What voters want, what campaigns provide : examining Internet based campaigns in Canadian federal elections

This paper examines differences between what voters want from a campaign website and what political parties are actually providing on their campaign websites. A series of focus groups were conducted and the results of those discussions provided insight into what potential voters wanted from a campaign website. Analysis of the Conservative, Liberal, Bloc Quebecois, Green and New Democratic Party campaign websites was then conducted, and the results provided a glimpse at what the political parties were providing during the 2004 federal election campaign. The results of this research show that is a significance imbalance between what the political parties in Canada were providing and what the focus groups mentioned they wanted from a campaign website. The participants wanted more engaging and mobilizing features, while the campaign websites used during the 2004 election lacked these types of features.

Authors

• Farries, Greg
• University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Arts and Science

• Political campaigns -- Canada -- Technological innovations
• Elections -- Technological innovations -- Canada
• Elections -- Canada
• Dissertations, Academic

Identifier

hdl:10133/250

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:opus.uleth.ca:10133/250