Political Data Miners Really Get to Know You
06 November 2011
STEVE EMBER: Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Steve Ember.
BARBARA KLEIN: And I'm Barbara Klein. This week on our program, we look at how political campaigns use data mining to try to predict how people will vote.
(MUSIC)
STEVE EMBER: Andrew Dreschler is a data miner. He works with millions of pieces of information. He looks for details about people -- what neighborhood they live in, what they buy, what they like to do on their weekends.
Mr. Dreschler's job is to collect enough details to form a sense of how people think. That also makes him a little like a storyteller.
ANDREW DRESCHLER: "One art that we've sort of been working on perfecting over the years is telling a story with information."
Data miners look for connections in the ways that people behave. What they find can help stores decide which items to put closer together. It can help advertisers target their messages. And it can help political campaigns know where to look for votes.
BARBARA KLEIN: The use of data mining in politics is nothing new. Michael Kazin, a Georgetown University history professor, gives an example in his book "A Godly Hero." The example involves William Jennings Bryan.
Bryan ran for president of the United States in eighteen ninety-six, nineteen hundred and again eight years later. His supporters wrote him letters -- thousands and thousands of letters. His brother Charles read them all.
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