How Constituents Lobby Members of Congress on Twitter
Year: 2013
Type: preprint
Abstract: Political speech occurs on social media with increasing frequency and attention. We present a large-scale analysis of a specific type of political speech - citizens lobbying elected officials - and explain how citizens use varied and complex rhetorical and linguistic strategies to effect political outcomes through social media. We collected over 30,000 tweets aimed at members of the U.S. Congress and containing hashtags that refer to legislation about immigration, the federal budget, internet freedom, and gun control. Using Aristotelian notions of deliberative rhetoric and recent developments in speech-act theory to frame our discussion, we analyze various lobbying strategies evident in tweets. We also discuss the use of automated text classification algorithms for classifying political speech in social media.
Source: SSRN Electronic Journal
Authors: Andrew J. Roback, Libby Hemphill
Institutions: Illinois Institute of Technology, University of Michigan
Language: English
Topic: Social Media and Politics
Subfield: Communication
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W768592265