Congressional Committees
and
Social Media
178
Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs
Policy Research Project Report
Number 178
Congressional Committees and Social Media
Project Directed by
Sherri R. Greenberg
A report by the
Policy Research Project on
Congressional Committees and Social Media
2014
The LBJ School of Public Affairs publishes a wide range of public policy issue titles.
ISBN-13: 978-0-89940-796-8
©2014 by The University of Texas at Austin
All rights reserved. No part of this publication or any corresponding electronic text and/or images may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Cover design by Fanny Trang
Policy Research Project Participants
Students
Danielle Bartz
Michael Austin Darden
Carinne Deeds
John Egan
Tiffany Fisher
Zachary Greene
Nicholas G. Hadjigeorge
Lamia Imam
Ruy Manrique
Brian O’Donnell
Maya Perez
Kristin Sepulveda
Reyne Telles
Noah Wright
Project Director
Sherri R. Greenberg, Clinical Professor, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, The
University of Texas at Austin
Table of Contents
List of Tables ......................................................................................................... ix!
List of Figures ..........................................................................................................x!
Acknowledgements ....................................................................................... xi!
Executive Summary ..................................................................................... xii!
INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................14!
Overview .......................................................................................................14!
History of Congressional Committees & Congressional Media Use ...........14!
Social Media Platforms .................................................................................17!
Facebook ..............................................................................................17!
Twitter ..................................................................................................17!
Hashtags ...............................................................................................18!
METHODOLOGY .....................................................................................................19!
Constructing the Dataset ...............................................................................19!
Data Collection ....................................................................................19!
Collection Results ................................................................................19!
Coding Process.....................................................................................20!
Function Codes ....................................................................................20!
Legislative ...................................................................................21!
Oversight .....................................................................................21!
Neither.........................................................................................22!
Content Codes ......................................................................................22!
Committee Announcement .........................................................22!
Committee Action .......................................................................22!
Committee Promotion .................................................................22!
Policy Information ......................................................................23!
Member Promotion .....................................................................23!
Political Stance............................................................................23!
vi
Media ..........................................................................................23!
Outreach ......................................................................................24!
Response .....................................................................................24!
Personal .......................................................................................24!
Campaigning ...............................................................................24!
Other ...........................................................................................25!
Multiple Content Codes .......................................................................25!
Additional Research and Tools ............................................................25!
Hashtag Analysis ........................................................................25!
Analytic Tool Websites...............................................................25!
Case Study: Individual Committee ...............................................................26!
DATA ANALYSIS ......................................................................................................29!
Social Media Adoption Rates .......................................................................29!
Social Media Activity Over Time .................................................................30!
Case Study: Focusing Events ........................................................................32!
Function Analysis .........................................................................................37!
Content Category Analysis ...........................................................................43!
Direct Communication ..................................................................................45!
Types of Outreach Tweets ...................................................................46!
Committee Retweets .....................................................................................48!
Case Study: Social Media And The State Of Texas .....................................51!
Texas Senate Committee on Business and Commerce Case Study .....51!
Red Tape Challenge Case Study ..........................................................52!
Case Study: Federal Agencies ......................................................................53!
Social Media at the Environmental Protection Agency .......................53!
Social Media at the Department of Energy ..........................................54!
Observations ........................................................................................54!
Hashtag Analysis ..........................................................................................56!
Follower Analysis .........................................................................................58!
vii
CONCLUSION ..........................................................................................................60!
Discussion of Results ....................................................................................60!
Opportunities for Further Research ..............................................................62!
Visual and Media Content ...................................................................62!
Other Social Media Platforms ..............................................................62!
Influence of Members on Committee Social Media Use .....................62!
Analysis of Followers ..........................................................................62!
Glossary of terms ...................................................................................................64!
Facebook Terms ............................................................................................64!
Twitter Terms................................................................................................65!
Other Terms ..................................................................................................66!
Data-related Terms........................................................................................67!
Bibliography ..........................................................................................................68!
Student Profiles ......................................................................................................72!
viii
List of Tables
Table 2.1: Total Number of Accounts and Posts in Dataset ..................................20!
Table 3.1: Twitter and Facebook Activity Through Selected Periods ...................32!
Table 3.2: Twitter Statistics During 2013 Government Shutdown........................33!
Table 3.3: Most Frequently Used Terms on September 19, 2013 .........................35!
Table 3.5: Percent of Outreach Tweets by Type....................................................47!
Table 3.6: Types of Outreach by Chamber and Majority/Minority .......................48!
Table 3.7 Total Source of Retweets across Committees........................................49!
Table 3.8: Retweet Sources by Chamber and Majority/Minority ..........................50!
Table 3.9: Twenty Most Frequently Used Hashtags ..............................................56!
Table 3.10: Twitter Users Following Committee Accounts ..................................59!
ix
List of Figures
Figure 3.1: Platform Adoption by Chamber and Affiliation..................................30!
Figure 3.2: Daily Number of Tweets and Facebook Posts
by Congressional Committees ..........................................................31!
Figure 3.3: Weekly Number of Tweets by Chamber and Leadership ...................34!
Figure 3.4: Function Distribution of All Tweets and All Facebook Posts.............37!
Figure 3.5: Function Distribution of Tweets and Facebook Posts by Chamber ....38!
Figure 3.6: Function Distribution of Tweets and Facebook Posts
by Majority/Minority ........................................................................38!
Figure 3.7: Function Distribution of Tweets and Facebook Posts by Party ..........39!
Figure 3.8: Function Distribution of Tweets and Facebook Posts
by Chamber and Majority/Minority ..................................................40!
Figure 3.9: Ten Most Active Twitter Accounts .....................................................41!
Figure 3.10: Percentage of All Legislative Tweets
among Top Ten Legislative Accounts ..............................................42!
Figure 3.11: Percentage of All Oversight Tweets
among Top Ten Oversight Accounts ................................................42!
Figure 3.12: Content of Facebook and Twitter Posts ............................................43!
Figure 3.13: Content of Facebook and Twitter Posts
in Majority and Minority Accounts ..................................................44!
x
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and Dr. Sasha West for
supporting our research. We also would like to thank our programmer, Gerald Rich, for
providing us with the tools to collect social media data and Steven Polunsky for his insights
regarding social media use in the Texas Senate.
xi
Executive Summary
In 2012, a research team at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs analyzed the use of
social media by individual Members of Congress.1 As Members of Congress have embraced
digital and social media to communicate with constituents, congressional committees have
followed suit. These committees, which lack the formal constituencies of members, increasingly
have adopted social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to engage with broader
audiences. Based on the prior research and the historical role of committees, we believe that
committees use social media differently—and for different reasons—than individual
congressmen and congresswomen. The motivations for committee engagement with social media
have important implications for the shifting role of committees in the legislative process.
This report explores social media use by congressional committees, including adoption patterns,
analysis of committee social media behavior, social media’s role in committee functions, and
recommendations for future research. Furthermore, this report discusses the history of
committees and how they have interacted with media and the public over time. Key questions
include why committees are using social media, how they are using the platforms, and how this
activity changes committee behavior.
To explore these questions, our research team collected data from official congressional
committee social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter. The data consisted of 15,254
Facebook posts and tweets posted by congressional committees between June and October 2013.
Our research team categorized each Facebook post and tweet with one or more of the following
12 content codes: Personal, Media, Committee Announcement, Committee Action, Committee
Promotion, Outreach, Response, Policy Information, Political Stance, Member Promotion,
Campaigning, and Other. Additionally, we coded the posts and tweets by dominant committee
function: Legislative, Oversight, or Neither.
Most congressional committees have adopted Twitter or Facebook. Many congressional
committees have separate accounts for majority and minority members. However, it is unclear
who exactly controls the social media accounts. Congressional scholars have noted that
committee power declined with the introduction of television news media.2 Congressional
committees can use social media as a tool to gain influence. Social media may be a way for
congressional committees to engage more directly with the public.
Our data revealed that the majority of congressional committees primarily used social media to
broadcast political stances, to promote members, and to share policy-relevant information.
Congressional committees used social media to express and promote political positions.
Additionally, congressional committees used social media to endorse committee members.
Committees used social media to spread relevant and important policy issues that the committee
1
2
Sherri Greenberg, “Social Media Use by Members of Congress,” Austin: The University of Texas, 2013.
Malecha & Reagan, The Public Congress, 13
xii
wanted the public to know, within or outside of committee jurisdiction. Our research team
analyzed how committees responded to the 2013 government shutdown and the Benghazi
hearings, two events that generated the greatest social media activity during our analysis
timeframe. The focusing events provided a snapshot of how congressional committees used
social media during periods of intense scrutiny. Our findings show that congressional
committees used social media to provide information, elaborate issues, and promote members.
Committees are sharing more information with the public now than ever before. Many
committee followers are affiliated with the press or governmental organizations. While
committees displayed active engagement with followers, this interaction usually was one-way.
Although social media has increased committee dialogue with constituents, committees most
frequently used social media to communicate partisan messages. Party coordination of hashtags,
frequent promotion of committee members, and discussion of issues not germane to individual
committees are evidence of partisan messaging.
Finally, we discuss areas for future research, including detailed examinations of who follows
committee news, how the type of platform affects committee messaging, and if individual
committee members influence patterns of committee social media activity.
xiii
INTRODUCTION
Overview
Nationwide, elected officials and government agencies increasingly are using social media.
