Power U 35: How Election Slogans Reflect Power Types

#PowerU 35 - taking a little break from talking about the principles behind power literacy to apply what we’ve learned about it to the federal election slogans from Canada’s main national political parties. When I first started teaching about power literacy, the 2019 federal election was happening and I decided to look at if and how the parties were connecting to different power types. Turns out that yes - and not surprisingly - their slogans are deeply anchored by specific power types…but not necessarily the same ones from election to election. In fact since that first election I looked at six years ago, I’ve done this exercise for every local, provincial and federal election I’ve been able to vote in and what has been surprising is that the parties that are competitive to win those elections are consistently effective at tapping into the power type that is most on the minds of the voters at the time. The parties that are more likely to be out of contention for forming a government consistently use the same power type, essentially treating power more like a personal brand than a power literate response to context. Have a listen - I always love to hear your thoughts. Next episode we will be back with the last in the mini-series on power and empathy before we move on to how to observe and map power.