Trust in Government

Action Learning Project

April 2023

Trust is an essential component of well-functioning democracies and strong public institutions. It is
needed for governments to possess the legitimacy to lead, govern, and respond to important
challenges. In recent years, citizen trust in government and the use of social media platforms as
channels to communicate with Canadians have become the subject of study. What can social media
data tell us to better understand the characteristics and changing nature of trust? This summary
report presents the findings from a study which examined citizen trust through the lens of social
media, using a unique Artificial Intelligence (AI) model which tracked and interpreted Twitter data
from December 2020 to December 2022.

The purpose of the study was to measure trust in several ways – over time, by ‘component’ of trust,
across discrete policy areas, and along the ideological spectrum. Rich findings emerged from each
of these lines of inquiry.