SOCIAL MEDIA AND PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY: A VIEW FROM CANADA
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIAL MEDIA AND PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY IN THE COMMONWEALTH: A VIEW FROM CANADA
Ms Yasmin Ratansi, MP is a
Canadian Member of Parliament for the riding of Don Valley East. She is Chair of the CPA Canada Federal Branch, Chair of the Standing Committee on Environment and Vice-Chair of the GOPAC. As Chair of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, she was proud to have introduced the first report on gender lens budgeting for Parliament. She works to engage multi-faith groups in promoting peace, harmony and respect for each other. She is also a Fellow of the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada and a Certified Management Consultant.
The relationship between social media and parliamentary democracy is very pertinent in the current COVID-19 environment. Social media has an important role to play in the democratic process. It allows both Parliamentarians and the electorate to share their views directly, in real-time, unmediated by journalists and other observers. In this short article, we will explore a few themes, including the positive and negative impacts of social media, the effect on elections, and the impacts on women. In general, social media provides a good platform for politicians to reach out to groups including millennials and Gen-Z, who tend to rely primarily on social media to stay updated on what is going on locally and around the world. As stated by Freedom House: “Social media allows ordinary people, civic groups, and journalists to reach a vast audience at little or no cost.” 1 However, this can also pose a threat to democratic elections, because the source and veracity of information shared on platforms cannot always be verified in real time, allowing misinformation to spread rapidly. Some Positive Impacts of Social Media In the past few years, we have seen the impacts of social media shining a light on injustices and human rights violations all around the world. These platforms have given
a voice to the voiceless and enabled them to express their opinions, and in some cases, overturn governments. Social media has been used to mobilise public opinion and coordinate protests, with the best examples being that of the Arab Spring. Individuals and groups have used these channels effectively in more targeted campaigns, such as the capture of Joseph Kony, the rebel leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), who had brutalized Uganda and neighbouring countries. The quick and easy access of mobile phone cameras has also had a dramatic impact on public opinion because people can share footage live with the world on channels including Twitter, YouTube and Instagram, exposing atrocities in real-time. Social media can be used to disseminate information on vote-rigging and voting rights violations. In Bulgaria, a nonprofit organisation created a mobile app called ‘I vote’ to inform users about their voting rights and obligations and allows them to monitor the fairness of elections. As Members of Parliament, it is our responsibility to communicate with our constituents and keep them informed of the work we do on their behalf. We are their voices to Parliament, not Parliament’s voice to them. As such, before the pandemic, I used many forms of communication: paper medium (Householders and 10 percenters), website posts, in-person town-halls and
320 | The Parliamentarian | 2020: Issue Four | 100 years of publishing 1920-2020
seminars, opinion columns for local newspapers, coffee ‘meetand-greets’ at constituents’ residences, school visits and community events. This was complemented by social media posts on platforms including Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to reach out to the different demographics in my riding. Constituents would also receive regular updates over email. From my perspective, I found that using social media, especially, during the pandemic, has helped my
“The relationship between social media and parliamentary democracy is very pertinent in the current COVID19 environment. Social media has an important role to play in the democratic process. It allows both Parliamentarians and the electorate to share their views directly, in realtime, unmediated by journalists and other observers.”