Members of Congress are no exception, and many members and their staff regularly use social
media. However, very little is known about the use of social media as a communication tool by
congressional committees.
The focus of this project is to understand how and why congressional committees are using
social media. Our research team compiled a dataset and used qualitative and quantitative
methods to describe and analyze the use of social media by congressional committees. We
recorded committee activity on the two largest social media platforms: Facebook and Twitter.
These platforms overwhelmingly represent committee social media use. Our research seeks to
answer several questions including:
•
Which committees have adopted the use of social media, and what are their purposes in doing so?
•
Is social media changing the roles and operations of committees?
•
Who are the committees’ intended audiences, and what are the committees’ motivations?
•
Is the expression of political positions in posts and tweets an extension of political activity already
taking place within committees, or is it a new element of committee operation resulting from social
media?
•
What effect does a particular social media platform have on a committee’s social media use?
Our research team studied committees’ social media behavior and any differences between
majority and minority party behavior within committees. We also analyzed committees’ social
media audiences. We assessed why committees use social media, if the use is changing
committees’ functions, and if it is increasing transparency and civic engagement. Our researchers
conducted case studies of social media use by specific committees and reviewed existing
research on social media use by Congress and federal agencies. Additionally, we explored social
media use in selected state legislative committees.
History of Congressional Committees & Congressional Media Use
The structure and operation of committees in the United States Congress has evolved
significantly throughout history. Examining the history of committee development and media use
provides insight into whether committee behavior has changed with the advent of social media.
14
Congress has had a committee structure since its inception in 1789. Initially, the chambers relied
on ad-hoc committees temporarily convened to address specific pieces of legislation, and these
committees were disbanded after reporting to the chambers. These were very different than the
permanent committees Congress began creating in the early nineteenth century to address
general legislative topics.3
Congress made the first major changes to the committee system with the Legislative
Reorganization Act of 1946.4 This legislation defined committee jurisdiction, which led to
increased oversight of the executive branch. The Act also helped guarantee committee
dominance in the legislative process by codifying committee jurisdictions so that legislation
would go to predetermined committees. This created legislative policy experts among Congress
Members, leading to legislative power concentrating in a few party leaders and committee
chairmen.5 Less powerful members were therefore limited to following along and focusing their
attention on building their legislative expertise.
During this period, Congress used media sparingly. Powerful leaders sometimes used media to
promote legislation, and junior members limited their use to local media for re-election purposes.
Most members frowned upon using media for self-promotion, and members who broke this norm
no longer were considered for prestigious leadership positions.
In the early 1960s, Lyndon B. Johnson’s departure as Senate Majority Leader and an influx of
ambitious new Democratic legislators created major structural changes in Congress. These
changes diffused political power in Congress, and the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970
further dispersed congressional power by limiting committee chair power.6 This led to a
significant transformation in power structure among individual members that was later found to
extend to committees by Richard F. Fenno Jr.
From his research in the 1960s and 1970s, Fenno found that the roles and functions of
Congressional committees could not be generalized as scholars previously thought.7 The most
prominent differences he saw were that committee operations were highly dependent on
individual members’ goals.8 Chairmen controlled the legislative subgroups, and they focused on
their legislative and oversight jurisdictions as they gained more autonomy. Relatively
inexperienced members began using their committee memberships as platforms to push personal
agendas.9
3
George B. Galloway, “Development of the Committee System in the House of Representatives,” The American
Historical Review, Vol. 65, No. 1 (October, 1959): 17, http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp.
4 Ibid. 23
5 Ibid.
6 Malecha & Reagan, The Public Congress, 35.
7 Richard F. Fenno Jr., Congressmen in Committees (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1973), xiv.
8 Ibid. 13
9 Angela Evans, “The Reclamation of the U.S. Congress, PRP 176.” Austin: The University of Texas, 2013.
15
Increased media use by politicians presented the next major transformation in congressional and
committee operations.10 The growth in media outlets and their availability to members meant that
parties had less control, and individual members gained influence.11 Additionally, Ronald
Reagan’s election and his effective use of media to advance policy goals made communications a
valuable asset for legislators looking to rise through the congressional ranks.
Today, the internet is changing media’s role in Congressional power formation. Congress
Members now have greater control over releasing information to the public and new methods for
communicating with constituents. Advances in information technology allow constituents to
participate remotely during committee hearings, panels, or other Congressional events.12
Sometimes constituents go beyond basic participation and have an active voice in the legislative
process. When “virtual participants are fully engaged in the deliberative process...they too can
have a direct impact on decision making.”13
However, new communication methods also present new challenges. Changing a political
position is much more difficult once a member publishes a position online, and parties struggle
to manage their members and present a cohesive message. As in the early 1960s, the Members’
recent changes in media use, and social media in particular, likely will have a continued effect on
committees’ operations and roles.
10
Ibid.
Malecha & Reagan, The Public Congress, 38.
12 Carolyn J. Lukensmeyer, Bringing Citizen Voices to the Table (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2013), 268.
13 Ibid.
11
16
Social Media Platforms
There are hundreds of active social networking websites that congressional committees may use
to communicate with the public. For the purposes of this study we analyzed the two largest
platforms used by most congressional committees: Twitter and Facebook. These platforms are
popular worldwide, free, accessible with mobile devices, and often integrated with one another.
14
Facebook
Launched in February 2004, Facebook is the world’s largest social networking service and
website and, as of January 2014, has more than 1.3 billion users worldwide.15 A Facebook
“profile” or “page” is a personalized section within the platform that belongs to an individual
Facebook user.16
A Facebook user becomes a fan of a page by clicking the page’s “like” button. The activity of
the “liked” page appears on that user’s “newsfeed.”17 A newsfeed contains the activities of a
user’s Facebook friends along with content generated by the pages or profiles that a user has
liked.18 Each Facebook user’s newsfeed is personalized. Newsfeed content can include links to
news stories, personal updates, videos, comments, and photographs.19
Congressional committees communicate with users on Facebook by posting updates that appear
on the committee’s “timeline” and in the newsfeeds of users who like the committee. The
Facebook timeline is the record of an individual page or profile’s Facebook activity.20
Twitter
Created in 2006, Twitter is a social networking, micro-blogging service with 241 million active
monthly users.21 Twitter users communicate via “tweets” and private direct messages.22
Communication on Twitter is deliberately short—limited to 140 characters per tweet—allowing
users to highlight specific information.23 Similar to the Facebook newsfeed, each Twitter account
generates a personalized page of tweets posted by other Twitter users that an individual elects to
14
"Beyond Facebook: 74 Popular Social Networks Worldwide," Practical Ecommerce,
http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/2701-Beyond-Facebook-74-Popular-Social-Networks-Worldwide..
15 “Facebook Statistics,” Statistic Brain RSS, http://www.statisticbrain.com/facebook-statistics/.
16 “Facebook Glossary,” Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/help/glossary.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid.
22 “About Twitter, Inc.,” About, https://about.twitter.com/company.
23 “The Twitter Glossary,” Twitter Help Center, https://about.twitter.com/company.
17
“follow.”24 All tweets are publicly visible unless specifically restricted.25 Users can “retweet”
other tweets, which allows a user to share a third-party tweet among their followers.
Hashtags
The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a tweet. Twitter users
created it organically as a way to categorize messages.26 The hashtag symbol is inserted before a
relevant keyword or phrase. Clicking on a hashtagged word in any message shows all other
tweets marked with that keyword.27 Hashtagged words that become very popular are often
“Trending Topics.” Tweets using a hashtag on a public account are available for viewing on the
internet by anyone conducting a search for that hashtag.28
24
“Getting Started with Twitter,” Twitter Help Center, http://support.twitter.com/groups/50-welcome-totwitter/topics/204-the-basics/articles/215585-getting-started-with-twitter.
25 Ibid.
26 “Using Hashtags on Twitter,” Twitter Help Center, https://support.twitter.com/articles/49309-using-hashtags-ontwitter.
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid.
18
METHODOLOGY
We compiled a list of social media accounts for each committee to explore congressional
committee social media use. This list was the starting point of our data collection process, during
which we collected and categorized Tweets and Facebook posts from committee accounts.
Constructing the Dataset
Initially, we reviewed committee websites and social media sites to determine which committees
maintained accounts on which platforms. Based on this search, we determined that congressional
committees primarily used Facebook and Twitter. Congressional committees used YouTube as a
more traditional media outlet by uploading videos from hearings and promoting them through
the “media” sections of their websites. We also found that some committees hold accounts on
Flickr and Google+. Since the use of these platforms is not spread across committees, we
focused on Twitter and Facebook.29 Subsequently, we produced a list of all of the congressional
committees with their Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube accounts, in which we specify if an
account is controlled by the majority or minority members of a committee.
Next, we determined a time period to gather posts and tweets. Our researchers concluded that
June 21, 2013, through October 15, 2013, would provide a sufficient number of data points and
capture different stages of the congressional calendar and the committees’ legislative and
oversight duties. In the first weeks of October, we decided to extend the sample until October 31,
2013, to capture all of the social media activity related to the government shutdown. Our
definitive Sample Period covers June 21, 2013, to October 31, 2013.
Data Collection
Our research team hired a programmer to “scrape” tweets and posts for the Sample Period. The
programmer used the Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) provided by Twitter and
Facebook to collect data from publically available committee accounts during the sample period.
Once scraped, the programmer stored the tweets and posts in Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and
sent these to one researcher, the data expert. The data expert then aggregated the data into single
spreadsheets for both Twitter and Facebook.
