Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses the role of social media.
- Lawmakers posted far more content – and received far more audience engagement – on social media during the 2020 election than in 2016
- Democratic lawmakers used ‘Trump’ more than any other word on social media during the 2020 election
- Lawmakers from each party used distinctive language to engage with their constituencies on social media
- Mentions of key terms and topics produced increases in audience engagement with lawmaker social media posts
- A declining share of posts from Republican lawmakers – especially on Twitter – contain links to outside content
- A small number of very popular domains make up a majority of the links shared by lawmakers
- A growing share of domains are shared primarily or exclusively by lawmakers from one party
- Even among the most popular domains, most links belong primarily to exclusively shared domains
