Reaching Constituents in the Digital Age
Loading...
Issue Date
2025
Editor
Authors
Ikeman, Andrew
License
Subject
School of communication and culture
Abstract
Canadian politicians have long been tasked with how best to communicate with their constituents, with new digital communications tools being utilised as they have become available. Constituency communications as currently practised offers an alternative to and exists in tension with the centralization of communications within parties, a centralization that has come with the shift to a brand-focused, political marketing approach to political communication. Such centralization complicates an MP's capacity to communicate with constituents in a way aligned with the MP's own values and authenticity. In their constituency communication, MPs already have an opportunity to deploy two-way symmetrical communications methods and foster communicative rationality; moreover, such communications offer part of the solution to the democratic deficit. Based on interviews with MPs and office staff, as well as a survey of MPs across the federal parties, what emerges is a draft of a potential new model for constituency communication, one thus to actualize the potential already available in such MP-to-constituent contact at the riding level. This model, the Constituency First Communications model, would among other benefits de-mystify the role of the politician by making them more accessible to their constituents and less of a “party-mouthpiece” who repeats talking points.
Description
2025