{"id":393,"date":"2012-10-18T14:30:41","date_gmt":"2012-10-18T21:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.reed.edu\/politika\/?p=393"},"modified":"2014-03-18T10:10:20","modified_gmt":"2014-03-18T17:10:20","slug":"guest-posting-the-victory-lab-visits-ppls-oct-4-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/2012\/10\/18\/guest-posting-the-victory-lab-visits-ppls-oct-4-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Posting: The Victory Lab visits PPLS Oct 4, 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Photo courtesy of Jacob Canter<\/p><\/div>\n

Guest posting by Jacob Canter, Reed junior and PPLS Steering Committee:<\/em><\/p>\n

Sasha Issenberg, dressed in a dark blazer and sporting a\u00a0five o’clock shadow, was speaking at Reed College to talk about his new\u00a0book The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns<\/a>. However–as some in the\u00a0audience expected–this was not to be a discussion on the merits of\u00a0new media.<\/p>\n

Rather, Issenberg’s talk focused on\u00a0two contemporary political phenomena. The first is about the use of\u00a0field experimentation and controlled scientific analysis in campaigns.\u00a0The second is about the explosive rise in information campaigns now have\u00a0about voters. A combination of test two phenomena has made all parties\u00a0more effective at reaching their constituencies. For the few people who\u00a0actually enjoy political campaigns becoming more active, this is\u00a0undoubtedly a good thing.<\/p>\n

But of course, many are not as excited\u00a0to hear about this newly armed and fully operational\u00a0battle-(campaign)-station. Two questions during\u00a0 the Q\/A were related to this\u00a0concern. The first was about the striking lack of privacy it appears weall now have. Campaigns go through<\/a>\u00a0thousands of pieces of information to produce a character image that\u00a0describes exactly who they think we are. Should we be concerned about\u00a0what these private groups having all this knowledge? The second was\u00a0about what this new behavior is doing to democracy. If campaigns\u00a0continue to micro-target, are we no longer becoming a country under a\u00a0single leader? What is there to stop campaigns from changing the message\u00a0for every voter, until politics has less to do with compromise than
\nkowtowing.<\/p>\n

Issenberg’s response was essentially\u00a0that such concerns miss the point. In the US, we have been very willing\u00a0to give up our information for common conveniences (think about
\nhow much Google knows\u00a0about us<\/a>), and campaigns have always kowtowed to specific interests. The mere fact that campaigns are much better at this now than twenty\u00a0years ago does not suddenly make it a problem. Rather, it means that\u00a0campaigns are suddenly taking their jobs much more seriously, and that\u00a0our future political leaders will be determined by who can appreciate\u00a0the power of these tools. Rather than bemoan the existence of these\u00a0tools, we should appreciate their existence, and be conscience of their
\neffects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guest posting by Jacob Canter, Reed junior and PPLS Steering Committee: Sasha Issenberg, dressed in a dark blazer and sporting a\u00a0five o’clock shadow, was speaking at Reed College to talk about his new\u00a0book The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":544,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393\/revisions\/544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}