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    Canadian Political Science Association
    2020 Annual Conference Programme

    Confronting Political Divides
    Hosted at Western University
    Tuesday, June 2 to Thursday, June 4, 2020
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    Presidential Address:
    Barbara Arneil, CPSA President

    Origins:
    Colonies and Statistics

    Location:
    Tuesday, June 2, 2020 | 05:00pm to 06:00pm
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    KEYNOTE SPEAKER:
    Ayelet Shachar
    The Shifting Border:
    Legal Cartographies of Migration
    and Mobility

    Location:
    June 04, 2020 | 01:30 to 03:00 pm
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    Keynote Speaker: Marc Hetherington
    Why Modern Elections
    Feel Like a Matter of
    Life and Death

    Location:
    Wednesday, June 3, 2020 | 03:45pm to 05:15pm
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    Plenary Panel
    Indigenous Politics and
    the Problem of Canadian
    Political Science

    Location: Arts & Humanities Building - AHB 1R40
    Tuesday, June 2, 2020 | 10:30am to 12:00pm

Canadian Politics



A19 - Disinformation, Social Media, and Election Campaigns

Date: Jun 4 | Time: 01:30pm to 03:00pm | Location:

Chair/Président/Présidente : Emmett Macfarlane (University of Waterloo)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Katherine Sullivan (Université de Montréal)

Digital Campaign Threats in Canada: Party Responses in an Age of Disinformation: Anna Lennox Esselment (University of Waterloo)
Abstract: Threats to parties, leaders, and candidates via digital platforms are on the rise. Disinformation about leaders and parties can be spread through bots on Twitter and Facebook, and they can take the shape of news articles, #hashtags that trend, or altered videos. Interference can also occur through accessing information about voters stored in party databases, or hacking into a campaign's email server. Disinformation and misinformation undermines meaningful deliberation during the most important exercise in a democracy - an election. Canada’s federal election was not immune to these sorts of attempts to destabilize the integrity of its electoral system, although it suffered far less interference than other countries in the recent past. This paper will report on results from its examination of interference through digital platforms. Its methods will rely on media monitoring (both traditional media and social media) and interviews with party strategists. The aim is to detail the main instances of disinformation and other digital threats, and analyze how each of the major parties responded to combat them (such as through a party news release, a Twitter counter-attack, a party ad, employing social media influencers, discussing the incident with journalists, and so on). The analysis will include an assessment of the effectiveness of these party/leader responses, and how these methods might be improved for future elections.


Political Strategies by Right-Wing Extremists in the Post-Hate World Wide Web: Ryan Deschamps (University of Waterloo), Bessma Momani (University of Waterloo)
Abstract: After the murder 51 Muslim men and women in a New Zealand mosque in June 2019 by a right-wing extremist (RWE), Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and many web hosting platforms changed their terms of service to address hateful speech and both formal and informal RWE groups required new strategies to spread their messages of hate and conspiracy. Many groups moved to less known but more overt platforms like Bitchute and Neinchan to share their ideas, but in Canada, known white supremacists took on a more direct political strategy. Focussing on the period of the Canadian federal election from September 11th to October 21st 2019, this study sought to identify the strategies that right-wing extremists (RWE) in Canada used to spread their content, increase their membership and influence election results. Using known white supremacist actors as seeds to uncover like-minded RWE individuals and supporters, we asked 1) Where do RWEs have sympathizers and activities in Canada? 2) What are they learning from each other and likeminded domestic and international groups online within this time period? By examining the political connected of RWE, we find that RWE deployed a strategy of brokerage during the 2019 Canadian federal election, connecting various issues to their own ideological positions of globalist conspiracies, populism and Canadian identity.


Indigenous Voices: Digital Electoral Politics and the 2019 Canadian Federal Election: Kelsey Leonard (McMaster University), Marrissa Mathews (McMaster University), Chelsea Gabel (McMaster University)
Abstract: The paper presents findings from our study of Indigenous voices in digital spaces, namely twitter, during the 2019 Canadian Federal Election. We identify top hashtag movements during the election that focus on Indigenous issues such as drinking water advisories in Indigenous communities, anti-pipeline proliferation, Indigenous identity, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. We also provide a comparison of these key political discourse points with previous administration advancements and or inaction. Salient political issues such as drinking water crises facing First Nations in Canada are well documented; however, understudied is the influence digital media coverage of the crisis has on electoral politics. Jackson (2017) states that Indigenous Water Justice encompasses “Indigenous articulations of justice and demands for redistribution, recognition, and for equal weight to be given to the socio-economic, cultural and political causes of water injustice.” The UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples has reported an increasing trend in the murder and criminalization of Indigenous leaders and activists defending their lands and waters (A/HRC/39/17). As such this paper further explores the voices of Indigenous leaders active in digital spaces during the 2019 election and shares their experiences with online misinformation and disinformation and how it left them targets of online violence as Indigenous leaders and activists. Lastly, the paper presents a path forward for Indigenous data sovereignty in digital electoral politics.


Who Targets Me? An Analysis of Political Advertising on Facebook During the 2019 Canadian Federal Election: Clifton van der Linden (McMaster University)
Abstract: This paper offers an analysis as to how Canadians were microtargeted on Facebook during the 2019 Canadian federal election campaign. The findings are derived from a research project conducted in partnership with the Ryerson Leadership Lab, Vox Pop Labs, and a UK-based initiative called "Who Targets Me?" During the election campaign a panel of Canadians was asked to download a browser extension which monitored and catalogued all Facebook advertising to which they were exposed. The paper analyzes the data collected using this instrument and offers insights into the frames that political parties and other actors used when targeting different segments of the population.




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