Are politicians really using online social tools to revitalize civic engagement? Are they really using them to interact with citizens and give them opportunities to express themselves and participate? Or do they use them only to inform and promote their party

In October, Naheed Nenshi was elected mayor of Calgary, Alberta when he defeated longtime alderman Ric McIver and news anchor Barb Higgins. Nenshi, a Muslim in a town known for its conservatism, wasn’t a favorite at the beginning of the race, yet he quickly took the election with 40% of the vote. What accounts for this unlikely victory, you ask? Social media.

Nenshi’s team didn’t broadcast TV or newspaper ads, and no press releases were sent. Instead, the team used social media as its main channel for disseminating information, interact with the electorate and mobilize voters.

One of the reason that Nenshi’s campaign worked is that he understood that to be effective in social media, it’s not enough to simply be present; he needed to be genuine and understand his users in the context of social media as well. Nenshi ran his own Twitter account and answered questions put to him on Facebook and Twitter himself. He continues to interact with voters over Twitter now that the election is over.

But what about other politicans? Is Nenshi’s campaign an exception to the rule? What role do social media play in political communication these days?

Analyzing the Use of Social Media in Politics

Increasingly, citizens and politicians are using social media platforms to advance ideas,share opinions,disseminate messages and mobilize voters. For political parties, it seems, social media offer a way to bypass traditional media and have direct contact with the electorate, as well as a way to revitalize civic engagement.

But are politicians really using online social tools to revitalize civic engagement? Are they really using them to interact with citizens and give them opportunities to express themselves and participate? Or do they use them only to inform and promote their party?

I’ll have the opportunity to explore these issues as part of my Masters in Public Communication at Laval University. To prepare for my research there, I’ve developed data collecting and analyzing tools for each type of online media I’ll investigate: websites of political parties and MPs, as well as their Facebook pages and Twitter accounts.

For the latter media I chose The Archivist, on open-source tool that archives tweets. The Archivist will let me investigate the twittosphere at a particular point in time. By launching searches from hashtags like #assnat and #polqc or the username of party and MPs, I can collect thorough data about what political organizations and their affiliates are tweeting about.

Quebec Politics and Social Media

November 2010 was a charged political period in Quebec. The province experienced unexpected political twists ranging from election rumors and an online petition calling for the resignation of the province’s Premier, to allegations of collusion and a heated public debate about the exploitation of natural resources.

Using The Archivist, I was able to generate a picture this political situation by analyzing users, politicians and citizens’ tweets. I came away with some key observations and statistics.

The Archivist goes a step further than basic Excel-format data exports by allowing researchers to generate graphs and statistical analyses about an archive of tweets. It’s a great way to get a solid understanding of what people are saying about a specific topic, and of the social climate surrounding political events.

You can also use The Archivist to:

• See the number of tweets produced about a specific topic over a pre-determined period of time
• See when tweet production on a specific topic was strongest
• Make comparisons between different archives
• Identify the twenty most active contributors for a given search

Last November, for example, I used The Archivist to investigate tweets referring to the names of the four major provincial parties in Quebec: The governing Liberal Party of Québec (PLQ), the Parti Québécois (PQ), the Action Démocratique du Québec (ADQ) and Québec Solidaire (QS).

The data I collected indicated that: The largest number of tweets for the ADQ was generated during the weekend of November 13th and 14th , when the party held its annual meeting; the PQ generated the most tweets over the entire month; and December 1st was the most active day in Québec’s political twittosphere, following PQ’s victory in the Kamouraska-Temiscouata by-election.

In addition, the data showed that for the hashtag #assnat (associated with Québec’s parliament, the National Assembly), the PQ was the only party ranked in the top 20. One of its representatives, Pascal Bérubé, also made it in the top 20. The takeaway? Governing liberals were nowhere to be seen.



The data also indicated that The PLQ produced only 17.6 % of tweets referring to its Twitter username liberalquebec and interacted little with other users. The ADQ, on the other hand, produced 61.6 % of tweets referring to its party. The PQ and QS produced one third of tweets referring to their respective parties.



If we look at the total number of tweets produced by each party in November, the ADQ is the most active, followed by the PQ, QS, PLQ and PVQ. But if we compare the total number of tweets referring to parties’ usernames, the PQ comes first.

Given this data, we can assume that the PQ is active on Twitter and has a large group of supporters using the medium. We can also assume that the party might interact more with Twitter users, generating a larger number of tweets.



The Archivist has enriched my research on by allowing me to analyze tweets written by multiple groups such as citizens, journalists, political bloggers and representatives of interest groups. The Archivist’s auto-archiving resource also broadened the scope of my research project—now, I’ll be able to paint a clearer portrait of how political parties use social media and of the civic responses social media generate.

Social media: a way to reinforce political engagement?

Do you think social media tools like Facebook and Twitter can enhance citizen engagement? Or are they just used to sell political ‘products’? Do you have any examples of politicians who make effective use of social media? Examples in which the tool is misused?

Feel free to leave your comments below. You can also follow me on Twitter (@MelanieVerville). And if you’re interested in political communication and political marketing, I suggest following the Research Lab on Political Communication (@grcplaval) and Political Marketing Canada (@PMPCanada).