In the latest instalment of the Guardian’s People and Power series, Aamna Mohdin has written about the way a residents’ Facebook group could swing the seat of Canterbury.
Local newspaper editors once controlled the information that circled around a town or small city during an election. But in Canterbury in 2019, that power has fallen into the lap of the 32-year-old administrator of a Facebook group.
Edd Withers set up the Canterbury Residents Group on Facebook five years ago in an attempt to bridge the divide between the city’s large student population and its older residents. In a sign of the changing media environment that could shape this election, what started as a community project to bring generations together has turned into a lively and often chaotic rolling political conversation about all manner of issues affecting the city.
Of the nearly 100 Canterbury residents who contacted the Guardian about the tight race in their constituency, Withers’ Facebook group was mentioned more than a dozen times. While one resident described it as “a good starting point to find the ‘real’ residents and the issues they are passionate about”, another said they left the group “because of the extreme views and bullying behaviour”.
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