Changes in political work through the prism of big data – MUTADATA

In line with my previous work, I combine and explore different methods in this project. The research is based on a constant dialogue between qualitative and quantitative, online and empirical methods. I use online methods (netnography, online survey, network analysis) simultaneously with qualitative methods (interviews with digital political advisors, ethnography of places of sociability) in order to complement the analysis of traces of online activities.

- Qualitative survey with semi-structured interviews
The interviews with “data analysts” will provide a means to explore the meanings and motives they attach to their job. During the 2017 presidential election, approximately thirty interviews were conducted with Big data service providers for elections in France, and around ten interviews were made with political campaign staff of four political parties (La République en Marche, la France Insoumise, Les Républicains, le Parti socialiste).
The hypothesis that professional norms and especially beliefs in Big data efficiency circulate and disseminate broadly gives an international outlook to this research project. Political staffs tend to specialize, especially in the United States (Web Hammond, 1985, 1996.) The political communication profession and the figure of the “campaigner” are also seen as coming from America (Gerstlé, 2004; Riutort, 2006). European web policy advisers themselves believe that “data analytics” sprang from B. Obama campaigning. Based on a socio-history of data-driven political campaigning in America since 2004, Professor D. Kreiss has also argued that such practices are rooted in US politics. Based on the above literature review and discourses of data practitioners, the empirical investigation is twofold: extensive fieldwork in the US has already explored American data analysts practices, and the current investigation with their French counterparts will determine how the American model is mobilized and adapted.

- Online Survey of Political Activists and Digital Communication Professionals
The scope of this research project is not limited to a focus on data analysts but also centers around online practices of political activists. In addition to interviews, I circulated a questionnaire to American and French political activists who are very much active online to collect data on their sociological background, their online activism practices and on their own representations on the use of their data. This database will be completed through in-depth interviews with a variety of different profiles previously identified.

- Online and offline observations and cartography to grasp professional practices beyond the official political speeches.
I have already prepared a non-exhaustive list of web communication agencies already associated with the political parties. A cartography and typology of these structures will be prepared next:
- In the United States: Blue Digital, EchoDitto, Voter Activation Network, ActBlue, NGP Van, 270 Strategies, Civis Analytics, Nation Builder.
- In France: La Netscouade, Emakina, Liegeymullerpons, Spintank. Digitalbox, Datactivist.

The scope is to investigate both the electoral context – since it happens to be a crucial moment in the construction and visibility of data experts- and the pre/post electoral period to follow the routine work of “data analysts” and analyze their trajectories.

- Reflexivity on long-distance fieldwork
The difficulty of accessing a fieldsite that is far away deserves to be developed and shared beyond fieldwork during a pandemic. Scholars with long-distance fieldwork without financial grant, or those working in war zones, violent or insecure situations (Bouju 2018) encounter similar obstacles. It reflects upon literature on “mine-field(work)” (Albera, 2011), “security-sensitive fieldwork” (Bouillon, Frésia, Tallio, 2005) or fieldwork during crisis. Some questions have raised concern on value, legitimacy and the specificities of online empirical fieldwork.
- Differentiated use of social networks and increasing use of big data in national campaigning– and even in local campaigning but rather in a less systematic way.
Nowadays a website, blog or Facebook page are a must-have in a national campaign to showcase candidates and increase their visibility. The web can host paper flyers in a static way. It can equally take the form of live-tweets or riposte-party, including interactive Facebook live: social media use in electoral campaigns is skyrocketing and can be considered as part of “a demonstration of modernity”. Digital technology is not only a means of communication to spread a political campaign agenda or to enhance one’s image, it also raises strong strategic issues in an electoral campaign around the organization and mobilization of constituencies and activists. F. Hollande's 2012 victory has established the belief of big data efficiency in winning an electoral election and contributed to the development of this market in France.

As a result, Big data analysts, who are selling these rationalization and optimization techniques on political activism, have intensified the belief in growing efficiency of data. Furthermore, they insist on its essentiality for electoral campaigns. Big data is largely used by 2022 French presidential candidates and is a new weapon in the race for votes – the NationBuilder platform has seduced a large spectrum of candidates such as Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Eric Zemmour, Anne Hidalgo or Donald Trump.
- The fieldwork will focus on the circulation of fake news, put its representativity into perspective and question the political activist strategies on negative campaigning.
The notion of political cyber-harassment has appeared in the online survey with American activists.

We are currently starting the French electoral campaign fieldwork. I started interviews with French Big data service providers. We hired a postdoctoral researcher to work on empirical fieldwork. In particular, she will conduct interviews with activists and campaign staff, and prepare a cartography of the hyperlinks on the data policy advisors’ blogs. Using the hypertexts as an indicator of collective recognition or of transnational virtual communities, we will fit “link studies” methodologies (De Mayer, 2013).

