This article explores dynamics of online image management and its impact on leadership in a context of digital permanent campaigning and celebrity politics in Canada. Recent studies have shown that images can play a critical role when members of the public are evaluating politicians. Specifically, voters are looking for specific qualities in political leaders, including honesty, intelligence, friendliness, sincerity, and trustworthiness, when making electoral decisions. Image management techniques can help create the impression that politicians possess these qualities. Heads of governments using social media to capture attention through impactful images or videos on an almost daily basis seems like a new norm. Specifically, this article takes interest in Justin Trudeau’s use of Instagram during the first year immediately following his election on October 19, 2015. Through a hybrid quantitative and qualitative approach, we examine how Trudeau and his party convey a specific image to voters in a context of permanent and increasingly personalized campaigning. We do so through an analysis of his Instagram feed focusing on different elements, including how he frames his governing style visually, how his personal life is used on his Instagram to support the Liberal Party of Canada’s values and ideas, and how celebrity culture codes are mobilized to discuss policy issues such as environment, youth, and technology. This analysis sheds light on the effects and implications of image management in Canada. More generally, it offers a much-needed look at image-based e-politicking and contributes to the academic literature on social media, permanent campaigning, as well as celebrity and politics in Canada.

Social media have been playing a growingly important role in grassroots protest over the last five years. While many scholars have explored dynamics of political cyberprotest (e.g., the ongoing transnational Occupy movement, the 2012 Quebec student strike, the student-led protest movement in Chile between 2011 and 2013), few have studied sub-dynamics relating to ethno-cultural minorities' uses of social media to gain visibility, mobilize support, and engage in political and civil action. We fill part of this gap in the academic literature by investigating uses of Twitter for political engagement in the context of the Canada-based Idle No More movement (INM). This ongoing protest initiative, which emerged in December 2012, seeks to mobilize Indigenous Peoples in Canada and internationally as well as their non-Indigenous allies. It does so by bringing attention to their culture, struggles, and identities as well as advocating for changes in policy areas relating to the environment, governance, and socioeconomic matters. Our study explores to what extent references to aspects of Indigenous identities and culture shaped INM-related tweeting and, by extension, activism during the summer of 2013. We conducted a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of 1650 #IdleNoMore tweets shared by supporters of this movement between 3 July 2013 and 2 August 2013. Our study demonstrates that unlike other social media-intensive movements where economic and political concerns were the primary drivers of political and civil engagement, aspects of Indigenous culture influenced information flows and mobilization among #IdleNoMore tweeters.

Recent years have been marked by the emergence of a new breed of