The Bad-Faith Argument Behind the Use of Digital Marketing for Neurodiversity

Routledge

This chapter considers the relationship between digital marketing and disability through a neurodiversity lens. It begins by exploring neurodiversity as a concept before explaining the phenomenon of neurodiversity masking and its implications for digital marketing and consumption. The chapter argues that neurodiversity masking challenges the accurate interpretation of neurodivergent consumer behaviours using mainstream digital marketing methods. It also highlights the multiple falsities and biases inherent to digital marketing practices, obscuring and misleading firms and perpetuating disabling marketplace dynamics. By critically engaging with the limitations of behavioural data and segmentation techniques, this chapter critiques digital marketing’s role in reinforcing ableist assumptions and highlights the bad faith argument and false equivalence between behavioural segmentation and embracing neurodiversity in its complexity.