Collection Results
Through the APIs, our research team collected a total of 15,254 Facebook and Twitter messages
posted by congressional committees during our sample period.
29
For example, the House Armed Services Committee has a Flickr account
(https://www.flickr.com/photos/housearmedservicescommittee/), and the House Transportation and Infrastructure
Committee has a Google+ account (https://plus.google.com/u/0/101687968668195619606/about).
19
Table 2.1: Total Number of Accounts and Posts in Dataset
Facebook
Twitter
Total
Number of Accounts
28
54
82
Total Number of Posts
2,308
12,946
15,254
Our dataset contains the text from each tweet and Facebook status update, and the relevant
metadata for each post, such as the account screen name and the timestamp or publication date.
The Twitter data included retweet counts and favorite counts. The Facebook data included like
counts, share counts, comment counts, type of update, modification date, and the story for the
update.
Coding Process30
Our research team decided to code tweets and posts for legislative function and content based on
their text. We established a coding handbook to provide our 13 member coding team with
specific criteria and definitions for coding.
During the coding process, we did not interpret a tweet or post’s meaning beyond its immediate
scope. We searched the Internet to define unfamiliar terms or people, but did not follow links
within tweets and posts or check facts.
Function Codes
The function of a committee is defined by its two main roles within Congress, which are
classified as legislative and oversight.
In the legislative role, committees receive bills and resolutions from the legislative body under
which they serve.31 Committees may then review this legislation and hold hearings regarding its
30
This is the process our research team used to categorize the content of congressional committee tweets and posts.
A specific tweet or post would receive a specific “code” if it contained language that fit our definition for said code
(see Function codes and Content codes sections). Internally, our coding process involved assigning numbers or
letters associated with each specific category to a tweet or post. This process streamlined our ability to categorize
and sort tweets and posts.
31 United States Senate, “Senate Committees,”
http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Committees.htm#4, accessed April 25, 2014.
20
content.32 Also, committees may amend, edit, or rewrite the piece of legislation.33 Committees
decide which legislation will return to the larger legislative body for further consideration.34
In the oversight role, which the Supreme Court affirmed in McGrain v. Daugherty, committees
act as investigators when allegations of wrongdoing arise.35 36 Similarly, committees monitor and
review executive agency conduct.37
We coded each tweet and post based on whether its content reflected a committee’s legislative
function, oversight function, or neither. The function codes are mutually exclusive, and we coded
each tweet and post with one, and only one, of these codes.
Legislative
We coded tweets and posts as Legislative if they referred to the current legislative process. This
included any tweets or posts that referenced active pieces of legislation, committee and
subcommittee actions, and the United States Senate (“Senate”) and United States House of
Representatives (“House”) floor actions. Researchers chose Legislative by default if a tweet or
post contained both Legislative and Oversight content.
“In case you missed it, we passed #WRRDA unanimously through committee last week.
Next stop? The House Floor. pic.twitter.com/AZ6ndL8QB1”
-House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (@Transport)
Oversight
We coded tweets and posts as Oversight if they referred to committee operations relevant to
oversight responsibilities, such as the review, monitoring, or supervision of federal agencies,
programs, activities, and policy implementation.38
“Today the #space subcommittee examined how #NASA desperately needs a road map to
manage aging assets http://ow.ly/p43Uw .”
-House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology (@HouseScience)
32
Ibid.
Ibid.
34 Valerie Heitshusen, Committee Types and Roles, CRS Report 98-241 (Washington, DC: Library of Congress,
Congressional Research Service, November 28, 2012), http://www.senate.gov/CRSReports/crspublish.cfm?pid=%26*2%3C4P%2CK%3A%0A, accessed April 25, 2014.
35 Ibid.
36 United States Senate, “Senate Committees,”
http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Committees.htm#4, accessed April 25, 2014.
37 Valerie Heitshusen, Committee Types and Roles.
38 Frederick M. Kaiser, Congressional Oversight, (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2001).
33
21
Neither
We coded tweets and posts as Neither if they provided no information related to a committee’s
primary functions. A tweet or post about a hearing could not be coded as Neither.
“Join us in wishing Chairman @RepGoodlatte a happy birthday”
-House Judiciary Committee (@HouseJudiciary)
Content Codes
We coded the content of tweets and posts to determine the nature of the message. These content
codes are not mutually exclusive, and each tweet or post could be coded with multiple codes.
The following is the list of content codes we used, as well as their definitions and examples.
Committee Announcement
We coded tweets and posts as Committee Announcement if they referenced committee
proceedings such as general hearing announcements. Committee Announcement tweets or posts
were generally written in present or future tense.
“Here is next week's #HomelandSecurity Committee schedule: http://1.usa.gov/1aaLt8y”
-House Committee on Homeland Security (@HouseHomeland)
Committee Action
We coded tweets and posts as Committee Action if they referenced specific actions or decisions
made by the committee specifically related to the function of that committee, such as official
reports and committee decisions. Committee Action tweets and posts were generally written in
past tense.
“In case you missed it, we passed #WRRDA unanimously through committee last week.
Next stop? The House Floor. pic.twitter.com/AZ6ndL8QB1”
-House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (@Transport)
Committee Promotion
We coded tweets and posts as Committee Promotion if they promoted a positive image of the
committee.
“RT @RepHultgren: Thanks @FinancialCmte for the "Top Tweet" shout out! Proud to be
part of such a great committee! http://t.co/yydWUxhbaH”
-House Committee on Financial Services (@FinancialCmte)
22
Policy Information
We coded tweets and posts as Policy Information if they relayed general policy information or
general governmental affairs. Policy Information tweets and posts may or may not have been
related to specific committee business. We coded tweets and posts as Policy Information when
they included news regarding the progression of specific bills post-committee. If the message
within a tweet or post was not strictly a fact we defaulted to the Political Stance code.
“New on the Bottom Line Blog | @CFPB HQ Renovation Budget Tops $75,000... Per
Employee http://t.co/5RNMifh3TG”
-House Financial Services Committee (@FinancialCmte)
Member Promotion
We coded tweets and posts as Member Promotion if they mentioned a member of the posting
committee, provided it was not negative.
“Chairwoman @SenatorBarb will work in Senate next week to keep the gov’t open so it
meets day-to-day and long range needs of American people.”
-Senate Committee on Appropriations (@SenateApprops)
Political Stance
We coded tweets and posts as Political Stance if they advocated for or against a political position
through means such as bill advocacy, bill or politician criticism, and value statements. Political
Stance tweets and posts may or may not have been related to specific committee business. The
content of a Political Stance tweet or post may or may not have been a strictly partisan opinion.
We coded tweets and posts as Political Stance if they included perceived and unsubstantiated
consequences or implications of legislation.
"The lines have been drawn. It's #TimeToBuild the Keystone XL pipeline." --@MarshaBlackburn
http://bit.ly/118YPev #DrawTheLine
-House Energy and Commerce Committee (@HouseCommerce)
Media
We coded tweets and posts as Media if they referenced or directly linked to any nongovernmental media-related content, such as media appearances, news articles, blogs and photos.
We did not code tweets and posts as Media if no source was cited.
“NY Times covers new #JOBSAct provisions that go into effect today opening new
avenues for #SmallBiz to raise capital.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/23/technology/law-opens-financing-of-start-ups-tocrowds.html?ref=business …”
-House Committee on Small Business (@SmallBizGOP)
23
Outreach
We coded tweets and posts as Outreach if they called for active civic engagement and social
advocacy with the purpose of involving constituents. Outreach tweets and posts may or may not
have been related to specific committee business. We coded calls for retweeting as Outreach. We
only coded tweets and posts as Outreach if they called for active engagement; passive action,
such as “read this” or “tune in,” was coded as Committee Announcement.
“Do you have #Instagram? May sure to follow our account "waysandmeanscommittee"
today for some #ObamaCare info”
-House Committee on Ways and Means (@WaysandMeansGOP)
Response
We coded tweets and posts as Response if they directly responded to or engaged in conversation
with followers. We did not code every retweet as a Response. Instead, a retweet had to contain
additional text for that tweet to be coded as a Response.
“@dog884 We asked @TheJusticeDept why they seem unable prosecute TBTF institutions for
financial crimes. http://t.co/Mm1vLeCxXB”
-House Financial Services Committee (@FinancialCmte)
Personal
We coded tweets and posts as Personal if they included comments of a personal nature that were
unrelated to committee business and not germane to policy, such as thanks, congratulations,
birthday wishes, condolences, insults, and ad hominem attacks.
“Join us in wishing Chairman @RepGoodlatte a happy birthday”
-House Judiciary Committee (@HouseJudiciary)
Campaigning
We coded tweets and posts as Campaigning if they campaigned for members of the committee or
other politicians. We found no tweets or posts that contained language fitting our definition for
Campaigning. This reflects an initial assumption about a congressional committee’s ability to use
social media since House and Senate rules and regulations severely restrict the ability of
committees and members to disseminate campaign material through official resources.39 40
39
U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics, “Campaign
Activity,”http://www.ethics.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/campaign-activity, accessed April 24, 2014.
40 House Committee on Ethics, “General Prohibition Against Using Official Resources for Campaign or Political
Purposes,” http://ethics.house.gov/general-prohibition-against-using-official-resources-campaign-or-politicalpurposes#campaign_laws_rules_use_off_resources, accessed April 24, 2014.
