Using Citizen Science to Promote Transparency in British Election Campaigns

政客们越来越被认为与选民“脱节”。根据最近对英国选民的大规模调查，四分之三的公民不相信国会议员可以信任，也不相信政治家关心公民的想法（英国选举研究，2019）。人们对政治家和更广泛的政治越来越感到幻灭，这被认为是民粹主义和反民主态度抬头的原因。拟议的项目将通过提高英国竞选活动的透明度来解决这一问题。它将开发一个易于使用的工具，供选民分析政治精英传播的竞选信息的多样性。这样做，该工具提高了选民对各政党在竞选活动中谈论的内容的了解，并提高了选民作出最能代表其利益的选择的能力。此外，新工具将使其他利益相关者，如记者和学者，更好地了解如何竞选信息在英国各地的变化。选举传单仍然是英国选举活动的支柱。几乎所有在2017年大选前与政党联系的选民都报告说，他们至少收到了一份选举传单。事实上，英国政党和候选人花在传单上的钱比其他任何竞选活动都多。2017年，各政党在传单的设计和邮寄上花费了超过1300万英镑，占各政党竞选活动所花资金的近一半。然而，虽然法律要求候选人和政党报告他们在选举传单上花费了多少钱，但他们不需要提供关于其通信内容的信息。此外，政党的竞选宣传越来越多地针对特定选区（即边缘席位）和这些选区内的特定选民（即“摇摆不定”选民）。其结果是，选民越来越难以获得关于所有政党和候选人在竞选活动中对当地选民所说和承诺的完整信息。同样，政治科学家和选民也很难分析这些通信的内容以及全国各地的差异。我们提议的项目将试行一种公民科学的方法来增加英国选举的透明度。我们的目标是利用众包和公民科学与主要合作伙伴民主俱乐部合作开发一个网站，专注于提高选民对政党和候选人分发的竞选材料的认识-AnalysingLeaflets.co.uk。新网站将为选举传单增加新的功能和公民科学驱动的分析。它将允许用户a）根据各种主题对传单进行编码，B）可视化英国各地选举传单中出现的模式。例如，用户将能够根据i）递送传单的特定政党和/或候选人，ii）递送传单的选区（或多个选区），以及iii）他们感兴趣的特定问题领域（或多个领域）来分析传单。这一工具提高了公民作出知情选举选择的能力。它试行了一种新的公民科学方法来编码选举通信，并提高了英国选举活动的整体透明度。

Politicians are increasingly perceived as being 'out of touch' with voters. According to the most recent large-scale survey of the British electorate, three out of four citizens do not believe that MPs can be trusted or that politicians care what citizens think (British Election Study, 2019). This growing sense of disillusionment with politicians, and politics more broadly, is seen to contribute to the rise of populism and anti-democratic attitudes. The proposed project will address this situation by increasing the transparency surrounding British election campaigns. It will develop an easy-to-use tool for voters to analyse the diversity of campaign messages disseminated by political elites. In doing so, the tool enhances voters' knowledge of what parties talk about in their election campaigns and voters' ability to make choices that best represent their interests. In addition, the new tool will enable other stakeholders like journalists and academics to better understand how campaign messages vary across Britain.Election leaflets are still the backbone of British electoral campaigns. Almost all voters who were contacted by a party in the run up to the 2017 general elections reported that they received at least one election leaflet. In fact, British parties and candidates spend more money on leaflets than any other campaign activity. More than £13m was spent by parties on the design and postage of leaflets in 2017, making up nearly half of all the money spent by parties on their election campaigns. However, while candidates and parties are legally required to report how much they spend on election leaflets, they are not required to provide information about the content of their communications. Furthermore, campaign communication from political parties is increasingly targeted to specific constituencies (i.e. marginal seats) and to specific voters within those constituencies (i.e. 'swing' voters). The result of this is that it is increasingly difficult for voters to obtain complete information about what all parties and candidates are saying and promising to voters locally during election campaigns. In a similar vein, it is difficult for political scientists and voters to analyse the content of these communications and how it varies across the country. Our proposed project will pilot a citizen science approach to increasing the transparency of elections in Britain.Our aim is to utilise crowd-sourcing and citizen science in collaboration with the key partner Democracy Club to develop a website which focuses on improving voters' awareness of the campaign materials that parties and candidates distribute - AnalysingLeaflets.co.uk. The new website will add new functionality and citizen science-driven analysis to election leaflets. It will allow users to a) code leaflets according to a variety of themes, and b) visualise the patterns that occur in election leaflets across Britain. For example, users will be able to analyse leaflets according to i) the particular party and/or candidate who delivered the leaflet, ii) the constituency (or constituencies) in which leaflets were delivered, and iii) the particular issue area (or areas) that they are interested in. This tool enhances citizens' ability to make informed electoral choices. It pilots a new citizen science approach to coding election communications, and increases the overall transparency of election campaigns in Britain.