Black dissects election communication

Assoc. Prof. David Black has been busy providing communication analysis on the BC election to news media throughout the province and country, as the campaign heats up this week.

Black appeared in two stories by the Canadian Press, and offered interviews to CHEK News and CFAX 1070 this week.

Here’s an excerpt from an Oct. 12 article by CP’s Dirk Meissner:

"Debates are always important, but given the accelerated nature of this campaign and the rather impersonal and virtualized nature of the campaign, this moment of focus, of attention to the choices in front of us, is more important than it might normally be," said Prof. David Black, a political communications expert at Royal Roads University in Victoria.

[…]

Black said the debate could produce some of the campaign's few personal moments amid livestreamed news conferences, virtual town halls and Zoom calls to supporters.

"This (campaign) will be so impersonal, so virtualized that this debate is the equivalent of a candidate showing up at your doorstep," he said.

Wilkinson and Furstenau will try to get the NDP leader to explain why he called an election during the pandemic, said Black.

"This may be one of those rare elections where the very fact of the election, the very fact it was called, is the ballot question," he said.

Read and hear more of Black’s analysis in Oct. 9 and Oct. 12 articles by the Canadian Press, on CHEK News Oct. 13 and Oct. 14, and on CFAX 1070.