Presentation by Damian Tambini at the 2019 CMPF Summer School for Journalists and Media Practitioners - Covering Political Campaigns in the Age of Data, Algorithms & Artificial Intelligence

1. Journalism, Democracy, and the New Political Campaigns
Damian Tambini
EUI 2019

3. Overview of session
• Journalism and Democracy: the special responsibility of journalists in
European Liberal Democracy
• Elections and the challenge of legitimacy: The new propaganda
• A Case Study: the journalism of Carole Cadwalladr
Discussion exercise: how can we, as journalists, protect democracy and
reveal illegality and abuse relating to elections?

4. To Whom are Journalists Responsible?

5. To Whom are Journalists Responsible?
Owners
shareholders
the
market
Editors
readers
sources ‘Truth’ The public
interest
democracy Law Social
cohesion
The
State

7. Meeting for the Repeal of the Taxes on Knowledge 1851

8. New Zealand Law Commission 2012
“..in most western-style democracies,
including our own, the law accords the
news media a special legal status. As a
result the news media have legal
privileges and exemptions which are not
available to ordinary citizens.
(…) these are intended to ensure the
news media are able to perform their
democratic functions.”
Media Freedom : Institutional Theories

9. Lichtenberg on Freedom of the Press
“If press institutions or their agents have
special rights, it is because the people as
a whole have granted them; if the people
have granted them, it is because doing so
is to the benefit of us all”
Judith Lichtenberg Democracy and the
Mass Media p 128.

10. Rights and Duties: the realities of
‘institutional freedom’
Privileges
 Tax breaks (e.g. VAT
exemption).
 Subsidies (e.g. in
Scandinavian countries,
France).
 Public interest defences –
e.g. in relation to privacy
and defamation.
 Carveouts and exemptions
(e.g. in Data Protection).
 Court deference to self
regulation
Responsibilities
• Observe ethical codes
• Respect rights of others
• Serve a watchdog role?
• Provide information for the public
… ‘Self regulate’

11. Rights and Duties: the realities of
‘institutional freedom’
Privileges
 Tax breaks (e.g. VAT
exemption).
 Subsidies (e.g. in
Scandinavian countries,
France).
 Public interest defences –
e.g. in relation to privacy
and defamation.
 Carveouts and exemptions
(e.g. in Data Protection).
 Court deference to self
regulation
Responsibilities
• Observe ethical codes
• Respect rights of others
• Serve a watchdog role?
• Provide information for the public
… ‘Self regulate’

12. Part 2:
• Protecting elections and the role of journalists: the new political
campaigning

13. “Elections are won and lost on data”
• Nigel Farage 7 June 2019
• https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48532869

14. Why is the shift to data driven elections a
problem for democracy?

15. Potential problems with social media targeting
Transparency
Fairness
Legitimacy
Voter autonomy

16. Potential problems…
Regulatory failure?
• New targeted propaganda is not regulated like TV Party Political Broadcasts.
Spending limits have not been updated
• Creating expensive databases of voters - not included in campaign spend
• Relatively cheap FB advertising - counts as total campaign spend
• Data protection and privacy: breaching data consent?
• Problems of enforcement
…Longer term:
• Filter bubbles, truth and accuracy, ‘dog whistle’ politics?
• Transparency and accountability: “Dark Posts”
• Psychometric/ individual profiling

17. Normative concerns*
*SeeBarocas(2012) fora discussion
Personalization
‘Fakenews’
Redlining
Opacity
Negativity
Radicalization
Misinformation
Manipulation Disenfranchisement

18. Regulation of Election Campaigns
OVERALL AIMS: ELECTIONS SHOULD BE FAIR, CLEAN, AND TRANSPARENT
International standards, election monitoring, domestic election law, broadcasting and media law,
journalism ethics.
• Donation limits
• Spending limits
• Specific rules on categories of donators
• Blackout periods
• Broadcasting regulation (advertising bans, impartiality, ownership rules).
• Transparency obligations
• Other issues ‘undue influence’, electoral fraud, ‘false statements of fact’.

19. Election legitimacy
The point of regulation is NOT to exclude or
disadvantage new political actors or ideas,
only to maintain a level playing field
in the democratic game

20. The New Propaganda
• Short term: illegal election ‘hacking’ by
circumventing or breaking election law
• Longer term: undermining the normative
legitimacy of democracy itself; ie. voter
autonomy, rational critical deliberation as
the basis of public choice.

21. Part 3: Journalism Versus the New Propaganda

23. What are the implications of data driven
democracy for your practice as journalists?

24. How to investigate this?
Who are the key sources?
Follow the money?
Can you gather ‘dark ads’?
How to work with civil society?
Know your electoral law

25. How to write about this?
• What metaphors, imagery, expertise?
• How to get the story out during election campaigns?
• Is it possible to rise above the fray?
• ‘Smoking Gun’ illegality versus raising awareness of unethical
behaviour

26. Election Stories in the Digital Age
Illegality
• Breaching spending limits
• Breaching donation limits
• Transparency obligations
• Shadow Campaigns
• Data Consent/ other data
protection rules
• Foreign involvement
Legal but unethical
• Targeting mixed messages
• Lack of transparency
• Bots
• ‘astro-turfing’ (fake grassroots)
• Psychometric profiling
• Profiling
• Redlining (excluding some
groups)