The influence of political fit, issue fit and targeted political advertising disclosures on persuasion knowledge, party evaluation and chilling effects

The availability of online data has altered the role of social media. By offering targeted online advertising, that is, persuasive messages tailored to user groups, political parties profit from large data profiles to send fine-grained advertising appeals to susceptible voters. This between-subject experiment (N = 421) investigates the influence of targeted political advertising disclosures (targeting vs. no-targeting disclosure), political fit (high vs. low), and issue fit (high vs. low) on recipients’ party evaluation and chilling effect intentions. The mediating role of targeting knowledge (TK) and perceived manipulative intent (PMI), two dimensions of persuasion knowledge, are investigated. The findings show that disclosing a targeting strategy and a high political fit activated individuals’ TK, that is, their recognition that their data had been used to show the ads, which then increased the evaluation of the political party and individuals’ intentions to engage in future chilling effect behaviors. High political fit decreased individuals’ reflections about the appropriateness of the targeted political ads (i.e., PMI), which then increased party evaluation. Issue fit did not affect individuals’ persuasion knowledge.