Targeted online advertising is on the forefront of political communication,
allowing hyper-local advertising campaigns around elections and issues. In this
study, we employ a new resource for political ad monitoring -- Facebook Ads
Library -- to examine advertising concerning the issue of immigration in Italy.
A crucial topic in Italian politics, it has recently been a focus of several
populist movements, some of which have adopted social media as a powerful tool
for voter engagement. Indeed, we find evidence of targeting by the parties both
in terms of geography and demographics (age and gender). For instance, Five
Star Movement reaches a younger audience when advertising about immigration,
while other parties' ads have a more male audience when advertising on this
issue. We also notice a marked rise in advertising volume around elections, as
well as a shift to more general audience. Thus, we illustrate political
advertising targeting that likely has an impact on public opinion on a topic
involving potentially vulnerable populations, and urge the research community
to include online advertising in the monitoring of public discourse.

本研究通过使用 Facebook 广告库这一新工具，对意大利移民问题相关的广告进行监测研究，发现政党的广告针对地理和人口统计数据（如年龄和性别）两个方面进行定向投放，其中五星运动的广告更倾向于年轻观众，其他党派的广告则具有更明显的男性观众群体，而且在选举期间广告的数量显著增加，且针对受众群体更为广泛。因此，本研究揭示了有关潜在易受攻击群体主题的政治广告定向投放策略，并呼吁研究社区将在线广告纳入公共话语监测中。