Abstract in Englisch:

While in the past, most political communication occurred via television commercials and approaching people in the streets, political parties recently followed their target groups to where they often reside: online, on social media specifically. On these platforms, users and their behaviors leave traces. This information, combined with information that users freely share, such as demographics or location data, is stored by platforms. Platforms enable political advertisers to use these data and segment very specific target groups. Subsequently, these target groups can be targeted in detail and shown specific advertisements. These political advertisements are developed to resonate optimally within target groups. This specific method of narrowly personalizing political advertisements based on user data is called political microtargeting. While risks regarding the utilization of this technique exist, solutions to counter these potential negative effects also exist. Disclosure labels are able to inform receivers of messages that they are targeted directly on the advertisement itself. However, the implementation of disclosures on advertisements has certain consequences that have not yet been thoroughly investigated in the context of microtargeting. Thus, this dissertation investigated the impact of so-called targeting disclosures on political advertisements by scrutinizing receivers’ recognition processes and reactions to the message if it contained a disclosure. Moreover, the consequences for users’ perceptions of the source and message were examined. Finally, the privacy aspect of microtargeting was scrutinized by determining which indicators lead to users’ intentions to protect their data online. First, Study I compared a post containing a targeting disclosure to a regular advertisement and an organic post on Facebook. The findings of this study showed no relationship between different disclosures, users’ level of targeting recognition, and their perceptions. However, most participants did not recall the disclosure, which may have influenced these findings. Furthermore, Study II compared an advertisement containing an interactive targeting disclosure to one containing a sponsorship disclosure on Facebook and investigated whether this led to better recognition. Moreover, the study examined resistance as a way of coping with these messages, and scrutinized whether this led to differences in users’ perceptions and attitudes. The findings showed no meaningful differences in recognition between the two disclosures. However, it was found that if users are aware of the targeting occurring, they cognitively resist the message, which relates to less favorable perceptions of the source and attitudes towards the politician. Subsequently, Study III compared a targeting disclosure based on Instagram’s misinformation disclosures used during the COVID-19 pandemic to the platform’s currently used disclosure. Further, this study investigated users’ privacy concerns and benefit perceptions and whether these led to intentions to protect one’s data online. The findings show that the targeting disclosure increased users’ recognition of the advertisement being targeted at them, which led to more benefit perceptions but not privacy concerns. However, users’ privacy concerns were related to their intention to protect their online data. Finally, Study IV compared two disclosures based on the misinformation disclosures that Instagram used in the COVID-19 pandemic and investigated whether the targeting disclosure led to more visual attention to the disclosure, and, in turn, to more critical processing, but also visual attention to the advertisement. The findings showed no meaningful effect of the disclosure on visual attention to the disclosure but did show that attention to the disclosure led to more critical processing of the message and more visual attention to the advertisement itself. By means of these four studies, this dissertation shows that disclosures are able to inform receivers more effectively about microtargeting if the prominence is improved by using more attention-attracting factors such as red text and including an icon. In addition, the findings show that transparency measures can be effective in increasing receivers’ knowledge and recognition of the persuasive messages they receive, which, in turn, can lead to more cognitive resistance to those messages. Moreover, recognition can lead to less favorable perceptions of the sender of the message and their credibility. Finally, the recognition of microtargeting does not lead to users minding microtargeted advertisements, but they tend to engage in more behavior to protect their online data if they have higher levels of privacy concerns. The findings of this dissertation also imply that, while persuasion knowledge can still be used to investigate how receivers recognize and potentially cope with persuasive attempts, it is important to extend this model by adding the aspect of the technique to both the perspective of the sender and the receiver of the message. Moreover, it is demonstrated that if receivers are aware of the targeted nature of an advertisement, they can cope with it by resisting the persuasive attempt, and that this, in turn, can lead to less favorable attitudes towards the sender of the message or the person that is advertised. In doing so, this dissertation contributed to the understanding of transparency measures in the fields of persuasive and political communication.