Why Do Politicians Tweet? Extremists, Underdogs, and Opposing Parties as Political Tweeters

Abstract

Why do some politicians actively use social media, while others lag behind? To answer this question, we propose that opposing party politicians, underdogs, and extremists are more likely to become active political tweeters. Research has shown that media attention is generally concentrated on politicians with power; that is, ruling parties and party leaders. We thus hypothesize that politicians marginalized from media attention, namely backbenchers and those from opposing parties, may perceive greater potential benefits from social media. Further, politicians whose ideological positions do not match well with those of major news media (i.e., extremists) may perceive risks in facing tough questions from journalists, as well as the media's gatekeeping process. We thus hypothesize that extremists may perceive greater benefits from using social media, because they can control their message. We tested these hypotheses using data on U.S. Senators’ public communication activities on Twitter and in press releases in 2009–2011 and found strong support.

Facebooking a different campaign beat: party leaders, the press and public engagement

“…We also wanted to determine if the issue-based content of PLs’ posts aligned with the mainstream news media’s agenda. Much of the research about politicians’ motivations to use social media platforms suggests that a primary reason is precisely to circumvent the gatekeeping and ventriloquising tendencies of journalists (Hong et al, 2019; Larsson and Kalsnes, 2014; Ross et al, 2015). Finally, we wanted to explore first-level public reaction to the PLs’ posts, given social media’s ability to extend the reach of messages through sharing, and facilitating interactions through likes and comments.…”

National Leaders’ Usage of Twitter in Response to COVID-19: A Sentiment Analysis

“…However, Twitter messages are by design brief and do not allow for significant information density, so how leaders tweet can be just as important as what is tweeted (Ceron et al, 2014;Hong, Choi, & Kim, 2019). These on-going flow of these micromessages from leaders to publics help set the tone of public debate and steer the conversation in different ways which have a significant effect in a crisis.…”

Electoral system influence on social network usage patterns of parliamentary assistants as their legislators’ stand-in: The United States, Germany, and Israel

“…Finally, an interesting, potentially relevant variable regarding MP SNS engagement was raised recently by Hong et al (2019): whether the MP belongs to the governing coalition or the opposition. Their finding: as coalition MPs tend to receive greater coverage in traditional media, given that they are more involved in initiating and passing legislation (and perhaps also hold more “mainstream” viewpoints), opposition MPs turn more widely and intensively to SNS media in order to have their voices heard.…”