The research discussed in this paper draws from a combination of an online survey and series of open-ended interviews. The online survey was distributed via Twitter to gather information from users within the city of Hamilton. Distribution through Twitter provides two key benefits: 1) the population I am interested in is readily found on Twitter, and 2) the data was collected electronically, making it easier to analyze.
I conducted an online survey, obtaining participation via Twitter. I posted tweets from my personal Twitter account, which I have maintained since 2008. This is a significant detail for two reasons:
The tweets I sent out always included the same key terms—Twitter, community, politics, and #HamOnt (the hashtag for Hamilton)—and a link to the survey. Tweets were concise, topping out at 140 characters because of Twitter's character limits. My goal was to receive at least 50 sets of completed survey responses in order to have enough data to make useful correlations. My Following list on Twitter is fewer than 300 users, many of whom are not Hamiltonians, which made collecting more than 50 completed surveys virtually impossible if I were relying solely on my followers to respond. However, I anticipated that the topic would be of wider interest to several people within Hamilton, who would then retweet it—essentially, a form of snowball sampling.
Footnote 03McGreal and Coleman attracted the most respondents to my survey, respectively, and also came in second and first when respondents were asked to name "influential members in [their] community".This method worked well: a total of 38 people tweeted or retweeted my survey link to their group of followers. The two most prominent members of that list were Ryan McGreal and Joey Coleman [footnote 03], who between them directed the majority of respondents to the survey.
Footnote 04Survey statistics are from the survey provider web site, Fluid Surveys.The survey received a total of 136 anonymous responses during the two weeks it was available online (May 1—14, 2014). Of those respondents, 86 completed the survey, a 64% completion rate, which was impressive given that it took an average of 18 minutes to complete [footnote 04]. The majority completion rate, along with the extensive time required to complete the survey suggests a strong dedication to the topics of community and civic engagement within that particular subset of Hamilton Twitter users.
After I analyzed the results of the surveys, I conducted open-ended interviews with key figures from both sides of recent political movements in Hamilton to enrich the survey findings. The interviews included a set of open-ended questions which allowed the interviewees the opportunity to share opinions and ideas that may not have been considered during the survey phase. In total, four prominent individuals (Justin Jones, Ryan McGreal, Sam Merulla, and Joanna St. Jacques) were interviewed, with each session lasting about one hour. Justin Jones is a co-organizer of the Yes We Cannon movement and a cycling advocate for the Share the Road Cycling Coalition. Ryan McGreal is an activist and the editor of Raise the Hammer, an online Hamilton civic affairs journal. Sam Merulla is the councillor for Hamilton's Ward 4. Joanna St. Jacques is an activist working to stop school closures in Hamilton as well as a campaign manager for several school board trustee campaigns.
The video interviews were edited into a mini-documentary, covering the Yes We Cannon case study from this project and the general topics of community and civic engagement in Hamilton. The final edited documentary is hosted on www.HamOnt.net. The web site was created to help communicate this research to those involved in civic engagement and community issues in Hamilton. It offers insights into how slacktivism can help a cause succeed, alerts users to the potential hazards of the digital divide, as well as understanding how community can be fostered within particular groups on Twitter, such as those who become involved in issues of civic engagement.
The web site includes a final draft of this paper, the video documentary (including edited versions of key figure interviews), aggregated survey findings, as well as case studies discussing the history and outcomes of the Yes We Cannon and Dialogue Partners fiasco movements. Interactive timelines and links to outside sources (news articles, relevant tweets, etc.) are included on the web site, extending its usefulness for the greater public.
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