Both the 2016 US election of President Trump and the outcome of the 2016 United Kingdom European Union Membership Referendum, in favour of the Vote Leave campaign, are frequently given as examples to illustrate the power of micro-targeting in PR campaigns. Harvesting data to profile audiences has made it possible to identify people who are likely to be especially receptive to particular ways of framing issues. It is allowing political campaigns with sufficient funding to buy access to many discrete audiences through Social Media (SM), and it is making it possible to develop psychological profiles to send tailored messages, designed as powerful triggers, to people who are judged to be potentially receptive targets for influence. Is this clever marketing, or is it buying democratic outcomes?

‘Take back control’, how had such a vague message been so influential in the 2016 United Kingdom European Union Membership Referendum? The Referendum result surprised many people, including professional pollsters and the sitting Prime Minster who called the Referendum, David Cameron. After nearly half a century of membership and close cooperation with the EU, a narrow majority in the UK had voted to leave the EU (51.89: 48.11%).

The UK public are used to the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) regulating commercial campaigns so messages conform to the principles of being ‘Legal, Decent, Honest and Truthful’. However, for political campaigns and referenda, few members of the public in the UK are aware that unregulated and contentious campaign messages can be promoted across the media landscape free of regulation.

Does this signal the direction of future political campaigning, will well-funded Public Relation (PR) campaigns use insights into specific psychological traits within micro segments of the population to deliver tailored trigger-messages via SM? The potential for such campaign activity to influence the character of public debate is an important concern for those who are interested in the mechanism that support open debate and the personal choices that lie at the heart of democratic principles.