Political Influencers with Nate Lubin

In this episode, Elizabeth chats with digital communication strategist and experienced political campaigner, Nate Lubin about social media content creators in politics. Nate draws on his experience with the Better Internet Initiative which helps influencers make educational content related to progressive issues as well as his past experience as Director of the Office of Digital Strategy at the White House and Director of Digital Marketing at Obama for America. They talk about what constitutes a political influencer, how content creators engage in politics, and different models of influencer engagement.

Additional Resources:

Elizabeth relies on Brooke Erin Duffy’s article, Social Media Influencers to define the term.Check out the Better Internet Initiative, a program that Nate mentions throughout the episode. Elizabeth mentions Political influencers in Canadian election laws, as defined by Elections Canada in their interpretation note on partisan and election advertising on the internet.For more context on what “political speech” means in the American context, here is an article by de Gregorio and Goanta, which touches on how political speech is a constitutionally protected form of speech in the US.Nate mentions his Berkman Klein Centre’s Project, Accountability Infrastructure in Public Health. Throughout the episode Elizabeth and Nate talk about different models of engaging social media influencers in politics. Check out the article Social Media Influencers and the 2020 U.S. Election: Paying ‘Regular People’ for Digital Campaign Communication, for more from an American perspective.

Check out www.polcommtech.ca for annotated transcripts of this episode in English and French.