Is No Election News Good News?: The 2015 Canadian Election and Locally Relevant News on Twitter

Abstract

This study uses the 2015 Canadian Federal election as a case study to examine whether Twitter is used to spread locally relevant political news in Canadian communities outside major urban centres in the month leading up to an election. We examined eight communities across Canada, each with differing levels of traditional local media access (television, radio, and print). We wanted to discover, particularly in communities underserved by traditional local media, whether Twitter would help to fill an information gap during election time by helping to spread locally relevant political information. Preliminary analysis has revealed that most information shared on Twitter accounts in our eight communities was national rather than local in scope. Influencers, as identified by the number of @-mentions, tended to be national, rather than local, and general activity on Twitter did not reflect overall population of an area, or any specific locally important issue. Thus we conclude that despite its potential, Twitter is currently not a useful counterbalance for a declining local traditional news environment in smaller communities across Canada.