Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Evolution Of American Microtargeting: An Examination Of Modern Political Messaging, Luke Bunting

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

The usage of targeted messaging by political campaigns has seen a drastic evolution in the past fifty years. Through advancement in campaign technology and an increasingly large amount of personal information for sale to organizations willing to pay for it, campaigns have continually narrowed their scope from targeting large demographic groups to targeting voters individually through a process called microtargeting. This paper examines the history of microtargeting in American presidential campaigns, which has resulted in a smaller, more polarized electorate.