Once the electoral campaign is over, we will undertake a contextualized and longitudinal approach for “data analysts” wherein interviews with data analysts are repeated over a long period of time to understand processes and to capture trajectories in the making. The scope of the study is twofold. Firstly, we focus on the context of electoral campaigns, during which data experts are under the spotlight. Secondly, we follow and analyse the career trajectories of data analysts outside of the electoral period.

Publications in cross-national books
Book Chapters
1. Anaïs Theviot, « Can Big Data Reinvigorate Political Participation? The Case of the French presidential electoral campaign in 2017 », Agnès Alexandre-Collier, Alexandra Goujon, Guillaume Gourgues (eds.), Innovations, Reinvented Politics and Representative Democracy, Routledge, 214 P., 2020.

Publications in French
Peer reviewed publications
1. Anaïs Theviot, « Data-journalisme et pratiques infographiques : entre mise en concurrence et résistances des journalistes politiques locaux », Interfaces numériques, 9, 3, 2020. www.unilim.fr/interfaces-numeriques/4469
2. Anaïs Theviot, « Confinement et entretien à distance : quels enjeux méthodologiques ? », Terminal [En ligne], 129, 2021, URL : journals.openedition.org/terminal/7193
3. Anaïs Theviot, « Facebook, vecteur d’amplification des campagnes négatives ? », Questions de communication, 38, 2021, p. 101-124. URL : journals.openedition.org/questionsdecommunication/23770

Book Chapter
1. Boyadjian Julien, Theviot Anaïs, « Chapitre 12. La politique à l’heure des réseaux sociaux », Thomas Frinault, Christian Le Bart, Erik Neveu, éd., Nouvelle sociologie politique de la France. Armand Colin, 2021, p. 165-175

Research Presentations
1. Anaïs Theviot, « De nouvelles manières de s'engager avec le numérique ? », ouverture colloque « Quelles attentes sociétales pour quelles agricultures à l’heure du numérique ? # Numérique, révélateur et prisme d’analyse de la place de l’agriculture dans la société », évenement #Esaconnect, ESA d’Angers, 5 novembre 2020, en distanciel.
2. Anaïs Theviot, « Une campagne de plus en plus négative, irriguée de fausses informations sur les réseaux sociaux ? Le cas de la campagne pour l’élection municipale à Angers en 2020 », Journée d’étude CREMI, 3 et 4 novembre 2020, en distanciel.
3. Anaïs Theviot, « Le numérique change-t-il les manières de faire campagne ? Focus sur les stratégies de visibilité dans les médias traditionnels par l’usage du numérique », séminaire « Les discours militants et la communication numérique : visibilisation au sein de l’espace public », Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle, CIM, 19 octobre 2020.

Other Publications
1. Anaïs Theviot, « Réseaux sociaux, le force du nombre », Les grands Dossiers des Sciences Humaines « Démocratie », 62, mars-avril, mai 2021.
2. Anaïs Theviot, « Municipales 2020 : le recours au numérique pour une campagne sans contact », The Conversation, juin 2020, theconversation.com/municipales-2020-le-recours-au-numerique-pour-une-campagne-sans-contact-140362

Democratized conference
1. Table ronde avec Anaïs Theviot, « Social Data et politique : mesures et usages », Social Media Club, Paris, 4 mars 2020.
2. Anaïs Theviot, « Les campagnes politiques sur Internet », Observatoire des médias de l’université permanente de Nantes, 6 mars 2020.

