The Pursuit of Electoral Visibility: the Political Communication Strategies of Canadian Municipal Candidates
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
The Pursuit of Electoral Visibility: The Political Communication Strategies of Canadian Municipal Candidates by Angelia Caroline Wagner A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Political Science University of Alberta © Angelia Caroline Wagner, 2015 Abstract This study examines the role of gender and municipal context in the political communication strategies of Canadian municipal candidates. Specifically, how do differences in candidates’ personal characteristics, municipal context, political circumstances, and campaign resources shape their strategies for establishing and/or maintaining media and public visibility during a local election, and how do these differences help us to understand the gendered and municipal dimensions of political communication? To answer this question, I conducted a large-scale survey of candidates who ran for municipal office from 2010 to 2012, as well as interviews with a subset of respondents. Findings indicate that women and men politicians take an equally strategic approach to the use of communication techniques in their campaigns, suggesting any gendered differences in news coverage or public image are not due to differences in level of effort. In contrast, I demonstrate that major differences in the personal characteristics of city and non-city candidates, in the news media’s approach to covering the two groups, and in local preferences for or against certain campaign techniques shape candidates’ communication choices and outcomes. I also find that, despite the arrival of the Internet as a campaign tool, municipal candidates’ enduring faith in the importance of face-to-face contact with voters suggests scholarly concern over the lack of interaction between politicians and voters either online or in person is misplaced at the local level. Many municipal candidates are keen to discuss local political issues with voters. II Preface This thesis is an original work by Angelia Wagner. The research project, of which this thesis is a part, received research approval from the University of Alberta Research Ethics Board, Project Name “Gender and the Political Communication Strategies of Canadian Municipal Politicians”, No. 31630, June 21, 2012. A version of Chapter 5 of this thesis is set to be published as Angelia Wagner, “Candidate Orientation to ICTs in Canadian Municipal Elections.” In Citizen Participation and Political Communication in a Digital World, eds. Alex Frame and Gilles Brachotte. New York: Routledge. III Acknowledgements From my days as a young reporter covering a wide range of topics for a succession of community newspapers to my years as an editor planning coverage, editing stories, and designing news pages at dailies, I have witnessed first-hand how politicians try to convince voters to support their aspirations for elected office. I have interviewed candidates about hot campaign issues and taken head-and-shoulder photos of them to accompany such stories. I have prepared candidate profiles and attended all-candidate forums. I have also decided how election coverage appears in print, from the wording of a headline and selection of a photo to the placement of a story on a page. In essence, I have helped shaped the media visibility of many aspiring municipal politicians over the years. Yet, while I have watched them pitch lawn signs, distribute pamphlets, and shake hands with voters, I knew little about the strategies that municipal candidates in general, and women candidates in particular, used to increase their level of visibility during an election. This dissertation is able to determine the role of gender and municipal context in the political communication strategies of Canadian politicians thanks to the support of many individuals. First, and most importantly, this project would not have been possible without the involvement of more than 300 municipal candidates in Canada, who took the time to answer a long questionnaire about their communication practices and who, in many instances, graciously dealt with technical issues during the administration of the online survey. I am also grateful to the respondents who agreed to do in-depth phone interviews about the role of communications in contemporary municipal elections. Together, these candidates’ experiences with, and perspectives on, the news media, Internet-based applications, paid advertising, and personal contact with voters have enriched our understanding of political communication in Canada. I am also forever indebted to my supervisor, Dr. Linda Trimble, for her constructive IV feedback at every step of my academic journey and, especially, for her infectious enthusiasm for academia. My professional