24
Other
We coded tweets and posts as Other if they could not be coded as any of the aforementioned
categories. If we coded a tweet or post as Other, that tweet or post could not have contained
another content code.
Multiple Content Codes
Within a single tweet or post, congressional committees often included multiple types of content.
To capture this, we coded tweets and posts into more than one of the aforementioned categories
where applicable. As an example, a post could be coded with a function code of Legislative and
content codes of Media, Political Stance, and Member Promotion. Not all tweets or posts
contained multiple content codes.
The following tweet is an example of multi-coding. Its content categories are Media, Member
Promotion, and Political Stance.
“Chairman McCaul (@McCaulPressShop) Op-Ed in @politico: Senate’s flawed #border
approach http://t.co/UBszJzwOmy #immigration”
-The House Committee on Homeland Security (@HouseHomeland)
Additional Research and Tools
Hashtag Analysis
We analyzed if and how congressional committees use hashtags on Twitter. Hashtags are a mode
of communication that originated from Twitter. Until recently, the feature has been exclusive to
Twitter, but is now part of Facebook and other social media platforms. We parsed the hashtags
from the tweets in our dataset using Excel character functions and text tools to create a secondary
dataset of hashtags. We found 7,656 tweets containing hashtags in our sample, and we extracted
10,547 total hashtags. Hashtag analysis allowed us to determine the extent of hashtag use by
committees, to determine if their use is coordinated between committees, and to determine if
hashtag use is partisan.
Analytic Tool Websites
Followerwonk is an online tool that provides data on a Twitter account’s followers. We used the
tool to measure the number of users who follow committee Twitter accounts and to analyze
follower characteristics. Followerwonk provides a statistic called “Social Authority,” which
measures the influence of Twitter users on a 100-point scale. The statistic is based on the retweet
rate of an account’s content.41
41
“Introducing Social Authority,” Followerwonk, https://followerwonk.com/social-authority.
25
Twittonomy is a Twitter analytics website that provides a detailed profile of any Twitter account.
The site provides information such as the account’s creation date, followership, retweets, tweets
over time, and other data.42 We used Twittonomy to obtain follower data, to study the trends of a
committee account, and also to validate information from our Dataset.
WordItOut is an online text analysis tool that allows a user to create customizable word clouds.
43 By default, the website removes a set of very common words from the word cloud, but it
allows the user to modify which terms to remove. We used WordItOut to obtain word clouds and
word counts for some of our analyses.
Case Study: Individual Committee
We selected the House Committee on Small Business (“Committee”) to provide a detailed
description of how an individual committee may adopt and use social media. This committee
was active on social media, provided a sufficient amount of data, and had some unique aspects
that contrast with use by other committees. Specifically, the Committee used Facebook heavily,
and the Committee’s minority political party members did not operate official social media
accounts. The Committee began as a select committee within the House on December 4th,
1941.44 After members reauthorized the select committee in successive Congressional sessions, it
became a permanent standing committee on January 5, 1975.45
The Committee has jurisdiction over “small business financial aid, regulatory flexibility, and
paperwork reduction,” and “oversight and legislative authority over the Small Business
Administration (SBA) and its programs.”46 It handles small business issues related to capital,
energy, taxes, healthcare, trade, contracting, regulatory reform, disaster relief, technology, rural
settings, and the workplace.47
During the 112th Congress, the Committee had five subcommittees: The Subcommittee on
Agriculture, Energy and Trade; The Subcommittee on Healthcare and Technology; The
Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Tax and Capital Access; The Subcommittee on
Investigations, Oversight and Regulations; and The Subcommittee on Contracting and
Workforce.48
42
“Diginomy Pty Ltd,” http://www.twitonomy.com.
A word cloud is a visual representation of the most frequent words within a text. The size of the word in a word
cloud is representative of the frequency for that word.
44 House Committee on Small Business, “Committee History,” http://smallbusiness.house.gov/about/, accessed
March 28, 2014.
45 Ibid.
46 House Committee on Small Business, “Rules & Jurisdiction,” http://smallbusiness.house.gov/about/, accessed
March 28, 2014.
47 House Committee on Small Business, “On The Issues,” http://smallbusiness.house.gov/ontheissues/, accessed
March 29, 2014.
48 The Internet Archive, House Committee on Small Business, “Subcommittees,”
https://web.archive.org/web/20120324153758/http://smallbusiness.house.gov/About/Subcommittees.htm, accessed
43
26
Republicans, the House majority party during the 112th Congress, held the chairmanship and
majority status within the Committee. Sam Graves (R-MO 6th) served as Chairman during this
period.49 Democrats held the minority role and Nydia Velázquez (D-NY 7th) served as Ranking
Member. During the data collection period, the Committee held 6 full committee hearings and 1
full committee markup of legislation. 52
50
51
The Committee majority operates a Twitter account, a Facebook page, a Youtube account, and
provides links to all of them at the bottom of its website, http://smallbusiness.house.gov/. Unlike
many other committees, the minority party did not have its own separate Twitter or Facebook
account. The minority party’s website links to the ranking member’s Twitter account in lieu of
an official minority account.
The Committee joined Twitter with the handle @smallbizgop on April 8, 2009.53 As of March
29, 2014, the Committee tweeted 5,742 tweets, had 9,981 followers, and followed 5,199 other
Twitter accounts.54 Between June 5, 2012, and March 29, 2014, the Committee released 3,200
tweets, averaging about 4.83 tweets per day.55 Of these tweets, about 61% mention another
Twitter user, about 71% contain a link, and 1% were replies to other users.56
The Committee, between June 5, 2012, and March 29, 2014, tweeted 95% of its tweets via the
Twitter website.57 The Committee tweeted exclusively during the workweek, with the largest
percentage of tweets occurring on Wednesdays.58 Tweets mainly occurred between the hours of
10 a.m. and 6 p.m., but the Committee tweeted as early as about 9 a.m. and as late as about 12
a.m.59 The Committee often used the hashtag “smallbiz” in its tweets. Between June 5, 2012, and
March 29, 2014, the Committee used this hashtag 1,568 times.60
March 29, 2014.
49 The Internet Archive, House Committee on Small Business, “Committee Members,”
http://web.archive.org/web/20130724092906/http://smallbusiness.house.gov/about/members.htm, accessed March
29, 2014.
50 The Internet Archive, House Committee on Small Business, “Minority Members,”
http://web.archive.org/web/20130724092911/http://smallbusiness.house.gov/about/minority.htm, accessed March
28, 2014.
51 House Committee on Small Business, “Markups,” http://smallbusiness.house.gov/about/markups.htm.
http://smallbusiness.house.gov/calendar/list.aspx?EventTypeID=269, accessed March 29, 2014.
52 House Committee on Small Business, “Hearings,”
http://smallbusiness.house.gov/calendar/list.aspx?EventTypeID=253, accessed March 29, 2014.
53 Diginomy, “@smallbizgop,” Twitonomy, http://www.twitonomy.com/profile.php?sn=@smallbizgop.
54 House Small Business Committee, Twitter feed, accessed March 29, 2014, https://twitter.com/SmallBizGOP.
55 Diginomy, “@smallbizgop,” Twitonomy, accessed March 29, 2014
http://www.twitonomy.com/profile.php?sn=@smallbizgop.
56 Ibid.
57 Ibid.
58 Ibid.
59 Ibid.
60 Ibid.
27
During the data collection period, the Committee had the fourth-most active Twitter account of
all congressional committees. The Committee account tweeted 708 times in the four-month
timeframe, about 5 times per day on average. Of these tweets, 10% related to the Committee’s
Legislative function, 18% related to the Committee’s Oversight function, and 72% related to
Neither. Compared to the overall committee average of 21% Legislative, 20% Oversight, and
59% Neither, House Small Business tweeted slightly less about its Legislative function and
slightly more about subjects unrelated to committee business. In these 708 tweets, the Committee
most frequently tweeted about Media, Committee Announcements, Policy Information, Political
Stance, and Member Promotion. The Committee’s Twitter activity was generally consistent with
overall committee trends. The most frequent subject, Political Stance, appeared 412 times in the
Committee's 708 tweets.
On Facebook, the Committee had the single most active account of any congressional
committee. The Committee made 397 posts, an especially large number considering that the
second most active committee, House Ways and Means, only made 321 posts. Of the
Committee’s posts, 12% related to its Legislative function, 20% related to its Oversight function,
and 68% related to Neither, a distribution similar to its Twitter posts. Also like Twitter, Media,
Policy Information, Political Stance, and Member Promotion appeared as the most frequently
occurring content codes, with Political Stance occurring most often.
28
DATA ANALYSIS
We begin our data analysis with an overview of committee social media adoption rates. We then
provide an overall timeline of our dataset, in which we include a case study about focusing
events during the sample period. Next, we present our analysis of social media posts across
function categories (Legislative, Oversight or Neither), as well as by our 12 content categories.
We also provide analyses to explore if committees use two-way communication in social media
and to examine the use of Twitter hashtags by committees, and we finish with a brief analysis of
the Twitter followers of committee accounts.
We follow this analysis with a case study on committee social media use from the state of Texas,
followed by a case study on federal agency social media use.
Social Media Adoption Rates
House committees used social media more than Senate committees. Almost twice as many
House Republican committees (majority) adopted Twitter as Senate Democratic committees
(majority). In both chambers, committee Twitter adoption is greater than Facebook adoption.
