This thesis asks what conditions elevated the Cambridge Analytica (CA) conflict
into a sustained and global political issue? Was this a privacy conflict and if so, how was
it framed as such? This work demonstrates that the public outcry to CA formed out of
three underlying structural conditions: The rise of the alt-right as an ideology,
surveillance capitalism, and a growing and unregulated voter analytics industry. A
network of actors seized the momentum of this conflict to drive the message that voter
surveillance is a threat to democratic elections. These actors humanized the CA conflict
and created a catalyst for a large scale public outrage to these previously ignored
structures. Their focus on democratic threat also allowed this conflict to transcend the
typical contours of a privacy conflict and demonstrate that the consequences of CA are
societal, rather than personal. Despite the democratic threat of voter surveillance, Canada
and the United States have yet to address the wider implications of voter surveillance
adequately. Thus, how these systems are used will be a question of central importance in
upcoming elections. / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/11075 |
| Date | 28 August 2019 |
| Creators | Gordon, Jesse |
| Contributors | Bennett, Colin J. |
| Source Sets | University of Victoria |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | Available to the World Wide Web |
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