17 février 2011
Call for Participants for Study of the Canadian Political Blogosphere
A team of researchers from five Canadian universities led by Thierry Giasson (Université Laval) and including Harold Jansen (University of Lethbridge), Ganaele Langlois (Universty of Ontario Institute of Technology), Royce Koop (Queen’s University) and Greg Elmer (Ryerson University) is currently conducting the first large scale study of non-professional Canadian political bloggers (Research Ethics Board File number: 2010-289/16-12-2010). The study is nonpartisan and is funded by a grant from the Social Sciences Research Council of Canada.
The two main objectives of the project is to define the socio-political profile of independent political bloggers in Canada and to understand why they blog about politics. The research investigates how Canadian political bloggers write about politics, how they engage in political life, what motivates them to blog, and how they perceive their influence on political life.
Participation to the study is voluntary and the researchers invite all independent Canadian political bloggers to take part in their online survey. No study of this kind has ever been conducted in Canada. The online survey includes 76 questions. Participants must be non-professional bloggers living in Canada, over 18 years old, have the right to vote in Canada, and must regularly blog about politics (at least once a week).
All the data from the survey will be rendered anonymous so as to protect participant confidentiality. Preliminary results and oral and written analyses will be available for download from the website of the Political Communication Research Lab at Université Laval, directed by Dr. Giasson. Participating bloggers will therefore be able to follow the evolution of the study and to promote and comment research results.
Bloggers wishing to participate to the study can complete the online questionnaire available at: http://www.grcp.com.ulaval.ca/blogscan_en
The study ends on February 28, 2011.
For any inquiries about the study, please contact directly:
Dr. Thierry Giasson
Principal Investigator, Study of the Canadian Political Blogosphere
Department of Communication and Information, Université Laval
1055, avenue du Séminaire
Québec, Qc, G1V 0A6
Phone: 418-656-2131, ext. 7709
Groupe de recherche en communication politique. Université Laval. 2010
