Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, has been called "the ambitious city", but it now struggles to recover from the faltering of the steel industry that determined its growth during the better part of the twentieth century. Recently, a niche group of net-savvy, civic-minded, and engaged Hamiltonians composed of longtime residents, along with an influx of Greater Toronto Area expatriates, has been endeavouring to improve the city's outdated infrastructure by campaigning for a better place to live: creating cycling lanes throughout the city, adding light rail to the public transportation system, and keeping casinos out of the core.
Twitter has become a tool for civic engagement and political change in Hamilton, making it easier for people to “organize, mobilize and engage” [9]. The one-to-many style of communication makes it an ideal soapbox for activists to get their messages out and rally support from the public [1] [6] [7] [11] [3] and makes it easier to spread information to others taking up the cause [2] [3]. On the surface, Twitter provides an opportunity for horizontality within a movement by removing the necessity to disclose age, gender, or race, ultimately providing the opportunity for everyone to participate [9] [1].
Given these characteristics, some scholars have argued that Twitter is a networked form of Habermas's public sphere, [10] _a body of 'private persons' assembled to discuss matters of 'public concern'_ [4]. In the context of Hamilton, Twitter has the potential to give engaged citizens a public forum in which they can discuss and debate in political discourse as democratic equals; however, there are also significant limitations to this potential.
Footnote 01Councillor Sam Merulla was one of the first users to respond to the Twitter thread stemming from the Dialogue Partners' misstep.In Habermas's definition of the public sphere, "A body of 'private persons'" suggests a distinct separation of society and state, yet some of the strongest voices on Twitter are members of Hamilton's city council. [footnote 01] It can be argued that these members of state are indeed, also citizens of Hamilton, but they most certainly possess significant political influence. For some, this fact alone may disprove the notion that Twitter in Hamilton is a networked public sphere.
Members of the public sphere assemble to discuss. The notion of assembly implies that there is open access to the forum in question. This brings into focus the "digital divide", and the ability of any and all interested parties to access the Internet and engage on Twitter. As will be discussed later in this paper, Hamilton has a deep digital divide, suggesting that open access to assembly does not (and possibly cannot) exist.
Footnote 02Locke Street and James Street North are both recognized as newly gentrified neighbourhoods. These neighbourhoods also have the highest number of survey respondents. James Street overlaps the Cannon Street cycle path, and Locke Street falls is situated close to the terminus of an extension of the bike lane being constructed using funds from Ward one's participatory budget.Habermas argues that matters of public concern are to be discussed in the public sphere, and that interests solely benefiting the individual are to be left out of the arena [4]. Advocates for the initiatives that are detailed as case studies in this research believe they are discussing matters that concern the greater good of the community; however, critics charge that a net-savvy elite is simply trying to gentrify the city. [footnote 02]
Regardless of whether Twitter creates a true networked public sphere, protesters and activists who come together online share a set of common beliefs and values that over time can end up forming a community; interviewees for this research speak to how their involvement in several movements helped introduce them to their communities and form friendships through Twitter.
The role of Twitter in large-scale movements like Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Springs has been studied at length by researchers, but Hamilton represents a different sort of case. Civic engagement in Hamilton is focused on local issues instead of on toppling governments or revolutionizing the world. Hamilton's Twitter crowd uses the social media platform to help inform its citizenry and effect infrastructure change within the city. While it is true that Hamiltonians may use Twitter for organizing rallies and protests, they do not do so on the same scale or for the same reasons as those involved in the 2011 Arab Springs in the Middle East. In an authoritarian state like Egypt, there was a very clear and present danger, and success relied on the number of bodies marching in the street, not just the number of retweets [5]. In Hamilton, physical participation is often less than impressive; a bike parade down Cannon Street in support of the proposed bike lanes saw a turnout of just a few dozen supporters, yet the campaign was successful, despite the lack of physical representation. Critics of Twitter's role in protests and politics refer to this form of social media activism as "slacktivism." This research suggests that that slacktivism may, in fact, be an effective way to create change in a democratic municipality like Hamilton.
Another reason Hamiltonians may be successful in informing political decisions is because of the relatively easy access to politicians in the city. Most members of council have a Twitter account and several are very active on the social media platform. Councillor Sam Merulla observes that "[Twitter] basically equalizes the playing field, not only for the residents, who now gain instant access to politicians, where, in the past, that was never the case... It really is changing the landscape of politics. and it's changed because the demand from the community has literally been born. Without that demand, you wouldn't receive the response." [8] These differences from large-scale movements like the Arab Springs and Occupy Wall Street make studying Twitter’s relationship to civic engagement in Hamilton an important step to better understanding how it facilitates change and fosters community within smaller populations and geographic regions.
This research project began with a survey which asked Hamilton's Twitter users to answer a set of questions concerning media, politics, community, and, of course, Twitter. The findings of the project were then used to inform a series of interviews with three activists and one city councillor who are prominent in Hamilton's political Twitter scene. Together, the quantified data and the anecdotal responses of the interviews paints a clear picture of how Twitter has impacted some of the biggest issues affecting Hamilton's politics and communities. Two particular case studies were used to discuss the survey findings: Yes We Cannon and the Dialogue Partners fiasco. These case studies were selected for several reasons:
Several key themes emerged in this research: the very strong divide between the "haves" and "have-nots" in Hamilton's Twittersphere, the group’s strong sense of community, which can also extend offline, and the effectiveness of social media in achieving their goals, even if their efforts may seem like “slacktivism.” This paper looks at how civic engagement is affected by Twitter and, in particular, how slacktivism can promote and effect change. This discussion is followed by an analysis of who is involved in this discourse and what significance that holds for the city of Hamilton as a whole. Finally, this paper explores how Twitter users see their community and how they are effecting change within it.
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