From rhetoric to record: linking tweets to legislative agendas in congress

• Russell, Annelise ^[1] ; Wen, Jiebing ^[2]
  1. [1] University of Kentucky

     University of Kentucky

     Estados Unidos

     
  2. [2] Harvard University

     Harvard University

     City of Cambridge, Estados Unidos

     
• Localización: The Journal of legislative studies, ISSN 1357-2334, Vol. 27, Nº. 4, 2021 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Administering Representative Democracy: The European Experience of Parliamentary Administrations in Comparative Perspective), págs. 608-620
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Social media incentivizes members of Congress to routinely advertise their policy agenda for the public; however, it is unclear whether those expressed policy priorities are linked to their legislative behaviour. The incongruous nature of unlimited, online messages with constrained policy agendas necessitates assessing the association between what politicians say and their institutional actions. Using a dataset of senators’ tweets from the 114th Congress, we analyse policy rhetoric on Twitter and bill sponsorship across a variety of issues in the Senate to show that senators’ policy priorities on Twitter are representative of congressional activity. These results broaden the application of social media as a tool for policy agendas – extending theories of limited attention to lawmakers’ political communication.