The adoption rates between committees in the majority versus the minority varied. Ninety
percent of the House majority committees (Republican) adopted Twitter compared to 24% of
House minority committees (Democratic). Minority committee accounts, with ranking members
at any age group, did not adopt Twitter or Facebook to the extent that majority committees did.
The figure below shows the adoption rates for both the House and Senate committees, and the
majority and minority committee members within each chamber.
29
Figure 3.1
Platform Adoption by Chamber and Affiliation
House
Majority
Minority
Senate
Majority
Twitter
Minority
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
Facebook
90%
100%
Percentage of committes using a platform
Social Media Activity Over Time
The graph below plots the sample of posts over time, which shows a weekly pattern. The peaks
of posts occur on Tuesdays and Wednesdays with significant dips on the weekends. This trend is
consistent with the fact that most committee hearings take place on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.61
Twitter activity declined during the month of August when Congress was out-of-session. The
frequency of Facebook posts also declined when Congress was out of session. While Facebook
activity is lower than Twitter, the correlation between daily activity in both platforms is 91%,
following almost the same pattern.
61
http://thomas.loc.gov/home/schedules.html
30
Figure 3.2
Daily number of Tweets and Facebook posts by Congressional Committees
450
In session
In session
Out of session
W
Th
400
Shutdown
T
Oct 1 - 16
Number of Tweets / Facebook posts
350
300
T
W
T
T
W
250
W
W
200
Th
T
150
100
M
F
T
T
T
Th
Th
0
Jun/21
Jun/23
Jun/25
Jun/27
Jun/29
Jul/1
Jul/3
Jul/5
Jul/7
Jul/9
Jul/11
Jul/13
Jul/15
Jul/17
Jul/19
Jul/21
Jul/23
Jul/25
Jul/27
Jul/29
Jul/31
Aug/2
Aug/4
Aug/6
Aug/8
Aug/10
Aug/12
Aug/14
Aug/16
Aug/18
Aug/20
Aug/22
Aug/24
Aug/26
Aug/28
Aug/30
Sep/1
Sep/3
Sep/5
Sep/7
Sep/9
Sep/11
Sep/13
Sep/15
Sep/17
Sep/19
Sep/21
Sep/23
Sep/25
Sep/27
Sep/29
Oct/1
Oct/3
Oct/5
Oct/7
Oct/9
Oct/11
Oct/13
Oct/15
Oct/17
Oct/19
Oct/21
Oct/23
Oct/25
Oct/27
Oct/29
Oct/31
50
Twitter
Facebook
The government shutdown, October 1 to 16, is shaded in gray and its beginning is labeled with a
red dot on the Twitter line. The most active days on Twitter were July 17 and September 19, and
the most active day on Facebook was also September 19. On both dates, different committees
held markup hearings, as well as oversight hearings regarding important events within their
jurisdictions, such as the September 19 oversight hearing on Benghazi. We provided a detailed
discussion regarding the government shutdown and committee activity for July 17 and
September 19 in the Focusing Events case study.
The table below shows the sample period divided according to the session calendar and the
government shutdown dates from October 1 to 16. When Congress was in session, committees
tweeted three times more frequently than when it was out of session. Similarly, when Congress
was in session, committees posted on Facebook twice as frequently as when Congress was out of
session. Social media activity declined during the government shutdown, which occurred in
session.
31
Table 3.1: Twitter and Facebook Activity Through Selected Periods
Period
No. of days
Tweets
Tweets per
day
Facebook
posts
Facebook
posts per day
Out of session
37
1,580
42.7
350
9.5
In session
80
9,972
124.7
1,798
22.5
Government shutdown
(in session)
16
1,394
87.1
160
10.0
Total
133
12,946
97.3
2,308
17.4
Case Study: Focusing Events
We researched whether focusing events affected committee social media activity. As mentioned
earlier, the government shutdown potentially is a focusing event. In October 2013, Congress
could not reach an agreement on a spending bill for fiscal year 2014 to keep the government
operating.62 From October 1 through October 16, the federal government curtailed most routine
activity. Approximately 850,000 federal workers were furloughed and another 1.3 million were
required to report to work without known payment dates.63 The shutdown dominated mainstream
national news coverage. The data from our sample shows that Twitter and Facebook activity
spiked at the beginning of the Shutdown on October 1. Next, we examined the content of tweets
and Facebook posts from October 1 through October 16 to see if they were related to the
Shutdown.
There are 588 tweets in our sample that contain the text “Shutdown,” with 436 tweets using the
term as a standalone hashtag or as part of a hashtag, and 152 containing the word “Shutdown.”
Most of these tweets (73%) were posted between October 1 and October 16.
62
Steve Mullis, “Shutdown Begins After Congress Fails In Spending Compromise”, NPR, October 1, 2013,
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/09/30/227873883/shutdown-begins-after-congress-fails-in-spendingcompromise
63
Sylvia Matthews Burwell, “Impacts and Costs of the Government Shutdown”, OMBlog, The White House,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/11/07/impacts-and-costs-government-shutdown
32
Table 3.2: Twitter Statistics During 2013 Government Shutdown
Majority
Minority
Total
House
68
401
469
Senate
107
1
108
Joint
1
Total
176
1
402
578
The previous table shows that most of the Shutdown related tweets came from Democraticcontrolled House minority and Senate majority accounts. Only 69 tweets came from Republicancontrolled accounts. This can explain why the House minority accounts were the most active on
Twitter during the two weeks of the Shutdown.
Out of the total 1,394 tweets from October 1 through October 16, 30% contain the text
“Shutdown,” which are 421 tweets. However, at the beginning of the Shutdown (October 1) the
committees posted 303 tweets, and 48% of them contain the word shutdown (145 tweets). The
spike on October 1 can be attributed to the Shutdown.
The Shutdown also appears to have caused a reaction from the House minority (Democratic)
committee accounts on Twitter. The following graph shows that committee majority accounts
generally were more active than the minority accounts during our sample period, except for the
two weeks of the Shutdown, in which the House minority accounts were the most active.
33
Figure 3.3
Weekly number of Tweets by chamber and leadership
700
600
Number of Tweets
500
400
300
200
100
0
Jun/21- Jun/28Jun/27 Jul/4
Jul/5Jul/11
Jul/12- Jul/19- Jul/26- Aug/2- Aug/9- Aug/16- Aug/23- Aug/30- Sep/6- Sep/13- Sep/20- Sep/27- Oct/4- Oct/11- Oct/18- Oct/25Jul/18 Jul/25 Aug/1 Aug/8 Aug/15 Aug/22 Aug/29 Sep/5 Sep/12 Sep/19 Sep/26 Oct/3 Oct/10 Oct/17 Oct/24 Oct/31
House Majority
House Minority
Senate Majority
Senate Minority
Weeks on this graph are seven-day periods beginning on Friday and ending on Thursday. During our sample period
(June 21 through October 31) there were exactly 19 seven-day periods beginning on Friday.
Next, we searched for other potential focusing events, starting with the second most active day
on our Twitter sample, September 19, which also is the most active Facebook day. We took the
391 tweets from that date and tried to establish if committees made more mentions of specific
terms than others, using word clouds made on Word It Out ™.64 The first word cloud shows
“hearing” and “sequestration” are the most frequent words. Here is a brief list of the most
common terms from September 19.
64
Enideo, “Word It Out,” http://www.worditout.com
34
Table 3.3: Most Frequently Used Terms on September 19, 2013
Term
Tweets
Percent From September 19
Tweets
Hearing
79
20.2%
Sequestration
53
13.6%
Bill
43
11.0%
WRRDA
42
10.7%
Benghazi
27
6.9%
Transport
25
6.4%
Reform
25
6.4%
Jobs
22
5.6%
#TimeToBuild
19
4.9%
Obamacare
18
4.6%
Water
17
4.3%
#KeystoneXL
16
4.1%
Burma
16
4.1%
Markup
15
3.8%
As “Benghazi” was a frequently used word on September 19, a review of prominent news stories
for that particular day shows that House Republicans listened to testimony from surviving family
members of the Benghazi attack through a hearing at the House Committee on Oversight and
Government Reform.65 Additionally, on that day, House Republicans questioned a former U.N.
ambassador and former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman over their review of the Obama
administration’s handling of the incident.66
65
Jeanette Steele, “Benghazi victims’ parents want answers”, U-T San Diego,September 19, 2013,
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/Sep/19/benghazi-mullen-pickering-smith-woods/
66 Jason Howerton, “House GOP Grills Pickering, Mullen on Benghazi and ‘Whitewash’ Gov’t Investigation”, The
Blaze, September 19, 2013, http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/09/19/house-gop-grills-pickering-mullen-onbenghazi-and-whitewash-govt-investigation/
35
The hearings were related to the September 11, 2012, attack on diplomatic compounds in Libya,
where a group of approximately 125-150 heavily armed gunmen attacked the American
diplomatic mission; then, a second assault targeted a CIA annex in Benghazi. The attackers
killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, another diplomat, and two embassy security
personnel.67
The remaining words from the September 19 list primarily refer to activities within a
committee’s sphere, especially the markup hearing of the House Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee for the Water Resources Reform and Development Act (WRRDA)
held that same day.68 “Sequestration” appeared in 52 tweets from the Senate Budget majority
account (one for each state, and a tweet introducing their state-by-state tweets.)
