Oude wijn in nieuwe zakken?Politieke microtargeting wordt soms gepresenteerd als een revolutionaire manier van campagnevoeren. In dit artikel beschrijven wij wat microtargeting behelst, plaatsen wij kanttekeningen bij microtargetings veronderstelde nieuwigheid en maken wij een historische vergelijking met microtargeting in het pre-massapartijentijdperk. We concluderen dat microtargeting als idee niet nieuw is, maar dat de technologie die tegenwoordig wordt gebruikt heeft gezorgd voor fundamentele veranderingen.

Political microtargeting is sometimes presented as a revolution in political campaigning. Sending citizens tailored political messages is considered effective, efficient, and modern, especially in the Netherlands. In this article we dive deeper into the concept of microtargeting. We compare modern-day microtargeting and political campaigns in the pre-mass party era, who already tailored political messages to individual citizens as early as in the 1900’s. We describe similarities and differences between the ‘old’ and ‘new’ campaigns to illustrate how, conceptually, both forms of ‘microtargeting’ do not differ that much. Finally, we conclude that while the concept may be similar, the practice does differ. Technology not only enables political parties to reach unparalleled levels of granularity, but also to spread messages on an incomparable scale. Thus, we may speak of old wine in new bottles. But the new bottles may be so dominant that they have changed the old taste of the wine.