Politics of engagement : the slacktivism of Canadian political leaders

Abstract

This thesis considered how Canadian political leaders use social media to engage with constituents. It begins with a review of the literature on social media and engagement. Communications including the role of the Internet as a new public sphere. This is followed by discussion of some of the risks related to online engagement for political leaders. Using an engagement hierarchy that placed dialogic forms of engagement above those that are for disseminating information, this qualitative study involved gathering Twitter data using online software program Netlytic and coding for the intention of the posts. An analysis of this data as well as statistical information and network images provided by Netlytic is presented before recommendations for future areas of study.