Social Media and Interactive Representation in Congress

• In Event: Social Media and Speech in Legislative Politics

Abstract

Representative democracies are premised upon a single elected legislator representing a group of citizens, yet the adoption of social media by Members of Congress has created new challenges to the traditional principle-agent understanding of representation. Political scientists have built concepts of representation based upon the delegate/trustee dichotomy and Pitkin’s (1967) typology. Jane Mansbridge (2003 and 2011) added several dimensions, thus increasing complexity of the models. Nonetheless, existing academic concepts of representation do not account for recent developments in technology and communications. The advent and adoption of social media by Members of Congress has provided an opportunity to reevaluate representation through the lens of social media. This includes evaluating how individual Members might use social media to act as delegates, trustees, and surrogates for various populations and also developing the potential for interactivity through online platforms. Building on previous research and using recent case studies, this paper develops a new conceptual component—interactive representation—to explain the political, institutional, and normative implications of unfettered real-time communication between Members of Congress and the electorate. The paper also considers the extensive institutional, policy, and political changes that may occur when norms of representation become less static and more interactive.

Authors

• Colleen J. Shogan, Library of Congress

• Jacob R. Straus, Congressional Research Service

• Matthew Glassman, Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University