Persuasion Lab explores methodological, aesthetic and discursive responses to understand the informational turn in propaganda and influence

Persuasion Lab

Advertising marketplaces have become coincident with information environments. This has transformed the quality of information we receive, the solidarities we are able to forge, and the material choices before us. Persuasion Lab studies these new paradigms of influence and propaganda created at the intersection of computation and capital.

counterpublics

collection and liberation of advertising data

Political advertising transparency is a framework that is designed to hide more than it reveals. Through a systematic collection and liberation of political advertising data, we create a parallel archive that is beyond the control and stewardship of advertising platforms, and construct a novel method to study the data and the framework.

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POLITICAL ADVERTISING IS A DUBIOUS CATEGORY

Classifying some ads as 'political' sustains the false idea that an entire class of advertisements is irrelevant for understanding how people’s opinions are shaped and worldviews formed.

AN AD IS MORE THAN ITS VISUAL CONTENT

The circulation of ads, driven by targeting and optimisation, is as critical for understanding the impact of social media advertising, as the visual content of ads. What if each impression is considered an ad?

ADVERTISING BUSINESS MODELS BREAK SOLIDARITY

Platforms architect the exploitation of personal data for advertising, in the process heaping power and profit unto themselves, leaving behind a broken ground for shared experience of reality, and political action.

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browse

interfaces with curated political advertisement datasets

The lab creates interfaces for browsing curated datasets of political advertisements collected from FACEBOOK Inc. The interfaces include ads from 98 countries that Facebook does not make available, elections-focussed datasets in 39 countries and thematic datasets around COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis.

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write to us at info@ad.watch