☑️ diversityvotes.ca Launches: Matching ridings with ethnic media to increase civic knowledge and participation

As you may know, I have been working with MIREMS —Multilingual International Research and Ethnic Media Services— to match riding level demographic and socio-economic data with insights from ethnic media.

Our objectives are:

• More in-depth understanding of riding characteristics, and how these interact with electoral strategies;
• Wider awareness of how national and local issues are portrayed in community and regional ethnic media to increase accountability of ethnic-oriented media strategies;
• Allow for more informed discussion regarding ethnic voting patterns and issues; and,
• Greater responsibility of candidates and political parties of their messaging to different groups.

diversityvotes.ca launches today, a fully interactive website that combines this riding level data with stories and commentaries from ethnic media to fill the gaps in understanding between Canada’s diverse communities, the media they listen to, read and watch, and how that can affect how they cast their ballot in the upcoming federal election. 

We’re focussing on ridings with the largest number of visible minorities: 41 where visible minorities are the majority, 93 where they form more than 20 percent, with significant pockets of five to 20 percent in another 95 ridings.

So I invite you to check out diversityvotes.ca. Look up your riding and explore the data. Check the ethnic media headlines and articles. Read the blogs, articles and background. Let us know what you think.

diversityvotes.ca will only grow stronger over time, as we collect, compile and curate more election-related stories.

And, 

If you like what you see, support us by:

• Signing-up for regular updates
• Telling your friends and colleagues and share the link: diversityvotes.ca
• Posting to your social media networks
• Considering making a financial contribution given the more funds we raise, the more stories we can cover, translate and curate

The Canadian Press article: New tool launched to shine light on ethnic media coverage of election