Dr Kat Sullivan
Analyst,
My research focuses on the pervasive and constructed nature of gender in Canadian politics. My PhD thesis led to the creation of the very first database of Canadian mayors, their gender, and social media accounts. Interviews with mayors also revealed important ramifications to normative perceptions of gender roles, including a greater mental load and gendered experiences.
I also created a Gender Performance Scale, which I used to analyse visual representations of mayors' gender performance online. My results demonstrate that gender is on a continuum, rather than a binary.
Media
Oprah 2020 ou la loi du moindre effort
Only a Fifth of Canadian Mayors are Women
Policy OptionsOnline
URL: https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/november-2019/only-a-fifth-of-canadian-mayors-are-women/
While the notion that women are making great gains in Canada’s municipal politics persists, the data say gender parity is a distant dream.
Attention aux réalités alternatives
Au-delà de la parité
The gendered digital turn: Canadian mayors on social media
by Katherine V.R. Sullivan
Published by Information Polity
June 3, 2021
Women continue to occupy lesser positions of power at all political levels in Canada, although scholars still argue on the accessibility of municipal politics to women. However, no previous study has systematically examined the gender ratio of mayors across Canada, as well as their (active) use of social media platforms in a professional capacity. Using novel data, this study examines the variation in social media adoption and active use by gender outside of an electoral campaign. Results show that there is a higher proportion of women mayors who have a Facebook page, as well as Twitter and Instagram accounts and who actively use them outside of electoral campaigns, when compared with men mayors’ social media practices.
URL: https://content.iospress.com/articles/information-polity/ip200301
La cyberdémocratie québécoise : Twitter bashing, #VoteCampus et selfies
by Katherine V.R. Sullivan, Pierre C. Bélanger
Published by Politique et Sociétés
July 7, 2016
Social media’s democratic potential is now part of many political scientists’ agendas even though research in this particular field is quite new. The first analysis of the use of Twitter in a Canadian political context only dates back to 2011. We contribute to recent literature by exploring the ways in which candidates used Twitter during the 2014 Quebec general elections. According to cyber optimists, the Twittersphere facilitates interactions with political leaders and increases access to information, as well as encourages political participation. On the contrary, cyber pessimists are more inclined to see digital spaces as new breeding grounds for political spin doctors. To examine these dichotomous perspectives, we conducted a content analysis of over 13,000 tweets published by candidates of the main parties. Our results demonstrate that candidates of the three main parties used Twitter mainly as a political marketing tool, namely Twitter bashing. Tweets published by candidates of Québec Solidaire (that are statistically significantly different) were mostly e-democratic.
URL: https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/ps/1900-v1-n1-ps02590/1037017ar/abstract/
Biography
Kat V.R. Sullivan (they/them) recently successfully completed a PhD in political science at l'Université de Montréal. Their interest in political communication began to take shape during their master’s degree in communication at the University of Ottawa, while studying the use of Twitter by Quebec politicians.
Sullivan's PhD thesis focuses on the gender variation in the use of social media by Canadian mayors, their motivation to run/adopt social media strategies and their gender performance online.
An original dataset of Canadian mayors' gender, municipality size and social media accounts was created and practical recommendations for the news media, parliamentarians and citizens alike were also included in hopes of creating an inclusive political ethos.
https://papyrus.bib.umontreal.ca/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1866/32788/Sullivan_Katherine_2024_these.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y