Accessing information about interest group advertising content
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Accessing information about interest group advertising content Michael M. Franz1 · Erika Franklin Fowler2 · Travis N. Ridout3
© Springer Nature Limited 2020
Abstract Interest groups scholars often want to track the political involvement of groups through their advertising, but there is no one source that covers the universe of advertising. We report here on three of the most commonly used and comprehensive data sources on group-sponsored advertising in the USA, noting the strengths and weaknesses of each. These data sources are the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Web site, the Wesleyan Media Project, and the Facebook ad library. We focus on both the completeness of the information provided and the ease of accessing the information. We conclude that the strengths of each database differ. FCC data are good for a comprehensive view of a particular state or media market. WMP data are great for information on television spending and content, while the Facebook library, in spite of bugs, provides the best data on digital ad spending and content. Keywords Interest groups · Political advertising · FCC · Wesleyan Media Project · Facebook
Introduction Interest groups have been heavily involved in recent candidate and issue campaigns in the USA. One of the primary ways through which interest groups seek to influence election outcomes is through political advertising. Since 2012, interest groups have accounted for around 30% of the television ad airings in House and Senate races (Fowler et al 2020), and extensive scholarship has documented the role of
* Travis N. Ridout [email protected] 1
Bowdoin College, Brunswick, USA
2
Wesleyan University, Middletown, USA
3
School of Politics, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Washington State University, Pullman, USA
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interest groups in other campaigns, such as those for state supreme court (e.g., Baum 2017), and ballot measures (Rogers and Middleton 2015). There are an increasing number of information sources on group-sponsored advertising in the USA. In this piece, we focus on three of the primary sources for information about interest group advertising: the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Web site, the Wesleyan Media Project (WMP), and the Facebook ad library. Each resource has key strengths and unique challenges, of which we focus on two: the completeness of the information and the ease of accessing the information. FCC data are good for a comprehensive view of a particular state or media market. WMP data are great for information on television spending and content, while the Facebook library, in spite of bugs, provides the best data on digital ad spending and content. We conclude the paper with comments about the application of these data to questions about group spending in campaigns.
FCC public inspection file Since 1965, the FCC has required broadcasters in the USA to maintain a “political file” open to public inspection (Terry 2017). This political file contains records of ad purchase requests, the rate paid, t
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