Our democracy depends on our getting out of the “filter bubble”

In the rancor of the presidential campaign, it was easy to miss a critical media fact: what used to be Iowa's floods of presidential campaign ads on TV have slowed to something like a dribble. In 2012 there was $57 million of ads on Iowa TV in the closing months of the campaign, and in 2008 there was close to $40 million. Since May of this year, the candidates and political action committees purchased a much smaller $9 million of ads.

While good news for television viewers seeking entertainment, it was bad news for democracy. Like it or not, advertising on TV means being exposed to multiple views. In contrast, information on the internet, advertising and all, is programmed to provide only ideas that fit your own preferences. You are offered only what the internet thinks you already like.

We're students and faculty in the advertising media class at Iowa State University. We tracked every presidential ad purchase on Iowa television stations this election cycle. That meant digging into the Federal Communications Commission files, where TV stations are required to register political ad buys.

We had two goals. We wanted to explore how advertising has changed. And then we wanted to suggest ways to be informed in a democracy that's undergoing shifts in media usage.

There were still plenty of presidential ads overall In the Cedar Rapids media market we counted over 6,000 ads, and 23,000 total in the eight Iowa media markets since May 1. That's many fewer than the 132,000 ads run for Obama and Romney in 2012 and the 90,000 ads (and $46 million) that were placed in the run-up to this year's Iowa caucuses.

How many ads you saw depended on where you lived. The Des Moines area has about 36 percent of Iowa's population, but 55 percent of all the presidential ad dollars were used to reach voters there. Cedar Rapids, with 29 percent of the population, saw 22 percent of the spending.

At least the smaller number of presidential commercials was good news to local merchants. In past election cycles, local advertisers such as supermarkets, car dealerships and convenience stores have been pushed out of the politics-saturated advertising market. This time, even with spending on non-presidential campaigns, there was room on TV for businesses to continue advertising.

But for the long run, the decreasing number of presidential ads on TV may be a symptom of a larger issue. Advertising overall is moving online. Internet spending is predicted to exceed television spending in the coming years. The ad mechanisms of the internet work differently. On media such as TV and newspapers, every viewer can see every ad. On the internet, the algorithms used by companies such as Google and Facebook offer each individual what that individual is likely to click on. People click on the links that reinforce their pre-existing attitudes.

Internet activist Eli Pariser called the process of reducing information to only what the internet thinks you want 'the filter bubble.” The customization of information may not be a big problem for entertainment. Dog lovers see dog videos, few cats allowed. But while democracy requires that voters be exposed to all points of view, the internet has other ideas: we click on what we already believe, creating a society-wide echo chamber.

The solution to breaking through the filter bubble doesn't come from the internet, but from ourselves.

Pay attention to how the media system works. It's the first step in taking control. What looks like a conspiracy to deny information might be the unintended consequences of good business.

Then, put effort into your own information needs. Reach beyond what's easily accessible on the internet-look at all the candidates' websites, read their position papers. Dig for information, and not just from your favorite sources or the ones at the top of the Google results page.

Most of us who did this research are from Iowa, and all of us are used to hard work. It's a lot of work to go beyond what the internet serves up to you. By all means, seek out sources that affirm your views, but test those views by scoping out as much information as you can.

We hope in the next election cycle, you'll join us in breaking through the bubble and making your own informed, rather than just affirmed, decisions.

' Graphs, tables, and the data set from the 2016 Iowa Presidential Advertising study are available at http://greenlee.iastate.edu/election

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HOW WE COLLECTED THE DATA:

By law, broadcast television stations are required to report purchases of political advertising by candidates and political action committees. The stations upload copies of each advertising contract to a FCC file system that is open to the public. The contracts are in the form of PDFs, so they need to be reviewed individually.

There are 33 commercial TV stations that broadcast in and into Iowa, and we checked the contacts for each one from May 1 through November 7. After removing duplicate and outdated orders, we had a spreadsheet of over 650 orders worth more than $8 million. We could see who purchased the ads (candidates or PACs, how much they paid, and when the ads would run).

The disclosure law doesn't extent to other media - cable, newspapers, or internet. As more political communication moves online in future election cycles, it will be even more difficult to assess the source and destinations of political ads.

Involved in the project were:

Lucas Brandt (West Des Moines, advertising major) Bennett Ford (Cedar Falls, public relations), Emily Belloma (Knoxville, marketing/advertising), Katie Alexander (Evergreen Park, IL, advertising), Katie Wallner (Brookfield IL, advertising), Christina Creel (Edgewood, advertising), Jessica Newton (Johnston, public relations), Megan Mojeiko (Clinton, journalism), Robyn Riley (Ames, public relations), Megan Olson (Keota, advertising), Kayla Benefiel (Muscatine, advertising), Jacquelyn Bell (Fairfield, advertising). Jeffrey Bayram (Bartlett, IL, advertising), Alex Beach (Sioux City, advertising), Ian McBrayer (Cedar Rapids, advertising), David Coconate Chicago, advertising), Omar Shibat Alhamd (Madinah, Saudi Arabia, advertising), Corbin Jerde (Golden Valley, MN, advertising), Mia Guion (Racine, WI, advertising), Amy Kuckler (West St. Paul, MN, advertising), Laura Wood (Muscatine, advertising), Megan Danielson (North Oaks, MN, advertising) and associate professor Jay Newell.