A functional analysis was conducted on 2016 candidate tweets in races for governor, U.S. Senate, and U.S. House. The 2016 presidential campaign left no doubt that Twitter has come of age as a campaign medium. Because this form of communication is relatively new, we know relatively little about it. Tweets and retweets combined used acclaims more than attacks. Tweets used more acclaims, and fewer attacks, than retweets. Incumbent candidates acclaimed more, and attacked less, than challengers. These campaign messages addressed character slightly more than policy. Tweets acclaimed more than they attacked when addressing general goals and ideals. Incumbents (compared with challengers) were more likely to acclaim, and less likely to attack, when discussing past deeds. With the exception of topic (about the same number of policy and character comments) these findings reflect other campaign message forms.

对州长，美国参议院和美国众议院的2016年候选人推文进行了功能分析。毫无疑问，2016年总统竞选活动已经使Twitter成为一种竞选媒介。由于这种交流形式相对较新，因此我们对此知之甚少。推文和转推结合使用的赞誉远胜于攻击。推文比转发使用更多的赞誉和更少的攻击。现任候选人比挑战者更受好评，攻击更少。这些竞选信息所针对的性格远不止于政策。在解决总体目标和理想时，推文广受好评，而不是攻击。在讨论过去的事迹时，现任者（与挑战者相比）更有可能受到称赞，而受到攻击的可能性则较小。