Wonks and War Rooms

Etienne Rainville of The Boys in Short Pants podcast, former Hill staffer, and government relations expert chats with Elizabeth about liquid modernity. They chat about how the fast-paced nature of politics, how political actors learn about the issues, and the role of Twitter in Canadian politics and policy making. Additional Resources Chapter 4 in the book Political Communication and Social Theory...

Co-founder of CivicTechTO and self-declared certified nerd, Anowa Quarcoo chats with Elizabeth about the idea of citizenship. They talk about legal and cultural definitions of citizenship before jumping into a discussion of what counts as a citizen in a digital era. From civic leaders, to publics, to users, to citizens - they talk about how some terms can be empowering while others can be exclusio...

Mor is a self-described data geek, she chats with Elizabeth about what open data actually is, how it can be used, and why it isn't always the perfect fix (but still helpful) for increasing government transparency and accountability. Hear about examples from government and philanthropy in Canada, Israel, and the UK. Additional Resources Two useful websites for defining open data are: open.cana...

Megan Beretta is a public servant who is dedicated to digital government. She and Elizabeth chat about the evolution from e-government to digital government, where we find digital gov efforts in Canada (also, who can actually get stuff done), and opportunities for increased accessibility. Additional Resources We've mentioned the Citizenship in a Connected Canada book before - it is the one El...

Vass Bednar is a public policy expert who chats with Elizabeth about the idea of surveillance capitalism. Talking about a few Canadian examples, they talk about how tech companies collect and use data from their users, how privacy policy might be a red herring and how incentive structures in the tech industry contribute to the system of surveillance capitalism. Additional Resources: Shoshana Zubof...

Alexander Dirksen, a proud member of Métis Nation BC, researcher and strategist chats with  Elizabeth about what it means to decolonize digital spaces and why it is so crucial to re-centre conversations about tech development through the lens of decolonization.  Additional Resources Decolonizing Digital Space (Chapter 1) - this is the chapter written by Alexander Dirksen that is mentioned througho...

Elizabeth here with a quick update on what you can expect from Season Two of Wonks and War Rooms. The first full episode will drop Wednesday, February 17! Check out www.polcommtech.ca for annotated transcripts of this episode in English and French .

That's it for season 1 - thank you so much for joining us! Season 2 will kick off in January. Until then, you can head over to polcommtech.ca to join our mailing list or follow Elizabeth on Twitter @lizdubois. Check out www.polcommtech.ca for annotated transcripts of this episode in English and French .

Former content moderator, Andrew Strait, and Elizabeth chat about what content moderation is, why it is always flawed, and how the way platforms are constructed impact the flow of content. They talk about a bunch of related issues including how to (and how not to) regulate tech companies in order to minimize harms. Additional Resources Andrew recommended two great books that look at content modera...

Tiffany Gooch, Principal at Aurora Strategy and activist, chats with Elizabeth about issue ownership (which, it turns out, is NOT issue management). Issue ownership is this idea that certain political parties will be perceived to be particularly credible or effective on certain issues and they can develop comms strategy based on it. But pandemics change things. Additional Resources: A great place...

Kate Harrison (VP at Summa Strategies) and Elizabeth chat about the permanent campaign, and how political parties and politicians change their communication strategies over time. With so much information out there, politicians have to be communicating with potential voters even outside official election times. Additional resources: In a Policy Options piece, Esselment reviews the Canadian context:...

Nasma Ahmed is the Director of the Digital Justice Lab and she helps Elizabeth unpack what exactly mis- and dis- information are, why we need to question content we see online, and how a lack of trust in larger political systems plays in. Additional Resources: First Draft has a number of very useful resources. Find some key definitions in Wardel's Fake news: It's complicated and check ou...

Kevin Parent runs Ottawa Public Health's social media accounts. He and Elizabeth talk about how important authenticity is for communicating health information to the public, especially in a pandemic. Also, humour. Seriously, @OttawaHealth is hilarious on Twitter. Additional Resources This academic article by Gaden and Dumitrica reviews the idea of authenticity: The 'real deal': Stra...

Adi, a lawyer and campaigner, explains how campaigns are often thinking about how they can crack into people's filter bubbles in order to raise awareness and find new supporters. During the conversation Elizabeth and Adi tease apart the difference between algorithmically driven filter bubbles and echo chambers which come about as a result of individuals choices in their media environment. Add...

David Coletto, pollster and CEO of Abacus Data, chats with Elizabeth about what public opinion polling is, how publics are identified, and why what "the public" thinks is politically useful. They also talk about how social media (and all the data we leave behind as we use them) are changing how we can get to know different publics. David takes a quiz to differentiate between networked pu...

Nick is a long-time campaigner and former Hill staffer. He and Elizabeth talk about opinion leaders and the two-step flow hypothesis. In theory these opinion leaders use social pressure and social support to influence their friends and family but Nick argues that kind of influence just isn't that useful in most federal campaigns. Additional Resources: Academic journal article by Katz (he and...

Elizabeth chats with journalist Fatima Syed about gatekeeping theory. Gatekeepers control the flow of information but Fatima isn't sure if there really are gatekeepers in a digital media ecosystem. The traditional role of news media assumes journalistic ethics will guide gatekeeping decisions but that doesn't apply to social media companies which are also important information controller...

Welcome to Wonks and War Rooms, where political communication theory meets on the ground strategy. Each episode Professor Elizabeth Dubois introduces use to a political communication theory and then chats with a with political staffers, journalists, comms experts, lobbyists, activists and other political actors. They talk through examples our in the applied world of politics and communication to i...

Elizabeth chats with Buzzfeed disinformation reporter Jane Lytvynenko about the high-choice media environment. In a tweet, Jane tells us the theory is basically information capitalism. They dig into the idea of having lots of choices both about the supply and demand for political information. From audience fragmentation to crisis communication, we question what the theory has to say about the way...

Elizabeth chats with lawyer Naomi Sayers about Assemblages. From @IndigiBot to bad date reporting to corporate complaint hierarchies, they've got lots of examples of Assemblages. They show how thinking about the system of people, organizations, tools, technology, and the relationships between each can be pretty useful. Additional resources: This academic article by Chadwick: The political inf...