising in contemporary political campaigns, ranging from cross-national studies of multiple campaigns to in-depth analysis of one specific campaign.
Papers might consider:
- the extent to which modern ad campaigns are growing increasingly similar due to a cadre of global campaign consultants and digital platforms like Meta and Google, which enable political advertising nearly every country
- approaches to the study of political advertising using “big data” and computational approaches
- the extent to which AI and data analytics have become factors in creating, tailoring and targeting political advertising
- new venues and platforms for the distribution of political advertising and the role of traditional platforms, such as television, for ad distribution
- the varied impacts of exposure to digital political advertising on voters—and the contexts under which it is likely to matter the most
- public opinion on political advertising