Legislative Influencers: How Discourse Moves through Congress

• In Event: Graduate Student Research Lightning Round: Institutions, Rights, and Representation

Abstract

Twitter is the prominent social media platform utilized by politicians, activists, and journalists globally (Jungherr 2016). The conversation on the platform carries additional political weight due to this user base, even though less than a quarter of Americans have an active Twitter account. Existing literature on how Members of Congress (MCs) behave has focused on individual legislative styles that dictate the kind of representative each member is going to be (Bernhard & Sulkin 2018). This extends to how MCs communicate on Twitter (Russell 2021).

One element not yet taken up by the literature is what explains the heterogeneity in usage of Twitter between MCs. While every MC has at least one Twitter account, there is a subset of MCs who use the platform prolifically. What makes a MC choose to be more online and how does this effect the quality of their representation? How is this online discourse related to actions Congress is actually taking (i.e. policy/supreme court nominations vs. culture war). Does discourse start online amongst activists and users or MCs?

To answer these questions, I utilize the Massive Data Institute’s Twitter Elections Project to analyze the Twitter behavior of the 117th Congress. This dataset includes every tweet from every official and campaign account used by MCs during this period. This project seeks to map the way discourse through Congress’s most active tweeters, what factors contribute to this behavior, and how this affects their representational style.

Author

• Benjamin Burnley, Colorado State University