Context of the study

Small number of studies on social media use for political communication, mobilization and persuasion in Canada, especially during politically-sensitive moments;

Major trends in research work:1. A lot of attention devoted to provincial and

national political contexts;

2. Focus on highly-hierarchical top-down information transfers and socio-interactional patterns;

3. Little to no research on French social mediasphere.

Geographically-narrow and community-based political contexts largely ignored.

Sources: Small, 2010;; 2011; Chen, 2010; Verville and Giasson, 2010m Raynauld, Giasson et ak., 2011; Elmer, Langlois et al., 2009

Objectives of the study

Detailed assessment of Twitter’s structural characteristics and role in the 2010 Ottawa municipal elections in 2010 (French and English);

Description of the different ways social media technologies are impacting of the dynamics of local politicking;

Focus on three distinct formal and informal political actors:

Candidates; Traditional news media; Netizens.

Methodology

Tweets with hashtag #ottvote collected between October 1st and October 25th 2010;

Textual content; Technical details.

Two open-source data-collection application used: Twapper Keeper (now Hootsuite Archives); The Archivist.

Sentiment analysis conducted with the help of a algorithm developed by Crimson Hexagon.

#ottvote activity(October 1st-25th 2010)

9409 tweets (French and English) posted during this period, 70% of them during the final week of the campaign.

#yycvote18692 tweets

during the last seven days of the

electoral race

#voteto33504 tweets

during the last week of the election

Larry O’Brien’s board meeting with

The Citizen

#ivantamayorwho

#ottvote activity(October 1st-25th 2010)

Structure of the #ottvote conversation: 1344 individuals posted at least one tweet

containing #ottvote hashtag; 80% of the tweets (7527) originated from

22.9% of the #ottvote twitterers (308); 10 most-active twitterers generated 22.3% of

all #ottvote tweets; 45% of all twitterers who were involved in the

#ottvote conversation only posted one tweet.

#ottvote activity(October 1st-25th 2010)

Manifestation of Web-based political astroturfing in the last weeks of the campaign:

800 new Twitter accounts joined the #ottvote conversation in the last four days of the campaign:

Activists; Spammers trying to benefit from the

popularity of the #ottvote hashtag.

Rapid augmentation of the number of political attack tweets.

535 new accounts joined the conversation during the previous 20 days

#ottvote activity(October 1st-25th 2010)

Top ten twitterers (volume of tweets):Twitter user Categorization

@CliveForMayor Candidate

@willsamuel Candidate (staffer for Doucet)

@ottawasun Traditional media

@OniJoseph Candidate

@MacDoaker

@davidreveely Traditional media

@DenVan Netizen

@SunCityHall Traditional media

@jchianello Traditional media

@josh_greenberg Netizen (researcher)

Presence of candidates in the twitterverse

30% of the Mayoral hopefuls (6 out of 20) had a publicly-available Twitter account that they used with varying levels of intensity:

Name Following Followers Listed Number of tweets posted between October 20-25th 2010.

Clive Doucet 27 534 60 13

Larry O’Brien

1668 871 67 5

Jane Sharf 32 33 6 1

Charles Taylor

1205 367 36 91

Jim Watson 990 2098 192 135

Sam Wright 39 25 2 0As of October 25th 2010 before 11 pm.

Presence of candidates in the twitterverse

Other candidates:

One ward candidate (Roger Furmanczyk in Ward 2) had an account that was not publicly-available due to privacy restrictions.

Percentage with publicly-available accounts on Twitter

Ward candidates 44% (48 out of 109)

Ottawa-Carleton District School Board contenders

27.6% (8 out of 29)

Ottawa Catholic School Board hopefuls

21.4% (3 out of 14)

“Conseil des écoles publiques de l’Est de l’Ontario” candidates

13.3% (2 out of 15)

Campaigning style on Twitter

Majority of candidates (Jim Watson) engaged in professionalized top-down communication, mobilization and persuasion practices:

Tweets providing status updates about campaign activities (often with links to pictures);

A good night with the team at the River Ward all candidates

meet-and-greet. #ottvote http://plixi.com/p/48791903

@jimwatsonottawa, October 5th, 2010

Campaigning style on Twitter

Majority of candidates (Jim Watson) engaged in top-down communication, mobilization and persuasion practices:

Tweets promoting “controlled” political engagement:

Tweets detailing positions on politically-sensitive issues;

Etc.

Need a ride to the polls ? Call us at 613 835 2400! #ottvote.

Not sure where to vote?http:// jimwatson.ca

@jimwatsonottawa, October 25th, 2010

Important short video to share with friends and family

-http://bit.ly/d9wVn7 Don't forget to vote!! #OT Tvote

@jimwatsonottawa, October 25th, 2010

Campaigning style on Twitter

Some candidates (Clive Doucet) developed transformative ways to exploit Twitter’s structural and functional particularities:

#Askclive (hashtag designed to mobilize the public in an uncontrolled fashion):

Similar grassroots initiatives (#iwantamayorwho).

@CliveDoucet Will you be endorsing any council

candidates? #askclive #ottvote

@tmwayne, September 30th, 2010

@CliveDoucet With your Carling Ave. Proposal how do you plan to join Carling with

the downtown center? #askclive #ottvote

@wilfros, September 30th, 2010

Political expression(September 1st -

October 25th 2010) Web users expressed themselves on a wide range of

issues:

Bottom-up fragmentation of the political conversation.

Questions or comments