Online politicking will get intense: Regina professor

Buckle your seatbelts and get ready for a wild ride.

With more and more people getting their election news online, political strategists are crafting new kinds of social media ads that are designed to stir emotions, University of Regina computer science professor David Gerhard says.

"Aggressive messages, controversial messages are more likely to be shared by all parties, because, if there is something that some political party posts that I strongly agree with, I'm more likely to share that than if it is just sort of bland," Gerhard said.

• POLL:How are you getting information on the federal election?

Gerhard says the more people comment and share a political party's controversial ad on social media the more it will show up in people's social media feeds.

For that reason, parties are packaging ads for social media that are designed to spark debate.

"Facebook is about people, Twitter is about people," Gerhard said.

"So, if you have a personal connection with somebody who says 'I like or don't like this political party's stance on some issue' that'll have a lot more weight than if a political party says 'You should like or not like some political party's stance on some issue.'"

Many Canadians rely on web for political information

New research from Google and Abacus Data shows that for 30 per cent of Canadian voters, online content is their only source of information when it comes to election issues.

CBC News spoke to several people in downtown Regina who agreed with that finding.

"I confess to being like the kids, I open my laptop," John Harvey said.

"I think I mostly get my information from Facebook, from what other people are posting," Vicki Nelson added. "I also watched the first televised debate, because it was streamed online."

While some skim online for election information, others delve deeper.

"I am a kind of a bit of a data geek so I have been following the polls a little bit," Graham Haines said. "So, 308.com is something I have a lot of interest in. Just seeing how projections are changing and, other than that, just news articles online."

According to the research, one in five voters aged 50 and over are also digital-only when it comes to the election.

"You know what, it is easily accessible," Rebecca Best said. "On my coffee break I can check the websites, I can do a Google search. So it makes it really streamlined and easy to access."

The research also noted that voters who want a change in government are more likely to rely on the internet as their primary news source about politics and the election than those with a preference for the status quo.

Canadians go to the polls on Oct. 19.