Twitter Communications by Asian Political Candidates

• In Event: Influence of Identity on Political Perceptions and Outcomes (Virtual Session)

Abstract

Despite a growth in their electoral share, Asian immigrants and their children are less likely to vote in American elections than all other ethnicities (Qi and Gonzalez, 2021). First-generation immigrants often dedicate their resources to survival and adaptation in their new social environment, spending most of their time on working and saving money, and often pay little to no attention to local politics (Lien, 1994; Ramakrishnan et al., 2009). Motivations for political participation do change over time as immigrants gradually assimilate into the American society. As political discussions with their parents remain rare, second-generation immigrants learn about American politics from other sources, often influenced by their urban environment that tends to incline towards liberalism and the Democratic party (Zhou & Patterson, 2021). Nevertheless, Qi and Gonzalez’s study suggests that voting activity remains low even among second-generation Asian immigrants (2021).
It was suggested that the low rates of political participants among immigrants is partly due to the lack of political accommodation. Since political candidates prefer to focus their efforts and resources on the majority of voters, their messaging tends to ignore or at least underplay minority groups’ needs and values (Wong et al., 2005). For example, little attention is often given to minorities’ religious views and needs, despite these playing a key role in shaping their political views and behavior (with a particular role given to local churches that often provide immigrants with social networks (Audette et al., 2017; Lien et al., 2001).
In the past, reaching out to voters was costly and dependent to a degree on the mass media gatekeepers. Social media allowed politicians a direct channel free of editorial influence at a relatively low cost (Walter & Ophir, 2019b). That means that candidates can more easily split their attention and messaging between majorities and minorities and better control their campaign messages. For example, Twitter is a free app used by people across social classes (Blank & Lutz, 2017). Allowing for an interactive two-way communication with voters, Twitter was found to be an effective tool for mobilizing and engaging citizens (Bajaj, 2017; Su & Borah, 2019; Vergeer, 2017).
This study will use the computational method of the Analysis of Topic Model Networks (ANTMN, walter & Ophir, 2019a) to examine the Twitter discourse of two Senatorial candidates from Asian descent: Mazie Hirono and Tammy Duckworth, and one Presidential candidate, Andrew Yang, all running as part of the Democrat platform. We will examine whether and how candidates approached minority voters, how they balanced such approach with broadcasting to general voters, and whether the balance and topics changed around election years.

References
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Authors

• Shu-An Tsai, SUNY Buffalo

• Yotam Ophir, University at Buffalo