Mapping Canadian Leaders’ Use of YouTube
Canada’s federal, provincial and territorial party leaders have an established and active presence on several of the most popular social media platforms, including Facebook, X/Twitter, and Instagram. Party leaders tend to be much less active on the video-sharing platform YouTube. With news media taking note of the success federal Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre has found on this platform, the authors of this article sought to learn if it portends a shift in the extent it is used. They conclude that, to date, YouTube has still not joined the ranks of other popular social media platforms, likely due to the cost of production, the time it takes to create a YouTube video, and the disproportionate levels of engagement compared to content posted elsewhere. However, the authors hypothesize that with two other federal leaders, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of the Liberal Party and Jagmeet Singh of the New Democratic Party, increasingly producing Direct to Viewer content in advance of the next general election, Canadian politicians may at some point in the future make use of this technology as much as their American counterparts.
Andrew J.A. Mattan, Aidan Harris, and Tamara A. Small