Another focusing event is the most active Twitter day in the sample, July 17, but we could not
find a single common or national event for this activity spike. However, this was an active day
on the hill, with several committees holding oversight and markup hearings. Hence, the spike
likely is related to these hearings, as committees frequently used words such as “hearing,” “bill,”
“ObamaCare,” “Secretary Jewell,” and “IRS.” Also, on July 17, the House Appropriations
Committee approved the Fiscal Year 2014 Appropriations Bill.69 Additionally, the Secretary of
the Department of Interior, Sally Jewell, testified before the House Natural Resources Committee
to discuss her department’s management.70
67
The Wall Street Journal, “How the Benghazi Attack Unfolded”,
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10000872396390444620104578008922056244096
68 The U.S. House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, “Committee Passes Water
Resources Reform and Development Act (WRRDA),” press release, September 19, 2013,
https://transportation.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=351146
69 The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, “Appropriations Committee Approves Fiscal
Year 2014 Financial Services Appropriations Bill,” press release, July 17, 2013,
http://appropriations.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=342867
70 The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources, “Full Committee Hearing To Examine
Interior Department’s Operations, Management, Rulemaking,” press release, July 9, 2013,
http://naturalresources.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=341810
36
Function Analysis
Fewer than half of all committee tweets and Facebook posts related to official Legislative or
Oversight functions. The graphs below show that social media activity on both Twitter and
Facebook predominantly was unrelated to committee business in virtually every category. While
Senate minority Facebook activity appears to deviate from this pattern, Senate minority accounts
had very little activity, which produced a small sample size and skewed results.
Figure 3.4
Additionally, the Republicans are the majority party in the House, and since 80% of all tweets in
our sample came from House committees, there is very little difference between majority tweets
and Republican tweets. Furthermore, there is very little difference between minority tweets and
Democratic tweets.
Despite these complications, we observed remarkably consistent use patterns between Facebook
and Twitter across chamber, majority and minority status, and party, which might imply external
coordination. The graphs below show the function distribution of tweets and Facebook posts by
chamber, majority and minority status, and political party.
37
Figure 3.5
Figure 3.6
38
Figure 3.7
39
Figure 3.8
Republican (majority) accounts used social media for committee business more frequently than
Democratic (minority) accounts. The split becomes most apparent when looking at the most
active users. Of the 10 most active accounts, 4 were minority accounts, but of the 20 accounts
that had the largest share of Legislative and Oversight content, only 4 were minority accounts
and only 5 were Democratic.
40
Figure 3.9
41
Figure 3.10
Figure 3.11
42
Content Category Analysis
We measured the use of each content category in Facebook and Twitter posts. In the 12,946
tweets and 2,022 Facebook posts, none were campaign posts, which implies that committees are
complying with campaign laws in their social media activity. Our dataset contained no Facebook
posts coded as Response because Facebook responses take the form of a Facebook comment. We
did not include Facebook comments in our dataset.
The majority of posts on Facebook and Twitter have similar content characteristics. Political
Stance and Member Promotion were the most prevalent categories in both Facebook and Twitter
posts, which is evidence that parties and individual members use committee accounts to take
political stances and promote individual members.
Figure 3.12
Frequency of content category in Facebook and Twitter
Percentage of posts in specific content catagories
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
Political Stance
Member Promotion
Policy Information
Media
Committee Announcement
Other
Outreach
Committee Action
Personal
Commiteee Promotion
Responses
Campaign
Facebook
Twitter
We examined the content use in majority and minority accounts for Twitter and Facebook and
we found the same content characteristics as in the overall sample. The most frequent content
categories in majority and minority accounts for Twitter and Facebook are Political Stance,
Member Promotion, Policy Information, Media, and Committee Announcement. A majority of
posts did not have any content that would fall into the remaining seven content categories. The
overall theme of the content analysis is that committees use social media to promote the political
stance of the party in control of the account.
Minority accounts from both chambers and both parties have more politically motivated posts on
Twitter and Facebook compared to the majority accounts. Majority accounts focus more on
43
promoting their members. Majority account holders on Facebook and Twitter have
disproportionately more Committee Announcement and Member Promotion compared to their
minority counterpart. Minority accounts post less about committee business and are more
political in their posts. Given that the Republicans control the House, and the Democrats control
the Senate, these findings illustrate that it is the party’s power position that influences the content
of social media posts rather than the actual political party or specific chamber.
As mentioned above, Twitter and Facebook offer ways to post content. On Twitter, links to
external sources are shortened and they cannot appear within a tweet. On Facebook, the content
from a link can be embedded within a post. This difference could explain why Media codes are
more prevalent in Facebook updates. Outreach and Other posts also rank higher on Facebook
updates than on Twitter because the commenting feature allows engagement.
Figure 3.13
Frequency of content category in Twitter
Frequency of content category in Facebook
Percentage of posts in specific content category
0%
10%
20%
30%
Political Stance
Member Promotion
Policy Information
Media
Committee Announcement
Other
Personal
Outreach
Responses
Committee Action
Commiteee Promotion
Campaign
40%
50%
Percentage of posts in specific content category
60%
0%
10%
20%
30%
Political Stance
Policy Information
Member Promotion
Media
Other
Outreach
Committee Announcement
Personal
Committee Action
Commiteee Promotion
Responses
Campaign
Minority
Majority
Minority
44
Majority
40%
50%
60%
Direct Communication
We observed congressional committees using Facebook and Twitter to communicate directly
with users, and to request that users take actions. An initial question regarding congressional
committee use of social media was whether committees engage more in one-way communication
by solely pushing messages, or two-way communication through dialogues with constituents. If
committees engage in moderate to high levels of two-way communication, this would signify a
fundamental shift away from the insular practices committees historically displayed.71
To determine the frequency of two-way communication on Twitter, we looked at the total
number of tweets containing the codes Outreach and/or Response.
Table 3.4: Outreach and Response Tweets
Tweets containing “Outreach” and/or “Response”
codes
715
Total Tweets
12,946
% of “Outreach” and/or “Response”
5.5%
Congressional committees rarely use Twitter for two-way communication. Only 5.52% of all
tweets contain relevant two-way communication language. Based on the data, it appears that
congressional committees mainly use Twitter for one-way communication to distribute content
to followers.
71
Malecha & Reagan, The Public Congress, 47.
45
Types of Outreach Tweets
When congressional committees conduct Outreach, they call for a variety of activities. To
determine the types of activities, we isolated all tweets containing an Outreach code. Then, we
recoded these tweets using the following categories based on the language within the tweet.
•
Retweet - If a tweet asks a reader to retweet the post.
•
Follow - If a tweet asks a reader to follow a specific account on Twitter.
•
Fillable Form - If a tweet asks a reader to take a poll, fill out a survey, or sign a petition.
•
Public Voice - If a tweet asks a reader to submit a question, tell a story, make a suggestion, or share
an opinion.
•
Attend in Person - If a tweet asks a reader to attend an event in person.
•
Media - If a tweet provides links to other media or to other social media sites.
•
Other - If a tweet does not fall into a category listed above.
Based on this coding, the following figure shows the breakdown of the 432 tweets containing
Outreach.
46
Table 3.5: Percent of Outreach Tweets by Type
Type of Tweets
Retweet
Follow
Public Voice
Media
Other
Fillable Form
Attend in Person
Percentage
27%
25%
22%
9%
8%
6%
1%
The majority of Outreach tweets called for other Twitter users to retweet committee content. The
second and third most observed types of Outreach call for Twitter users to follow other Twitter
accounts or for the public to share stories, experiences, and questions. Both retweet and follow
requests, although actively trying to engage the public, demonstrate passive types of Outreach.
Instead of calling for information or starting a dialogue with the public, these types of Outreach
tweets encourage followers to promote a committee’s social media content.
The House, mirroring its higher level of overall social media use, published more tweets with an
Outreach message. In both chambers, the majority party was more likely to engage in Outreach.
Also, more Republicans than Democrats used Outreach messages in tweets.
47
Table 3.6: Types of Outreach by Chamber and Majority/Minority
Outreach
Type
Total House Majority
Outreach Tweets (%
of types)
Total House
Minority Outreach
Tweets (% of types)
Total Senate
Majority Outreach
Tweets (% of types)
Total Senate
Minority Outreach
Tweets (% of types)
Retweet
70 (27)
43 (33)
4 (13)
1 (17)
Follow
67 (25)
24 (18)
17 (57)
0 (0)
Public Voice
65 (25)
26 (20)
3 (10)
3 (50)
Media
25 (9)
16 (12)
0 (0)
0 (0)
Other
13 (5)
18 (14)
4 (13)
1 (17)
Fillable Form
20 (8)
3 (2)
2 (7)
1 (17)
Attend in
Person
4 (2)
2 (2)
0 (0)
0 (0)
Percentages have been rounded and may not sum to 100%.
Committee Retweets
Congressional committees also engage in two-way communication through the use of retweets.
By retweeting constituents, congressional committees could begin a dialogue, or display a point
of view other than those directly drafted by the committee.
To determine the types of content that congressional committees retweet, we isolated all tweets
containing an RT. Then, by researching the origin through the user’s handle, we coded each post
containing a retweet into the following categories.
•
Nongovernmental - A constituent, business, media, or other nongovernmental source.
•
Chairman/Ranking Member - The Chairman/Ranking member of the retweeting committee.
•
Committee Member - A member of the retweeting committee (not Chairman/Ranking member.)
•
Congress Member - A Congress member who is not a member of the retweeting committee.
•
Governmental - A source within the government not captured in the other categories, such as
agencies, secretaries, or other branches.
