This article examines how American news media have framed social media as political technologies over time. To do so, we analyzed 16 years of political news stories focusing on social media, published by American newspapers (N = 8,218) and broadcasters (N = 6,064) (2006–2021). Using automated content analysis, we found that coverage of social media in political news stories: (a) increasingly uses anxious, angry, and moral language, (b) is consistently focused on national politicians (vs. non-elite actors), and (c) increasingly emphasizes normatively negative uses (e.g., misinformation) and their remedies (i.e., regulation). In discussing these findings, we consider the ways that these prominent normative representations of social media may shape (and limit) their role in political life.

中文翻译：

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社交媒体的故事：2006-2021 年美国政治中社交媒体新闻报道的演变

本文探讨了美国新闻媒体如何随着时间的推移将社交媒体视为政治技术。为此，我们分析了美国报纸（N = 8,218）和广播公司（N = 6,064）（2006-2021）发布的 16 年专注于社交媒体的政治新闻报道。通过自动内容分析，我们发现政治新闻故事中社交媒体的报道：(a) 越来越多地使用焦虑、愤怒和道德语言，(b) 始终关注国家政客（相对于非精英演员），以及（ c) 越来越强调规范性的负面用途（例如错误信息）及其补救措施（即监管）。在讨论这些发现时，我们考虑了社交媒体的这些突出的规范性表征可能塑造（和限制）其在政治生活中的作用的方式。