2019 Federal Election Clustered Images

We created this dataset to map how images circulated across social media during Canadian elections. We collected data during the 2019 federal election, an election defined by images of then-incumbent Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wearing brownface and blackface. As a reflection of Canada, our data set includes images with racist, sexist, xenophobic, and hyper-nationalist sentiments from extremist sites online. We purposefully included these harmful images as well as collected images from across social media that included other sites of fringe politics as it accurately reflects parts of Canada’s visual culture. We are not aware of any available data sets of Canadian political images. We are releasing our data set to preserve the historical record and advance research in Canada’s visual political culture.