REGINA – There’s no doubt social media is playing a major role in the ongoing federal election. Not only does it allow party leaders and candidates to engage with constituents and get their message out, but voters can voice their opinion on election issues.
Unfortunately, at times the conversation can turn ugly and what is being shared is borderline, if not bluntly, discriminatory.
“I see a lot of discrimination of other races of people coming into Canada,” said Regina resident Derek Sasakamoose.
“It’s a lot of anti-Muslim stuff that I don’t agree with but it’s all over Facebook,” said another resident, Tiffany Furry.
Take for example the wearing of the niqab during the swearing of the citizenship oath which is a central topic in several debates.
Carol Schick teaches multiculturalism and anti-racism at the University of Regina and said the issue is a result of fear mongering that can prompt anti-Islamic rhetoric.
“It’s quite virulent, quite aggressive,” she said.
Visualization is based on Twitter data and should not be considered scientifically accurate. Data has been made available via a partnership with Twitter Canada.
Social media has a far-reaching audience, which has its positives, but when it’s used to spread one-sided messages in regards to election issues can be influential.
“People are going to make decisions and it’s going to affect how they vote because there’s so much misinformation going around,” said Katia Hildebrandt, social media expert at the University of Regina.
She used the ongoing Syrian refugee crisis that has sparked some hostility about how many Canada should be helping, as an example of where sharing misinformation over social media can go wrong.
“People are hearing these horror stories from Europe, like ‘oh you have so many refugees coming in they’re going to change the country they could be terrorists'” she said.
Schick added that some voters’ intolerance for refugees or immigrants is hypocritical.
“I asked students, ‘how many of you are descendants of immigrants?’ Of about 100 only 20 put up their hands and I said, ‘oh I didn’t really realize there was so many First Nations people in this class!”
She also criticizes remarks made by candidates during the election campaign.
“If our leaders are showing us that, well then people think they have license.”
But ultimately the majority of views and values will come out when voters head to the polls on October 19th.
Heat map of #elxn42 tweets from Sept. 8-Oct. 6, during which time four leaders debates took place. Visualization is based on Twitter data and should not be considered scientifically accurate. Data has been made available via a partnership with Twitter Canada.
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