Medias
1. « Présidentielle : Facebook, TikTok, Youtube… Les réseaux sociaux qui comptent pour faire campagne », Sud Ouest, Julien Rousset, le 1er février 2022.
2. « Les applications d’aide à la décision politique influencent-elles le choix des électeurs ? », La Croix, interview, Recueillis par Pierre Bienvault et Corentin Lesueur, le 18 janvier 2022.
3. « La question du jour. Connaissez-vous la plateforme Twitch ? », Le Courrier de l’Ouest, 12 janvier 2022, www.ouest-france.fr/high-tech/internet/la-question-du-jour-connaissez-vous-la-plateforme-twitch-f05498ba-73bf-11ec-adb3-e05a5ebfa4f4
4. « Présidentielle: le numérique à la rescousse pour inciter les jeunes à voter », Notre Temps, le 11 janvier 2022. www.notretemps.com/depeches/presidentielle-le-numerique-a-la-rescousse-pour-inciter-les-jeunes-a-voter-44260
5. « Pour les candidats à la présidentielle, les incertitudes d’une campagne sur les réseaux sociaux », Le Monde, Simon Auffret, 10 janvier 2022. www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2022/01/10/pour-les-candidats-a-l-election-presidentielle-les-incertitudes-d-une-campagne-numerique_6108869_823448.html
6. « Le variant Omicron accélère la mue numérique des candidats », Jean Cittone, Le Figaro, 23 décembre 2021.
7. « La data au cœur de la présidentielle », Stratégies, le 14 décembre 2021.
8. « Comment les candidats ciblent leurs électeurs », Le journal du Dimanche, article de Romane Rosset, le 5 décembre 2021.
9. « Présidentielle 2022 : pourquoi l’extrême droite et la droite semblent plus présentes que la gauche sur les réseaux sociaux ? », Aubin Laratte, Décryptage, Le Parisien, 29 octobre 2021. www.leparisien.fr/elections/presidentielle/presidentielle-2022-pourquoi-lextreme-droite-et-la-droite-semblent-plus-presentes-que-la-gauche-sur-les-reseaux-sociaux-29-10-2021-LAUU64M7GVG6HDN4NUUI25D3HU.php
10. « Ciblage électorale à la française : le grand enfumage », Socialter, juin 2020.
11. « Municipales 2020 : faux comptes, publicités illégales, insultes… Quand la campagne sur Facebook vire au Far West », France info, 24 juin 2020, www.francetvinfo.fr/elections/municipales/municipales-2020-faux-comptes-publicites-illegales-insultes-quand-la-campagne-sur-facebook-vire-au-far-west_4014045.html
12. Table-ronde avec Rémi Lefebvre, « les municipales, le virus chamboule-tout ? », Le temps des médias, France culture, le 11 juin 2020 de 18h20 à 19h. www.franceculture.fr/emissions/le-temps-du-debat/municipales-le-virus-chamboule-tout
13. « Municipales : faire campagne sur les réseaux sociaux, inévitable mais virtuel? », La voix du Nord, 12 mars 2020. www.lavoixdunord.fr/725000/article/2020-03-12/municipales-faire-campagne-sur-les-reseaux-sociaux-inevitable-mais-virtuel
14. « Municipales 2020. Place de l’Hôtel de ville : en Normandie, une campagne aux multiples réseaux », Paris-Normandie, 8 mars 2020. www.paris-normandie.fr/actualites/politique/municipales-2020-place-de-l-hotel-de-ville-en-normandie-une-campagne-aux-multiples-reseaux-IF16469573
15. « Municipales 2020 : Facebook, YouTube et même TikTok… Les candidats de petites communes font aussi campagne sur les réseaux sociaux », 20 minutes, 27 février 2020. www.20minutes.fr/high-tech/2718687-20200227-municipales-2020-facebook-youtube-tiktok-candidats-petites-communes-font-aussi-campagne-reseaux-sociaux
16. « Ce que révèle l’affaire Griveaux », La Croix, 17 février 2020. www.la-croix.com/France/Politique/Ce-revele-laffaire-Griveaux-2020-02-16-1201078647
17. « Explain, Quorum... ces stratèges numériques plébiscités par les candidats aux municipales », L’Express, 16 février 2020. www.lexpress.fr/actualite/explain-quorum-ces-strateges-numeriques-plebiscites-par-les-candidats-aux-municipales_2118220.html
18. « Les logiciels de stratégie électorale, alliés essentiels des élections municipales », Interwiew France Inter, 10 février 2020. www.franceinter.f

Big data is in fashion. In the media as in the public debate, the term is brandished as a banner of innovation. This enthusiasm is accompanied by the highlighting of new expertise (data analysts, data scientist, data miner, data protection officer, etc.) to take advantage of this trend and sell know-how to political institutions in particular. The "data workers", inspired by the American model, claim to be able to "predict" voter behavior through big data and thus "scientifically" affect the results of an election, indicating that they could make all the difference in the final result by enabling gains of 1 to 2 points. Some even argued that their services in electoral big data were a way to tackle abstention. This would mean that the right data handling and skilled data professionals would be enough to win an election.
To simplify in these terms, the discourse of data workers seems to be rather a fantasy or a deception. However, the rapid creation of specialized agencies in data management attests to the success of this rhetoric of innovation through data.

This research program questions the professionalization of a new political expertise under the prism of big data. Taking a look at providers specializing in database collection, management and analysis allows us to examine the fluctuations of partisan boundaries and the reconfigurations of political work, through the analysis of a composite and hybrid professional space torn between professionalisation, expertise and activism.

This project aims more precisely to study the modalities of setting up a professional group and to analyze the effects of these professional recompositions on political work. For each of these areas, the focus will be on both the actors and the socio-technical devices they mobilize. The focus will be on the diffusion and transnational circulation of professional standards and the belief in the effectiveness of web-campaigns that build and legitimize these digital political professions.

Combining an approach of sociology of professions, economic sociology and political sociology of parties, we will conduct a comparative analysis of French and American professional spaces, including through an immersion in two data analysis electoral agencies. We will also conduct surveys by semi-directive interviews with American and French "data workers", observations of work practices in other agencies or co-working spaces, mapping of networks of actors, as well as a questionnaire survey of professionals in digital policy communication in general. The contribution of our fellow computer scientists and mathematicians will "open the black box of data analytics" and analyze the fabric of predictive algorithms.


This study will provide information on more general phenomena: professionalization and political communication, electoral law, the protection of personal data, fluctuations in partisan borders but also the circulation of standards on an international scale. This project proposes to make an empirically supported contribution to debates and controversies relating to institutional model transfers of change.


Key words: big data, political work, professionalisation, election, political communication, United States.