ABSTRACT

In March 2018, British and American news outlets published extensive reporting on Cambridge Analytica’s (CA) ethically and legally questionable activities in political campaigns around the world. This reporting primarily focused on three issues: data privacy and protection, unethical political campaigning on social media, and foreign involvement in national elections. While much attention has been paid to CA’s work in the US and UK, these exposés also provided details about CA’s work in presidential elections in Nigeria and Kenya. Because little attention has been paid to CA’s work in Africa, we conducted a qualitative textual analysis of four Nigerian and Kenyan newspapers to understand how media in these countries grappled with CA’s role in their respective presidential elections. Our findings demonstrate, first, that newspaper coverage in both countries relied heavily on international reporting, and second, while Nigerian newspapers covered the scandal as an intranational conflict between competing political parties, the Kenyan press wrestled with the scandal’s implications for the country’s democratic institutions.

摘要

2018年3月，英美两国的新闻媒体广泛报道了Cambridge Analytica（CA）在全球政治活动中的道德和法律可疑活动。该报告主要关注三个问题：数据隐私和保护，在社交媒体上进行不道德的政治运动以及外国人参与全国大选。尽管人们对CA在美国和英国的工作给予了极大关注，但这些展览还提供了有关CA在尼日利亚和肯尼亚举行的总统选举中的工作的详细信息。由于很少关注CA在非洲的工作，因此我们对四个尼日利亚和肯尼亚报纸进行了定性的文本分析，以了解这些国家的媒体如何应对CA在各自总统选举中的作用。我们的发现首先表明