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Title: Relationships Among Twitter Conversation Networks, Language Use, and Congressional Voting
Creator: Hemphill, Libby, Otterbacher, Jahna, Shapiro, Matthew A.
Date: 2012-12-20, 2012
Description: As Twitter becomes a more common means for officials to communicate with their constituents, it becomes more important that we understand just...
Show moreAs Twitter becomes a more common means for officials to communicate with their constituents, it becomes more important that we understand just how that communication relates to other political activities. Using data from 411 members of Congress' Twitter activity during the summer of 2011, we examine relationships among the resulting conversation networks, language use, and political behavior. The social networks that result from their communications have surprisingly low density and high diameter, indicating a level of independence that is surprising for a group so tightly connected offline. Our findings also indicate that officials frequently use Twitter to advertise their political positions and to provide information but rarely to request political action from their constituents or to recognize the good work of others. Our analysis suggests strong relationships between anti-social behaviors indicated by the loosely connected network and low incidence of pro-social conversations and polarized or extreme Congressional voting records.
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Title: What's Congress Doing on Twitter?
Creator: Hemphill, Libby, Otterbacher, Jahna, Shapiro, Matthew A.
Date: 2013-10-23, 2012-10-23
Description: As Twitter becomes a more common means for officials to communicate with their constituents, it becomes more important that we understand how...
Show moreAs Twitter becomes a more common means for officials to communicate with their constituents, it becomes more important that we understand how officials use these communication tools. Using data from 380 members of Congress’ Twitter activity during the winter of 2012, we find that officials frequently use Twitter to advertise their political positions and to provide information but rarely to request political action from their constituents or to recognize the good work of others. We highlight a number of differences in communication frequency between men and women, Senators and Representatives, Republicans and Democrats. We provide groundwork for future research examining the behavior of public officials online and testing the predictive power of officials’ social media behavior.
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Title: Chicago Politicians on Twitter
Creator: Hemphill, Libby, Shapiro, Matthew A., Otterbacher, Jahna
Date: 2012-03-12, 2012-03-12
Description: This paper uses data from 1,042 tweets posted by or mentioning Chicago Aldermen or Mayor Rahm Emanuel to examine how Chicago politicians use...
Show moreThis paper uses data from 1,042 tweets posted by or mentioning Chicago Aldermen or Mayor Rahm Emanuel to examine how Chicago politicians use social media. Twitter provides a public communication medium in which constituents and their representatives can have two-way conversations that others can witness and record, and we used qualitative and social network methods to examine conversations between Chicagoans and representatives in city government. We coded the contents of each tweet over the two-week time period (e.g., official business, fundraising) and created representations of the social networks created by the users’ following behaviors. These networks indicate who receives politicians’ tweets and help identify the audiences for political messaging in social media. Our analysis indicates that Chicago’s Aldermen and Mayor use Twitter for social conversations more often than political ones, and that only a small number of Aldermen dominate the resulting conversation networks.
Sponsorship: Social Network Research Group at IIT, IIT Graduate College
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Title: Tweeting Vertically? Elected Officials’ Interactions with Citizens on Twitter
Creator: Otterbacher, Jahna, Shapiro, Matthew A., Hemphill, Libby
Date: 2012-12-05, 2012
Description: Enthusiasts propose that social media promotes vertical political communication, giving citizens the opportunity to interact directly with...
Show moreEnthusiasts propose that social media promotes vertical political communication, giving citizens the opportunity to interact directly with their representatives. However, skeptics claim that politicians avoid direct engagement with constituents, using technology to present a façade of interactivity instead. This study explores if and how elected officials in three regions of the world are using Twitter to interact with the public. We examine the Twitter activity of 15 officials over a period of six months. We show that in addition to the structural features of Twitter that are designed to promote interaction, officials rely on language to foster or to avoid engagement. It also provides yet more evidence that the existence of interactive features does not guarantee interactivity.
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