The Canadian Information Ecosystem
Democratic governments have been seized with a concern for mis- and disinformation. There is a malaise that we live in an accelerating post-truth era where a foundational pillar of democracy - the free exchange of factually accurate information - is endangered. And there is a strong feeling something must be done.
In this report, we assess this concern. We ask: what claims are being made about the nature of the information ecosystem? Can we evaluate them? How are the attitudes of Canadians changing? Are the digital media we produce and consume harming or helping? In some cases we are able to provide straight-forward answers, in others we are able to evaluate some claims, and still in others we can simply describe what we can know today and lay a path forward for future research.
To do all this, we employ survey and digital trace data. Using large national samples dating five years apart as well as targeted samples during key political moments (by-elections and extreme weather events), we are uniquely able to speak to trends and to how events may shape behaviours and attitudes. Using a novel digital trace data collection method that links Canadian political influencers across their information ecosystem footprint, we are also uniquely able to comment on concentration and fragmentation in the Canadian information ecosystem. The report details numerous findings. The four most central are:
First, we find that most Canadians are inattentive to politics. Canadians do not regularly consume political news, generally have low levels of political knowledge, and have low awareness of important political figures in Canada and the United States. When news and political information were removed from Facebook, Canadians (including politically active ones) did not noticeably change their behaviour.
Second, with the important caveat of inattentiveness, we find that in the aggregate individuals' news consumption and attitudes have been generally stable in the last five years. We observe remarkably few shifts in what and how people consume their news. Despite this, we do find a significant decline in media trust over the last five years. We do see an increase in use of social media for news, with a rapid rise of TiKTok as well as an increased use of Instagram, WhatsApp, Reddit, and SnapChat. Those who use social media for news tend to be less trusting of traditional media.
Third, we find a high degree of concentration of influence in digital media. Social media provides unequal opportunities to be heard and to have an impact on the conversation. Politician impact in particular is highly unequal. Several large Canadian news outlets, notably Global News and CTV have been able to amass large social media followings.
Fourth, we find that the online discourse among political influencers is not highly segregated in the typical fashion. Instead, the federalism of Canada is important, with politicians tending to share similar content as their provincial political community. Party affiliation does not structure the entire information ecosystem. Certain topics of discussion do tend to be associated with some political party families more than others, with left parties tending to focus on health than any other single topic, while the rest of the political spectrum gave comparatively more emphasis to international issues as well as those of government and governing.
This report also features four case studies that provide insight into one or more facets of Canada’s unique information ecosystem.
A first case is an evaluation of Meta’s decision to block news on their platforms in the summer of 2023. Facebook Pages of media outlets generated between 5 and 8 million views per day of Canadian news content pre-ban and the blocking of news has triggered an estimated 89.3% loss of visible engagement with content posted by Canadian news outlets on Facebook. Canadians remain active on Facebook despite the ban and we find suggestive evidence that political engagement is not centred around the consumption and sharing of news content. Some Canadian news outlets have adopted work-around solutions, while many local outlets have entirely stopped posting across social media channels.
A second case examines the extent to which unilingual Canadians are aware of the media ecosystem of their linguistic outgroup. We find that Canadians have difficulty recognizing and naming political public figures, even if they are “high” profile and well known among those who follow politics closely. Those who consume traditional media are significantly more likely to recognize public figures as compared to those who get their news from social media or who tend to avoid news altogether. English Canadians are more aware of the political and media environment of the United States as compared to that of French-speaking Canada: they have very low recognition of public figures from French-speaking Canada, even among those who have risen to national prominence.
A third case study investigates what Canadians believe about wildfires and how they get their wildfire information. We find that latent attitudes and behaviours can be enormously impactful for where people consume information even during crisis situations. Moreover, their interpretation of extreme weather events is grounded in prior belief in human-caused climate change. Whether or not you believe climate change is occurring due to human activity is highly correlated with believing that the 2023 wildfire season personally impacted you (just in Alberta) as well as your friends and family (across Canada). In other words, where you sit on climate change informs how you experience (increasingly common) extreme weather events. Moreover, climate skeptics are generally far less likely to consult traditional media sources as compared to those who believe climate change is occurring due to human activity. They tend to get more news from social media like YouTube.
A fourth case study examines attitudes and behaviours during a set of four by-elections held in the summer of 2023. We find that Canadians who experience a by-election report seeing substantially more misinformation as compared to the general Canadian population. Despite a heightened concern among Canadians about allegations of foreign intervention in the electoral process, most Canadians are confident that Elections Canada is safe from outside interference and are generally satisfied with democracy. Those living through a by-election are - at least temporarily - more politically active than those who are not.
