ABSTRACT

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.

摘要

社交媒体鼓励国会议员定期向公众宣传他们的政策议程；然而，尚不清楚这些表达的政策优先事项是否与其立法行为有关。具有受限政策议程的无限在线信息的不协调性质需要评估政治家所说的话与其机构行为之间的关联。使用第 114 届国会的参议员推文数据集，我们分析了 Twitter 上的政策言论和参议院各种问题的法案赞助，以表明参议员在 Twitter 上的政策优先事项代表了国会的活动。这些结果扩大了社交媒体作为政策议程工具的应用——将有限关注的理论扩展到立法者的政治交流。