Social Media Federalism: City Government Communication Patterns Around Federal Political Transition

• In Event: Media and Politics

Abstract

Local governments increasingly use social media platforms to communicate with residents, shape public discourse, and signal policy positions. Yet, limited research explores how changes at the federal level influence local digital communication. This study aims to fill this gap by empirically examining the effects of a major federal political transition on city governments’ Twitter/X activity across the U.S. Leveraging an original city-level dataset of published tweets from over 1,100 verified U.S. city Twitter accounts collected before (June–December 2022) and after (January–March 2025) the federal leadership turnover, this research assesses shifts in posting frequency, content, tone, and user engagement metrics. The preliminary results show that city governments exhibit different strategic adjustments in tweet frequency and tone to align with or diverge from federal narratives, reflecting underlying dynamics of cooperation or polarization. The effects are moderated by city population size. Moreover, drawing from principal-agent theory, our analysis on posts’ content using machine learning techniques anticipates changes in how city governments frame sensitive policy issues such as immigration, public safety, and climate change, potentially becoming more cautious in response to changing federal priorities. The analysis aims to understand whether and how local governments adjust their public-facing communication in response to changes in national political leadership. Findings from this study will shed light on the adaptive capacity of local bureaucracies in politically polarized contexts and provide insights into the interplay between federal influence and local governance practices.

Author

• Guimin Zheng, Iowa State University
  Presenting Author