Based on this coding, the following figure shows the breakdown of original tweet sources from
the 3,907 congressional committees tweets containing retweets.
48
Table 3.7 Total Source of Retweets across Committees
Retweet Source
Nongovernmental
Committee Member
Government Source
Congress Member
Chairman/Ranking Member
Percentage
31%
28%
16%
14%
12%
More than a quarter of all committee tweets contained retweeted messages. When sources within
government are subdivided into groups, we observed the largest percentage of retweeted content
from Nongovernmental sources. This included individuals or organizations outside of the
government, including constituents, press, and other organizations. However, Committee
Member sources received a percentage of retweets almost equal to the percentage received by
Nongovernmental sources. Chairman/Ranking Member sources received the least number of
retweets when we subdivided government sources into groups.
The House majority retweeted and promoted fellow committee members most frequently. The
House minority had the second highest number of retweets, but retweeted Nongovernmental
sources more than any other source, given that sources within government were subdivided into
groups.
When aggregating tweets from Committee Member, Congress Member, and Chairman/Ranking
Member sources, we observed that the House majority retweeted messages generated by
congressional members more than the aggregate of other sources, including Nongovernmental
and Governmental. However, the House minority, as the second most frequent retweeter, made
fewer retweets of specific Congress members than of non-member sources.
When House committees retweeted fellow committee members, the chairperson and ranking
members were less than 30% of these tweets, and other members were about 65% of the tweets.
Conversely, Senate committees retweeted chairperson and ranking members more often than
other committee members.
We also aggregated retweets as originating from either inside or outside of the government.
Retweets categorized as within government included Committee Member, Congress Member,
Chairman/Ranking Member, and Governmental sources. Congressional committees retweeted
sources from within the government in about 70% of all tweets containing a retweet. These
committees only retweeted users outside of the government in about 30% of all tweets containing
a retweet. Overall, committees have a lower tendency to retweet content coming from outside
sources including press, constituents, and organizations than when government sources are
disaggregated.
49
Democrats were more likely to retweet a message from both Nongovernmental and
Governmental sources. Republicans more frequently retweeted Committee Member and
Congress Member sources. Overall, it was very rare to find majority or minority committee
members retweeting tweets from the opposing party within their committee.
Table 3.8: Retweet Sources by Chamber and Majority/Minority
Retweet (RT) Sources
Total House
Majority RT (%
of RT)
Total House
Minority RT (%
of RT)
Total Senate
Majority RT (%
of RT)
Total Senate
Minority RT (% of
RT)
Committee Member
722 (38)
327 (20)
26 (9)
14 (12)
Nongovernmental
518 (27)
529 (33)
107 (38)
36 (31)
Congress Member
309 (16)
233 (15)
19 (7)
1 (1)
Government Source
181 (10)
369 (23)
46 (16)
9 (8)
Chairman/ Ranking
Member
168 (9)
146 (9)
82 (29)
58 (49)
Total (% of all RT total)
1898 (49)
1604 (41)
280 (7)
118 (3)
The total of all RTs in this chart is 3,000. It does not include 7 RTs from the joint committees. Percentages have
been rounded and may not sum to 100%.
50
Case Study: Social Media And The State Of Texas
As is the United States Congress, the Texas Legislature is a large, bicameral body consisting of
two houses: the Senate and the House of Representatives. Additionally, the committee system
within the Texas Legislature comprises a large number of committees with many members
assigned to each committee. The similarities between the Texas Legislature and the United States
Congress provide a qualitative context for comparison of social media use between the two
entities.
Texas Senate Committee on Business and Commerce Case Study
The Texas Senate Committee on Business and Commerce (the Committee) exemplifies the new
role of social media and its influence on a committee’s behavior. Through increased transparency
and interaction with the public, the Committee attempts to better serve constituents and its
legislative role. Through its Twitter account and blog, the Committee has created a larger
presence and impact in the Texas Senate.
The Committee was the first Texas Senate Committee to implement Twitter to communicate
with constituents.72 Chaired by Senator John Carona, the Committee established Twitter in 2010
to expand interaction with the public.73 Texas requires legislative bodies to post time and
locations of meetings for public knowledge. The Committee posts official notices for hearings,
but also tweets a link to this information on Twitter.74 If there are modifications to the meeting
agenda, the Committee posts changes through tweets.75 During hearings, the Committee uses
Twitter to update the public about the witnesses and subject matter.76 Through “time stamps,”
tweets marked with updated times and witnesses, the Committee can communicate directly with
the public in real time.77
The Committee uses social media to provide greater transparency for the public on the
Committee’s legislative matters.78 Steven Polunsky, the former Director of the Committee,
regulated the Committee’s social media use by establishing that the Committee can only tweet
about state business.79 Through the Committee’s Twitter account and blog, the Committee can
provide a more comprehensive version of hearing details and actions than the Senate website.80
72
"Steven Polunsky Class Interview," Personal interview, 18 Mar. 2014.
Ibid.
74 Ibid.
75 Ibid.
76 Ibid.
77 Ibid.
78 “Legislative Committees Use Social Media, QR Codes for Transparency," Houston Business Journal. 29 Apr.
2011. http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/print-edition/2011/04/29/legislative-committees-usesocial.html?page=all.
79 Ibid.
80 Ibid.
73
51
The Committee has seen observable benefits since its Twitter and blog launch. Through social
media use, Steven Polunsky describes a change in transparency and collaboration with the
public.81 There has been greater transparency of the Committee’s function and role in the Texas
Senate because of detailed updates on its Twitter and blog during hearings.82 Further, the
Committee provides reports, schedules, and witness biographies through its social media outlets,
which saved over $7,000 in printing costs.83 Before implementing social media, the Committee
primarily interacted with the Chairman’s constituents and lobbyists.84 Presently, social media
provides an additional forum for communication between the Committee and the public. As
Polunsky describes, the role of social media is “to bring the government and the people closer
together.”85
The Texas Senate Committee on Business and Commerce provides an example of how
committee roles continue to change through social media use. Increased communication on
hearings and news updates on its blog and Twitter account demonstrates the new function of the
Committee in Texas politics. Through these communication mediums, the Committee is better
able to achieve its public responsibilities.
Red Tape Challenge Case Study
Greater use of technology by committees within the Texas Legislature broadens the ability of the
public to shape policies and laws. The Texas House Committee on Government Efficiency and
Reform (the Committee) is a leader in transforming the relationship between committees and the
public through technology. In 2012, Committee chair Bill Callegari created the Red Tape
Challenge to encourage the public to provide new ideas and opinions on improving state
policies.86
The Red Tape Challenge provided Texans the opportunity to participate in the Committee’s
decision-making process by posting ideas and opinions on the Red Tape project website. As
Chairman Bill Callegari explained, “the crowdsourcing platform allows legislators to tap into the
experiences and expertise of all Texans to make better informed decisions.”87 The Red Tape
Challenge focused on four main topics: occupational licensing, state agency rulemaking, public
school mandates, and manufacturing.88 By registering on the Red Tape website, Texans could
post their ideas about any of the four topics and discuss other posted suggestions on the
website.89 When there was consensus on discussions on the website forum, the Committee
81
Ibid.
"Steven Polunsky Class Interview," Personal interview, 18 Mar. 2014.
83 Ibid.
84 Ibid.
85 Ibid.
86 Bill Callegari, "Texas House of Representatives," Callegari, Bill Member News Releases, Texas House of
Representatives, 17 October, 2012. Web. 04 Apr. 2014.
87 Ibid.
88 "Red Tape Challenge Offers New Platform for Civic Engagement," Speaker Joe Straus Texas House of
Representatives, Joe Straus: Republican State Representative, Web. 04 Apr. 2014.
89 Ibid.
82
52
included those ideas into its formal report to the 83rd Legislature.90 Although the Committee met
to evaluate selected ideas, it did not formally take action for or against selected ideas.91
Through the Red Tape Challenge, the Committee spearheaded the new function of technology in
the legislative process in Texas politics. The website had 97 posted ideas, 961 users, and 766
comments on the suggested ideas.92 The collaboration between Texans and decision-makers
through this interactive website expanded the role Texans played in the policy-making process.93
The Committee’s implementation of innovative technology in the decision-making process is its
effort to transform committee transparency and responsibility to the public.
Case Study: Federal Agencies
We examined federal agency social media use to provide qualitative context for comparison with
congressional committee use. Our research suggests that federal agencies adopt and use social
media far more frequently than committees. They also use formal guidelines and strategies to
establish a strong online presence. In contrast to congressional committees, several agencies,
such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy, indicate that they
have developed best practices and procedures regarding social media use.94 95 The Environmental
Protection Agency and the Department of Energy are particularly proactive in engaging citizens
through social media.
Social Media at the Environmental Protection Agency
Currently, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) maintains numerous
Facebook and Twitter accounts, as well as accounts on YouTube, Google+, and Instagram.
Further, EPA began blogging in 2007 and has expanded this practice to include eleven public
blogs, each of which focuses on a different issue area.
EPA’s Facebook and Twitter use is particularly interesting since the agency delineates between
national accounts and regional accounts for each social media platform. National accounts
contain information that covers multiple issue areas and is useful to the entire nation. Regional
accounts are used to provide information relevant to specific geographic regions. Regarding
Facebook, EPA maintains 15 national accounts and 16 regional accounts. Similarly, EPA
maintains 23 national accounts and 14 regional accounts for Twitter.
