Donald
Trump and Members of Congress like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have changed the
way that American voters get information about politics, and as a consequence,
changed the way the media reports on political proceedings. The United States,
however, does not hold the monopoly on political change resulting from social
media. Other countries have experienced dramatic change due to the rapid rise
of social media as a primary news source.
Writing
about Victorian England, Cox quoted an English voter that, “… would vote for a pig if the party put one
up.” His argument centers around the idea that the rules and nature of
parliamentary systems reduce the impact of individual Members of Parliament
(MPs). This is due, in part, to the efficient secret – the phenomenon where the
Cabinet serves both in an executive and legislative capacity. MPs toe party
lines to ensure that when their party is elected they receive an elusive cabinet
position. This concept of political systems, in Cox’s mind, exists to serve
voters. At election time, voters are presented with a party platform detailing
what each party plans to do while in office. The electorate votes for a local MP
based on the platforms of their party. Once in office, the government generally
focuses on executing promises from its campaign platform.
This
resigns individual MPs to mere cogs in the system of governance. The rise of
social media has given individual Members of Parliament a voice outside of their
whipped party line. MPs can post heated exchanges showing them standing up for
their constituents in Question Period, or show their disagreement with the party
during debates in the House of Commons (even if the member still votes on party
lines), or advertise a newly tabled Private Member’s Bill that may never see
the floor of Parliament. Social media can increase the accountability and
connectivity of individual Members to their constituents and reduce the power of
their party.
To
test this, I explored the relationship between social media posting, viewership,
and media coverage of S031 statements from the Conservative Party of Canada
(CPC). This is an excellent case study to explore this. An S031 is a statement
made by a Member of Parliament following the daily Question Period. Allotment
of S031s is split evenly among parties based on the number of seats each party
represents in the House of Commons. Once each party receives its S031slots, the
party divides these among individual Members, usually evenly between front and
back benchers. Although the CPC typically allows its members to write their own
S031s, sometimes the Opposition Leader’s Office steps in and requests (or
writes entirely) that the Member deliver a statement on a particular issue. Canada
has a parliamentary system modelled after the system in the United Kingdom,
which makes it an excellent choice to test the merits of Cox’s theory outside
the UK. The CPC is currently Canada’s official opposition which makes it an
ideal case study; the official opposition receives the second highest allotment
of S031s, and the opposition is less constrained by the Prime Ministers’ Office
on the content of their statements. However, because the CPC is the official opposition
it has a strong leadership team and shadow cabinet that mirrors the government’s
cabinet.
For
the 2015-2016 Parliamentary session, I examined all of the S031s delivered by a
Conservative Member of Parliament (353 statements) and determined if they were
written by the individualMP or by the OLO based on whether they were partisan
and policy focused or if they were non-partisan and constituency focused. Next,
I looked at the Facebook page and YouTube channel of each MP to determine if
the statement was posted and then calculated the S031s total number of viewers.
Finally, I searched news sources to see if the S031 had received any media
coverage.
Former CPC Leader Rona Ambrose Delivering a Statement in the House of Commons. Source: The Canadian Press
I tested the
difference between OLO and MP written S031s based on posting, viewership, and
news coverage. I found a statistically significant difference between the
speeches that were written by the OLO
and those that were written by MPs. An MP written statement had an average
viewership of 5,423.9 per statement, an OLO written statement had an average
viewership of 10,920.7. This seems to prove Cox’s theory that voters are more
concerned with the party than individual MPs. However, this could be due to
other factors including the broader mass appeal of partisan S031s.
Other
measures help explain the behavior of MPs in a partisan context; 84.47% of
S031s that were posted to social media were written by the MPs themselves, and
88% of S031s that received news coverage were not written by the OLO.
These
results pose several questions, especially regarding the ways that individual MPs
feel about their parties and how MPs connect with constituents. These results could
show a disconnect between the OLO and MPs, and they provide a case for MPs
following the Cox model to focus more on seeking cabinet positions. These
results could also show some dissonance between MPs and the central media in
reporting material that is interesting to constituents.
Although
this case study has some interesting implications, it also has some real
limitations. First, it would be better if it was expanded to more years, political
systems, and political parties. Additional controls for social media following
would also be useful.
Sources:
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