@Wakanyugi, if there is a science of studying and controlling human behavior then data would be a resource.

There is in fact, such a science. And though psychology and psychiatry have so far failed to get this science, it's fragments or even its reality has been with us since time immemorial.

The CA guys may not be using this science but that doesn't mean 'as if they knew' doesn't work.

You are right that some of these techniques have been in use from the past. But so has social media been used from the past.

Twitter, fb and the rest are social media channels but the meeting of persons and culture is the essence of social media.

So the critical question is can an increase in channels have an effect on an individual's behavior even with respect to channels that the person doesn't have access to?

The answer is in the affirmative. Eg. It's highly probable that a sizeable portion of our wanjiku's who don't have smart phones know of 'Samantha'.

In the case of the past elections, we can't for sure say that CA were effective, but we can't also say that their interference therefore will always be negligible.

Tycho: It is not hard to manipulate people and even you can do it if you were ruthless enough. And you can bet that even a half baked politician or pastor wannabe has more ruthlessness in his small finger than you'll probably ever muster.

People are desperate to have someone do the hard work of thinking and managing life for them. All you have to do, to have them eating out of your hand, is to make promises, you don't even have to keep them and find a convenient bogeyman or two to blame for their failure to think. Yaani, the same strategy that a village witch doctor uses.

So yes, you are right recent technological and social changes have offered more opportunities for the likes of CA and assorted manipulators to do their thing and make out like bandits when they are at it. But it is certainly not new.

I simply hesitate to give CA credit for an election result that went exactly as level heads had predicted. If they had somehow got Jubilee that 3 million margin of victory that they were dreaming of I would start to be impressed. They did not.

The voting patterns and margin of victory for the presidential vote were largely the same in 2017 as in 2013, if you allow for demographic changes. Even the predictable post electoral whining barely changed in either tune or timing_____kiliibiwo tena, those people are thieves, Uhuru must go, bla, bla, bla!

Let us agree that CA waliangukia. Good for them.

So, did CA have an effect in the American elections?

Thank you @peterReborn... this really helped to clarify the CA stuff!