and intellectual development as an academic have also been enriched through my ongoing involvement with her and Dr. Shannon Sampert’s research group on gendered mediation in Canadian political party leadership coverage. I am grateful to them and the other group members, Bailey Gerrits and Daisy Raphael, for pushing me to become a better researcher. I also wish to extend my appreciation to supervisory committee members Dr. Harvey Krahn for his invaluable guidance in quantitative research methods and Dr. Judy Garber for her critical feedback in the areas of theory and municipal politics. I am also grateful to Dr. Lori Thorlakson and Dr. Joanna Everitt (University of New Brunswick) for taking the time to be part of my examining committee and to Dr. Cressida Heyes for chairing the defence. Other professors in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta have also contributed to my studies in indelible ways, as have fellow graduate students, friends, and family members. Funding for this research was generously provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, University of Alberta, and Province of Alberta. I am especially grateful to the various graduate chairs and staff members of the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta for their assistance in securing funding and for their unwavering support for my project. I was also able to present preliminary research findings at various conferences thanks to travel grants from the department, the University of Alberta Graduate Students’ Association, the Canadian Political Science Association, Dr. Linda Trimble, and the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research through its Profiling Alberta’s Graduate Students Award. Finally, this dissertation is dedicated to my father, Gary C. Wagner, for encouraging me to pursue a doctorate and then spending countless hours listening to my ruminations on women, politics, and media; and to my late mother, R. Doreen Wagner, who in her final days urged me to pursue my ambitions. V Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction: Communicating the Value of Politics 1 Why Study Electoral Visibility? 4 Why Study Political Communication? 6 Why Study Gender? 9 Why Study Municipal Politics? 12 Chapter Preview 15 Chapter 2: Communicating Politics: The Role of Gender and Local Context 17 Introduction 17 The Politics of Communication 20 The Ramifications of Visibility 22 The Dissemination of Campaign Messages 26 The Techniques of Political Communication 27 The Politics of Municipal Elections 33 Municipality environment 34 Non-partisan environment 35 News media environment 35 Electoral environment 37 Competitive environment 41 Financial environment 41 Gender environment 43 Gendered mediation 44 Conclusion 46 VI Chapter 3: Designing Research: The Methodology of a Study 49 Introduction 49 A Feminist Epistemology 49 Quantitative Method: Large-Scale Survey 54 Sampling frame 55 Pretest 59 Data collection 60 Response rate 62 Weighting 62 Limitations of the survey 63 Qualitative Method: Interviews 64 Data collection 67 Measures 67 Ethical Considerations 71 Conclusion 74 Chapter 4: Candidate Resources: The Variables at Play in Municipal Elections 76 Introduction 76 The Possibilities of the Personal 77 The Pathways to Power 82 The Advantages of Incumbency 85 The Advantages of Political Experience 87 The Realities of Political Structures 89 The Power of Money 93 The Power of People 96 The Advantage of Volunteerism 97 The Advantage of Residency 100 VII The Complex Portrait of Municipal Candidates 101 The Statistical Model 103 Conclusion 104 Chapter 5: Missing in Action? Candidate Views on Local News Media 108 Introduction 108 Identifying the Nature of the Local News Industry 110 Visibility of municipal elections 113 Counteracting Media Invisibility in Municipal Elections 113 Strategies for media relations 116 Tactics for gaining media attention 117 Amount of candidate coverage 120 Sources of candidate coverage 121 Expectations for news coverage 124 Assessing the Local News Media’s Performance 126 Quality of local election coverage 129 Fairness of the local news media 131 Conclusion 134 Chapter 6: Word of Mouse: The Online Campaign for Municipal Votes 136 Introduction 136 Tools of Internet Campaigning 139 Extent of online campaign 140 Preferences for online applications 144 Intensity of online presence 146 Interest in the online campaign 148 Deliberateness of the online campaign 150 VIII Advantages of Internet Campaigning 152 Motives for Internet use 153 Information communicated online 157 Disadvantages of Internet Campaigning 158 Reasons for rejecting ICTs 160 The future of Internet campaigning 164 Conclusion 164 Chapter 7: Paying to be Seen: Use of Advertising in Municipal Elections 167 Introduction 167 The Strengths and Weaknesses of Paid Advertising 168