Projects
About
Politics are no longer restricted to official communication channels and platforms such as mainstream news properties, political blogs, and candidate websites. As a consequence, the study of one platform, such as the chaotic and often adversarial Twitter platform, cannot adequately capture the disruptive influence of social media on political processes today.
This online election study focuses on a set of internet platforms not commonly associated with electoral politics. Our study investigates how political memes, language, and shared political objects (videos, photos, images, graphics, posts, etc) from fringe websites become insinuated into mainstream political discourse via more established social media platforms and news properties. We are studying the 2019 Canadian federal election from fringe perspectives posted on anonymous and anarchic internet forums that Tuters refers to as “the deep vernacular web” (2018), those who imagine themselves as opponents to the mainstream electoral processes taking place on more visible parts of the web.
Anthony Burton
Melody Devries
Greg Elmer
Ganaele Langlois
Fenwick McKelvey
Steve Neville
Rod Philpot
Marc Tuters
Sabrina Ward
Greg Elmer quoted in “‘We’re not 100 per cent sure who’s framing the discussion anymore’: the evolving role of media in election coverage” Mike Lapointe, The Hill Times, October 30 2019.
Anthony Burton on the Ryerson Review of Journalism’s Pull Quotes: How Media Professionals Adapt to Challenging Misinformation. Season Three, Episode Two. November 7 2019.
Greg Elmer: “Will Scheer or Trudeau have an alt-right internet problem?” Policy Options, September 2019
Greg Elmer and Caroline O’Neill, Moment of Truth on ELMNT.FM. October 3 2019.
This website is part of “The Dark Web’s Impact on the 2019 Canadian Election”, a research project funded by the Digital Ecosystem Research Challenge. More information about the Research Challenge can be found here.
Recently published
Conflictual Politics: Hamilton October 24, 2019 - The City of Hamilton is the current site of an intense series of confrontations between numerous far-right groups facing off against a unified social movement, known as “No Hate in the Hammer” (NHH). The NHH movement is supported by general Hamilton residents, 2SLGBTQ+ community members, social inclusivity organizations, and the controversial anarchist collective in Hamilton, … 
This is how it starts October 23, 2019 - The difference between the alternative media ecosystem in the United States and Canada's new right new media is that the latter is the establishment that Breitbart loves to hate.
Canada’s New Right New Mediasphere October 18, 2019 - We outline the three other major players that constitute the core of the Canadian "new right new media."
The Rebel Yell October 13, 2019 - Some insight into the Rebel's role in the Canadian news sphere--and how they have used YouTube to gain a powerful position that frames our investigations of the growing presence of new right ideologies and political forms in Canada.