Discordant Messages: Contextual Differences in Lawmaker Policy Communication

• In Event: Comparative Agenda Setting: Messaging, Communicating and Legislating

Abstract

Social media has offered new platforms for assessing how lawmakers curate a reputation and define their agendas. While research suggests social media can be a valuable tool for measuring political attention, the relative consistency and substance of those signals compared to those from traditional legislative contexts, e.g., press releases or legislative action, remain largely unknown. We draw from Rodriguez, Spirling, & Stewart’s (2021) word embedding regression approach to systematically study how lawmakers’ policy messaging and use of issue-related language may vary in meaning in a hyper-partisan political environment. This approach allows us to measure the contextual differences in the way words are used, and explain the growing partisan divide lawmakers’ policy agendas. We suggest lawmakers’ signals on social media are similarly informative to other venues of policy priorities and offer important information about how politics drives the contour of those policy agendas.

Authors

• Whitney Hua, University of Southern California

• Annelise Russell, University of Kentucky