Negative Sentiment and Congressional Cue-Taking on Social Media

Macdonald, Maggie; Russell, Annelise; Hua, Whitney

doi:10.1017/s1049096522001299

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Furthermore, considering the negative sentiment with user (voter) engagement, Macdonald et al (2023) have found that negativity is the consistent factor for user (voters) connections on Facebook, where more negative reactions/words generate higher user engagement. According to the authors, candidates strategically employ negativity in their posts to encourage engagement.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Facebook reactions in the context of politics and social issues: a systematic literature review

Anwar,

Giglietto

2024

Front. Sociol.

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In February 2016, Facebook expanded the original “Like” button by introducing five additional “Reactions”—Love, Haha, Wow, Sad, and Angry—using modified versions of Unicode emojis. These reactions enable users to express more nuanced emotions towards posts. This literature review investigates scholarly research on user behavior in response to these reactions, with a focus on a broad spectrum of socioeconomic and psychological issues. We conducted a systematic search across databases including Scopus and Google Scholar, using keywords such as “Facebook” and “Reaction,” combined with various key phrases and Boolean operators. Our review synthesizes sixty-four articles published from 2016 to 2023, exploring diverse topics such as political news, far-right and extremist parties, racism, and hate speech during the COVID-19 pandemic. We organized these articles by theme and publication date. Our meta-analysis reveals that lifestyle and entertainment posts predominantly receive positive reactions, while sociopolitical content tends to elicit a broader spectrum of emotions, including negative sentiments. Furthermore, emotionally charged content consistently attracts higher volumes of reactions, regardless of sentiment. This research highlights the intricate relationship between user reactions and content characteristics, providing deeper insights into the dynamics of online engagement. By understanding these interaction patterns, we gain a better grasp of emotional responses and engagement levels, which ultimately shape online discourse and user interactions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Facebook reactions in the context of politics and social issues: a systematic literature review

Anwar,

Giglietto

2024

Front. Sociol.

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“…Nevertheless, we expect social media to be a key part of interest group strategy regardless of the president's (or other elite's) identity. Social media is used widely by political elites for a variety of purposes, illustrating its growing importance in constituent communication and message amplification (Macdonald et al, 2023;Russell, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2 However, political science is only beginning to understand the role these platforms play in political activity. Most existing work examines the behavior of political candidates and office holders (see, e.g., Russell, 2021;Macdonald et al, 2023;Whitesell, 2019). Less is known about how other political actors, including interest groups, engage on social media and whether they behave differently on different platforms.…”

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confidence: 99%

Exploring Interest Group Social Media Activity on Facebook and Twitter

Macdonald,

Gunderson,

Widner

2024

JQD

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This article investigates how American interest groups' social media activity differs across Facebook and Twitter using a dataset of nearly 13 million posts from 1,500 organizations from 2016 to 2020. We find that interest groups use the two platforms differently. Groups are more likely to use Facebook for organizational maintenance and are more politically- and policy-focused on Twitter. Among groups, their type matters. Citizens' groups and unions are the most active users and get the most attention from others, while business groups are the least active and engaged with. We also highlight engagement between elected officials and interest groups on these platforms. This article encourages scholars to think critically about how the distinct audiences and affordances of Facebook and Twitter may provide different types of opportunities for interest groups — and other political actors — to reach social media users. This is especially important given the growth of social media and its potential to be a transformative tool for substantive policy change.

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“…The most notable absence in the corpus are tests involving electoral candidates, even at the statewide or federal level, as well as tests from right-leaning clients or firms. We know that nearly all Republican and Democratic candidates for federal office run some form of digital campaign involving email and social media pages (e.g., Macdonald et. al, 2022).…”

Section: Curious Absences In Our Corpusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing, Testing: Identifying Contemporary Analytics Practices in Digital Politics

Haenschen,

Cilke,

Boal

2023

JQD

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Digital analytics in contemporary politics receives tremendous attention from the media and has been the focus of a great deal of research over the last two decades. However, the actual practices that characterize work in the field often fail to receive sufficient attention. This paper presents the results of a quantitative content analysis describing the contents of 39 digital analytics case studies reporting the results of 68 individual A/B tests to learn about testing practices as they exist at high levels in contemporary U.S. politics. We find an emphasis on email and website testing, predominantly focused on fundraising and engagement outcomes. Our findings illuminate the mundane but substantive impacts of testing, which are predominantly focused on improving fundraising and email performance. Since firms made these case studies publicly available on their website, they also serve as marketing materials. In this manner we can understand how the practice of analytics is sold to political organizations looking to engage in digital testing.

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Negative Sentiment and Congressional Cue-Taking on Social Media

Cited by 6 publications

References 35 publications

Facebook reactions in the context of politics and social issues: a systematic literature review

Facebook reactions in the context of politics and social issues: a systematic literature review

Exploring Interest Group Social Media Activity on Facebook and Twitter

Testing, Testing: Identifying Contemporary Analytics Practices in Digital Politics

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