Code Politics, Ontario Election 2007: Weekly Research for Week Ending Sept. 14, 2007

Green Party sees gains across the Web

Facebook

Name	Members	Members Last Week		Percentage Change
I'm voting in Ontario - October 10	983
Freeze Ontario Tuition	870	82	788	960.98%
Vote for MMP	1588	1180	408	34.58%
Your Big Decision	608	445	163	36.63%
Green Party of Ontario	638	508	130	25.59%

The Green Party of Ontario continues to show strong growth, increasing in size by 25% again this week.

This week the “Vote for MMP” Facebook group became the most popular in our election study. The group saw significant growth in membership from 1180 last week to the number one spot (1588 members this week). “Your big decision” the other MMP focused group saw the largest increase in membership from 82 members to 870 this week. Student tuition fees remains the other notable issue for Facebook groups.

[1]Click the chart to see it in a full-size window

YouTube

Mainstream media attention had a dramatic impact on popularizing videos on YouTube this past week. Our research noted significant viewership increases for two videos – “John Tory Platform Costing” and “The Simpsons Dalton McGuinty” - both of which received major mainstream media coverage. The former video was posted on YouTube on July 13, 2007, this past week it received nearly 10,000 views.

John Tory

“John Tory Platform Costing” is the top video with surging numbers this week. The video has doubled in number of views from last week. The second and third most popular videos are examples of the new surveillance wars that are becoming common with new technologies. Videos criticizing Tory’s French skills and his comments about the University of Ottawa were uploaded by Liberal partisans that are following John Tory on the campaign trail.

[2]Click the chart to see it in a full-size window

 

Dalton McGuinty

The first and second most popular videos for Dalton McGuinty are attack videos uploaded by Conservative partisans. This week is also the first time Dalton McGuinty was caught on camera engaged in a gaffe in the video “Dalton McGuinty comes out Swinging.” However John Tory’s first gaffe video, ‘Zero Respect for the University of Ottawa’ garnered significantly more attention than the McGuinty slip-up in a similar amount of time online.

Howard Hampton

 

While overall viewership for Hampton is very low with the most viewed video garnering only 1867 views over the past week compared with tens of thousands of views for both McGuinty and Tory. The first and second most viewed videos are an example of ‘content poaching’ with “Sticky Notes” video uploaded by the NDP being satirized in a copycat video “Sticky Notes: Forget Orange” uploaded by Liberal partisans. It will be interesting in the coming weeks to see whether or not the “Forget Orange” label sticks.

“Ontario Election” Videos

Ontario election videos include two ads from the Citizen’s Assembly focused on the referendum. Viewership for Ontario Election videos, including Citizen’s Assembly material is low compared to candidate videos. The video “Visible Minorities” is the first time we have seen local candidates viewed at this evel in our sample. The “Let Frank In” video is still the only provincial Green party video found in our sample.

John Tory

Title	Upload Date	Views Last Week	Affiliation	Tone
John Tory Platform Costing [3]	July 13, 2007	9934	Unknown	Negative
John Tory tries to speak French, por favor! [4]	September 6, 2007	2479	Liberal	Negative
John Tory shows 'Zero Respect' for the University of Ottawa [5]	September 3, 2007	1472	Liberal	Negative
John Tory Promises [6]	June 9, 2007	587	Liberal	Negative
John Tory - John Tory's Bangin' Tories [7]	June 9, 2007	567	Liberal	Negative

Dalton Mcguinty

Title	Upload Date	Views Last Week	Affiliation	Tone
The Simpsons Dalton McGuinty [8]	August 30, 2007	10655	Conservative	Negative
Dalton McGuinty Music Mix [9]	August 28, 2007	878	Conservative	Negative
Dalton McGuinty comes out Swinging [10]	September 7, 2007	646	Unknown	Negative
Dalton McGuinty: Liberals Working [11]	June 17, 2007	641	Liberal	Positive
Dalton McGuinty Election Rush [12]	August 22, 2007	441	Unkown	Negative

Howard Hampton

Title	Upload Date	Views Last Week	Affiliation	Tone
Sticky Notes [13]	September 7, 2007	1867	NDP	Positive
Sticky Notes: Forget Orange [14]	September 9, 2007	1457	Liberal	Negative
Priorities [15]	July 3, 2007	277	NDP	Positive
Pop-Up Video - NDP Style [16]	August 1, 2007	160	Liberal	Negative
Howard Hampton on water in Guelph (4/4) [17]	June 20, 2007	29	NDP	Positive

Ontario Election

Title	Upload Date	Views Last Week	Affiliation	Tone
Visible Minorities? [18]	September 12, 2007	832	Liberal	Negative
Democracy at Work: The Assembly's Decision [19]	May 28, 2007	805	Citizen's Assembly	Positive
Let Frank In [20]	September 4, 2007	756	Green	Positive
Billy Ballot [21]	May 25, 2007	287	Citizen's Assembly	Positive
Ontario Lieberals [22]	September 4, 2007	271	Unknown	Negative

Daily Views for Official Party Accounts

Since September 14 official Green party campaign videos have become the most popular of all the parties, followed by a rise in viewership for the NDP.

Daily Views for Unoffical Party Accounts

Blogs

"Ontario Election" Top Issues

Rank	Issue
1	schools
2	faith
3	mmp (Mixed Member Proportional referendum)
4	women
5	youtube