Democracy in the information age: the new political enigma
Author
Faculty Advisor
Date
2018
Keywords
political campaigns, case studies, Big Data, predictive modelling
Abstract (summary)
The introduction of the Internet to the toolkit of political campaigns has cardinally altered the landscape of democratic elections. As the Internet has expanded so has the level of information it brings alongside, where the amount of data produced in 2017 outweighs the entirety of human societies. Prior to the Age of Information, society has been limited in their capacity to access information, now we are purview to information glut; with unprecedented information comes unprecedented consequences. Data has provided a means for institutions to accumulate, calculate, and nudge human interaction based on predictive analytical techniques where this compendium of information, produced through the Internet, has reduced citizens into analytical nodes. But what is the long run impact of a future predicated on predictive analytics, where individuals are compiled into grand data sets and outcomes are the result of scaled data operations? This paper seeks to rectify this question. When applied to the democratic process, how will political campaigns utilize this technology to advance their campaigns? What is the impact of Big Data and predictive analytics on individual autonomy and how does this contribute to an increasingly fragmented society?
Publication Information
Notes
Item Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Language
English
Rights
All Rights Reserved