Communicating Effectiveness: Legislative Success as Constituent Communication

• In Event: The Causes and Consequences of Lawmaking Effectiveness in Congress (Pre-Recorded)

Abstract

Senators’ social media habits are instrumental in shaping the individual narratives coming out of Congress. These narratives frame a political reputation signaling policy prowess and political power, and this research expands that reputation-defining behavior to consider how legislative effectiveness maps onto senators’ political brand for the public. Using a unique dataset of senators’ official tweets, we construct a typology of senators’ communication strategies across policy and partisan politics to analyze the patterns of rhetoric they use on Twitter to amplify their agendas. We use this typology to assess whether effective lawmakers adopt a unique style of constituent communication and build a political brand that capitalizes on their lawmaking experience. Senators have a new, public-facing agenda on social media where their political influence extends beyond legislation, and this research explores the nature of that communication.

Authors

• Nicholas Howard, Auburn University at Montgomery

• Annelise Russell, University of Kentucky