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Big Data Campaigning

Ross Tapsell

Malaysia has been a crucial site for examining the role of ‘new media’ in election
campaigning. Since the emergence of the internet in the late 1990s, urban
Malaysians have been highly innovative in adopting new media technologies
to push for reforms. Email lists, alternative news sites, blogging, and social-
media discourse have all been central to campaign strategies, particularly
for opposition parties looking to out ank the generally pro-government
mainstream media. It is unsurprising then, that, as ‘big data’ companies—
organisations that collate information to analyse voter behaviour—become
central to election campaigns globally, they would nd their way to Malaysia.
All the major political parties employed big data companies in Malaysia’s 14th
general election of 2018 (hereafter GE14), using data-driven algorithms to
identify ‘swing’ voters and advertise accordingly on social media.
is chapter incorporates empirical research throughout Malaysia’s GE14,
including personal interviews with campaigners in political parties as well
as employees inside big data companies. In Malaysian political parties,
respondents talked of GE14 as a ‘referendum’ on big data campaigning. While
campaign professionals spoke of big data as ‘the future of campaigning’, it
is di cult to ascertain whether big data companies were in whole or part
responsible for the GE14 result. Regardless, their emergence raises signi cant
moral and theoretical questions for election campaigns and democracy. Many
Malaysians (as well as foreign observers) see the unprecedented regime change
of 2018 as laying the foundations for a democratic path, which makes it all the
more pertinent to ask: what is the role of ‘big data’ campaigning in shaping the
contemporary political environment and electoral democracy?

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