This research was conducted by Ryan Price, a Master’s student under the supervision of Dr. Christina Baade in the department of Communications and New Media at McMaster University. The purpose of the study was to learn how people in Hamilton use Twitter as a tool for civic engagement. Information gathered from this research was used to create this website to help Hamiltonians activists, and researchers, understand how Twitter affects community and civic engagement at the local, municipal level.
In the city of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, Twitter has become a key tool for citizens engaging in civic change, functioning both as a public forum and a method of mobilization. Twitter was especially prominent in two campaigns: ‘Yes We Cannon!’ (a campaign to have bike lanes added to Cannon street by 2015) and ‘Dialogue Partners’ (an online campaign in 2013 to have a city-hired PR firm contract terminated). A prominent blog on civic issues in Hamilton, Raise the Hammer, noted, “Yes We Cannon made strategic use of social media - both Facebook and Twitter - to reach a wide audience in a short amount of time”[2] and CBC Hamilton claimed that protesters involved in ousting Dialogue Partners “[made] the city of Hamilton reconsider how it represents itself on social media. And they did it all on Twitter”.[1] Hamilton is seeing a surge of civic engagement, and much of it occurring online through social networking sites like Twitter.
Researchers have investigated the role of Twitter in large-scale movements like Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Springs, but Hamilton represents a different sort of case. Civic engagement in Hamilton is focused on specific local issues rather than toppling governments or revolutionizing the world. Studying Twitter’s relationship to civic engagement in Hamilton is important to better understanding how it facilitates change and fosters community within smaller populations/geographic regions than those of Occupy and the Arab Springs.
This site investigates how civically engaged Twitter users within Hamilton use online social ties to build a sense of community with each other, participate in public discourse, and influence city policy, especially in regard to issues of livability, transportation, and equal representation.
An online survey was distributed via Twitter to gather information from users in the city of Hamilton. After the results of the survey were analyzed, open interviews were conducted with key figures involved in the “Yes We Cannon!” and “Dialogue Partners” movements to respond to and enrich the survey findings.
The survey and interviews conducted as part of this study was reviewed and cleared by the McMaster Research Ethics Board (MREB). The MREB protocol number associated with this research is 2014 062.
If you have any concerns or questions about the way the study is was conducted, please contact:
McMaster Research Ethics Secretariat Telephone 1-(905) 525-9140 ext. 23142 C/o Research Office for Administration, Development and Support (ROADS) E-mail: ethicsoffice@mcmaster.ca