Dissertation: Tweeters and Leaders: How Congress Uses Twitter to Gain Power

My dissertation project examines how members of Congress use Twitter to achieve their goals. The project is primarily interested in members of Congress who lack institutional power and turn to the affordances of Twitter to increase their status within Congress. The first chapter looks at highly active MCs, their demographics, and how they compare to party leaders in terms of what and how they communicate. The second explores digital content creation in Congress through in-depth interviews with MCs, digital directors, and communications staff. The final chapter examines whether highly active MCs are better at accomplishing traditionally-Zconceived goals in Congress like winning reelection, making public policy, gaining institutional power, getting media coverage, and raising money. The project considers how the incentive structures of digital communication platforms are changing Congressional behavior and what that means for our politics.

Publications

Tang, Rongwei, Burnley, Benjamin, Vraga, Emily and Bode, Leticia. 2024. Corrective Democracy? The relationship between correction of misinformation on social media and connective democratic norms. Social Media + Society. (Forthcoming) [pdf]

Working Papers

Under Review

Advise, Consent, and Tweet?: How Senators Talk About Supreme Court Nominations on Twitter. 2024. Benjamin R. Burnley. pdf code

In Preparation

Leaders and Tweeters: How Members without Institutional Power Leverage Twitter to Gain Influence in Congress. Benjamin R. Burnley. Presented at APSA 2024 (Part of Dissertation Project) [pdf] code

Heading for the “X”-it?: How Congress is Navigating Changes in the Digital Communication Landscape. Benjamin R. Burnley. Presented at MPSA 2024 (Part of Dissertation Project) pdf slides

Legislative Influencers: Content Creation, Engagement, and Social Media Activity in Congress. Benjamin R. Burnley. Presented at SPSA 2024 (Part of Dissertation Project). pdf code slides

Between War and Words (With Ana Paula Pellegrino & Laia Balcells)

Analyzing 10 Years of Policy Tweets On Twitter (With Annelise Russell) prelim code