This web app has been created as part of the
Cross-platform Election Advertising Transparency Initiative
(CREATIVE), and was inspired by
Regional Ad Spending Web App.
CREATIVE is an academic research project that has the goal of providing
the public with analysis tools for more transparency of political ads
across online platforms. In particular, CREATIVE provides cross-platform
integration and standardization of political ads collected from Google
and Facebook. CREATIVE is a joint project of the
Wesleyan Media Project (WMP)
and the
privacy-tech-lab at
Wesleyan University.
This web app visualizes the Facebook and Instagram ad data that CREATIVE
has collected for the presidential candidates and their joint
fundraising committee spending for the 2020 and 2024 presidential
elections. Users can select the year(s), candidate(s), and specific time
period to observe the aggregated spending on ads in each state based on
the selected criteria. Users can then screenshot the maps via Windows
key + Shift + S on Windows or via Shift + Command + 4 on Mac. To zoom
out, press Command and - for Mac or Ctrl - for Windows.
The spending is reported by week on Saturday. The timeline is labeled by
weeks leading up to the election day to easily compare between the two
election years as the dates vary by year. Data is currently only
available up to October 12, 2024 for the 2024 data, and will be updated
once new data is available.
Joseph Biden dropped out of the presidential race on July 21, 2024 (-15
weeks) before Kamala Harris became the primary Democratic candidate.
When "2024" is selected in the year dropdown, a marker appears on the
timeline, signaling when Biden dropped out. This information is
displayed when the user hovers over the marker. Since there is no
delineation of when the ad spending switched from Biden to Harris, these
two candidates have been grouped together and will be displayed as
"Biden / Harris".
On behalf of CREATIVE, we hope you enjoy engaging with this web app!
