Electoral marketing and personal digital data in the United-States and France: Intercultural exchanges of techniques, particularities of law and politico-cultural analysis

Abstract

Electoral marketing and personal digital data in the United-States and France: Intercultural exchanges of techniques, particularities of law and politico-cultural analysis This article aims to understand the intercultural exchanges from the United States to France in terms of digital electoral marketing in the context of the American presidential elections from 2008 to 2016 and the French elections of 2012 and 2017. Based on documentary research to identify the American situation and on a qualitative survey carried out during the French presidential election of 2017, it shows the existence of technical similarities between the two countries. However, due to a different legal framework in the United States and France, practices of digital electoral marketing diverge. Then the article tries to understand the origin of these disparities between the two countries by mobilizing the Cultural Theory of the anthropologist Mary Douglas: It analyses how the French economic and political actors and the State seek to nego-tiate together and attenuate intercultural gaps with the American situation.