90
"Public Requested to Submit Ideas to Texas Red Tape Challenge," TASBO: Texas Association of School
Business Officials, 6 August 2012.
91 House Committee on Government Efficiency and Reform, “Interim Report to the 83rd Texas Legislature,”
http://www.house.state.tx.us/_media/pdf/committees/reports/82interim/House-Committee-on-GoverementEfficiency-and-Refrom-Interim-Report.pdf.
92 "The Texas Red Tape Challenge," IdeaScale, The Texas Red Tape Challenge, n.d. Web. 04 Apr. 2014.
93 Bill Callegari, "Texas House of Representatives," 04 Apr. 2014.
94 http://www2.epa.gov/home/social-media
95 http://energy.gov/about-us/web-policies/social-media
53
The motivation for the agency’s social media use is the desire to increase citizen understanding
of environmental issues. According to the social media section of the agency’s website, the
“EPA is using social media technologies and tools in the firm belief that by sharing and
experimenting with information we greatly increase the potential for everyone to gain a better
understanding of environmental conditions and solutions.”96
Social Media at the Department of Energy
The Department of Energy employs a two-tiered approach regarding its social media use. The
first tier is comprised of Energy.gov branded enterprise accounts. The Department’s website
states, a “strong, well developed enterprise social media brand is the primary tier of the
department’s social media strategy.” This tier includes “any official energy department social
media platform that is managed by staff in the office of digital strategy and communications.”
The second tier of the Department of Energy’s social media strategy is the maintenance and use
of office specific social media accounts. Unlike first tier accounts, second tier social media
accounts are approved for use on a case-by-case basis, based upon requests from specific staff
and program offices within the Department of Energy. Requests from specific staff and program
offices only are granted when there is a “clear benefit of external office-specific stakeholder
outreach that is not already being met by Energy.gov’s tier-one social media efforts.” Further,
the office making the request must show that it has developed an “effective strategy to develop
and maintain a stakeholder audience on social media.”97
Observations
Based on our observations, federal agencies have adopted social media to a much larger extent
than congressional committees. While Congress is “regularly criticized as being resistant to
change,” and “slow to adapt,” federal agencies have been less hesitant to embrace social media.98
Further, agencies appear to have comprehensive outlines for social media use, which contrasts
starkly with the wide variety of content posted by congressional committees.
There are many possible reasons that federal agencies use social media more frequently and
more deliberately than congressional committees. First, unlike members of congressional
committees, leaders and employees of federal agencies are not elected and have very little
constituent pressure. Additionally, committees are composed of Members of Congress and exist
for a legislative purpose. By contrast, agencies primarily exist to provide a service, making them
more apt to engage people and receive feedback on that service. Finally, agencies have a more
centralized leadership structure that is focused on effectively providing information regarding
agency services. This clear objective may make it easier to send a more unified message,
96
“Social Media,” http://www2.epa.gov/home/social-media
http://energy.gov/about-us/web-policies/social-media
98 Social Congress - Perceptions and Use of Social Media on Capitol Hill, p. 1,
http://www.scribd.com/embeds/60974277/content?start_page=1&view_mode=list&access_key=key1241fgf3lzksrknnibiv
97
54
meaning there may be a stronger impetus to get the message out to the public. Committee
members may have dissenting opinions and a variety of goals and objectives that result in less
unified social media strategies.
Although we did not quantitatively study federal agency social media use, we can deduce from
their websites that agencies are using social media more for transparency and informational
purposes rather than as a political tool. In addition to the above observations, this likely is
because federal agencies are prohibited from using federal funds for political activities.
55
Hashtag Analysis
The table below contains statistics on the top 20 hashtags used by committees during our sample
period.
Table 3.9: Twenty Most Frequently Used Hashtags
Hashtag
Democrat
Republican
Total Tweets with
Hashtag
Committee Accounts
Obamacare
27%
73%
641
22
smallbiz
0.31%
100%
326
5
WRRDA
1%
99%
296
3
GOPshutdown
100%
0.00%
277
13
ACA
97%
3%
233
11
IRS
38%
62%
221
12
Syria
43%
57%
210
10
PATHAct
4%
96%
159
2
4jobs
0.66%
99%
151
8
GOP
82%
18%
147
15
KeystoneXL
0.00%
100%
141
5
jobs
5%
95%
130
13
56
By marking the tweet with a hashtag (#) prefix and a specific term, the tweet is categorized and
searchable on Twitter feeds. This increases the likelihood of iterations of the message being
shared with others and reaching a very wide audience. A visibly popular, or “trending,” hashtag
is very valuable: both political parties have purchased trending hashtags for hundreds of
thousands of dollars during presidential debates.99 100
Committees use hashtags to self-categorize the general topic of each message. Hashtags offer
insights into how committees choose to coordinate and frame their messages to the broader
public. For the purposes of objectively analyzing the message content, hashtags are more salient
than the unique and complex texts of each individual tweet.101
We analyzed hashtags to understand the diffusion of the committees’ messages. Of all hashtags
used 10 or more times in our sample, the hashtag “#pjnet” (Patriot Journalists Network) led to
the most viral messages, with 12,098 retweets across only 99 tweets. The Patriot Journalists
Network is an organized social media political action group whose goal is to help conservative
messages go viral. Twitter users who opt in to this network allow the PJNet application to post
and retweet conservative-oriented news on their behalf. It is unclear whether the committee
account that most frequently used this hashtag (SmallBizGOP) enrolled in the Patriot Journalist
Network, or simply used the hashtag to solicit PJNet support. The next most viral hashtags
focused on liberal policies and stances, such as “#Obamacare” (10,729), “#actonclimate”
(10,159), and “#GOPshutdown” (9,412).
Hashtags also may show coordination of partisan content. In this context we define partisanship
as hashtag concentration within one political party, and coordination as hashtag distribution
across committee accounts controlled by that party.
Hashtag analysis shows that the most popular hashtags reflected the party’s agenda or preferred
political semantics. For example, 73% of all instances of “#Obamacare” appearing in
Republican-controlled accounts, while 97% of all tweets with the hashtag “#ACA” were from
Democrats. Additionally, seven different Republican committees, for a combined 61 tweets,
referred to the Affordable Care Act with “#trainwreck.” Many popular hashtags related to key
pieces of legislation, such as “#PATHAct,” “#WRRDA,” and “#KeystoneXL,” all of which were
heavily concentrated in the committees overseeing the referenced topics.
Other frequent and overtly political hashtags primarily were used by individual parties, and are
possible evidence of coordination. For example, variations of “#Jobs,” “#4Jobs,” and
“#Bad4jobs” appeared in a combined 298 tweets. These terms were used in 10 Republican
99
Todd Wasserman, “Obama Campaign Buys Ads for ‘Malarkey’ Hashtag on Twitter.” Mashable.
http://mashable.com/2012/10/11/obama-campaign-twitter-ad-malarkey/.
100 Gena Wolfson. “Paying to Be No. 1: Romney, Twitter, and the Debates.” MSNBC. http://www.msnbc.com/theed-show/paying-be-no.
101 Hashtags are also used by committees on Facebook posts, but they are a new feature and much less common in
our sample. Posts are not constrained by character-count restrictions on Facebook, so the convenient brevity of
hashtags is less necessary.
57
accounts (led by House Commerce) and five Democratic accounts. This may reflect a
Republican strategy for framing economic conditions in terms of employment.
Follower Analysis
To understand why committees are using social media, we analyzed the followers of committee
Twitter accounts. In our sample analysis of all accounts following the committees as of February
15, 2014, a total of 184,612 unique accounts were following at least one committee. The sum of
all committee Twitter followers (including those which follow multiple committees) was
322,479.
The number of active committee followers on Twitter is likely much lower. A social media
analytics site called Followerwonk.com uses the Social Authority metric of an account’s network
influence, ranging from 1 to 100. Across all committee followers, the highest Social Authority
Scores are the official Twitter accounts for Barack Obama (91.7) and the Huffington Post (92.5.)
Meanwhile, 53% of all congressional committee unique followers have a social authority score
of 1, indicating they are either infrequent users or computer-generated spam accounts. Followers
appear partisan in their choices of who to follow. Of the 48,061 Twitter users following multiple
committee accounts, 46% follow only Democratic or only Republican committee accounts.
As seen in the chart below, median follower and following counts for all committee followers is
about 5% of their averages, indicating the sample is heavily skewed towards many infrequent
users with fewer than 200 followers, and a few outliers with hundreds of thousands of followers.
This distribution holds for both Democratic and Republican-controlled accounts. Democratic
followers appear to have adopted Twitter at an earlier date, and thus have more Twitter activity
overall.
58
Table 3.10: Twitter Users Following Committee Accounts
All Committee
Followers
Democratic
Followers
Republican
Followers
Followers
Following
Tweets
Created
Social
Authority
Average
3785
1915
4148
1/30/2011
13
Median
190
706
431
2/26/2011
2
Average
3929
1917
4336
1/18/2011
13
Median
188
715
467
2/10/2011
3
Average
3729
1950
4049
2/8/2011
13
Median
197
706
417
3/14/2011
2
However, many active followers hold significant influence in political affairs. As corroborated
by interviews, journalists are extremely active on Twitter, and are overrepresented in the
follower sample. More than 4,500 unique followers (2.4%) self-describe as “editor,” “reporter,”
“anchor,” or “journalist” in their biographies. Additionally, more than 1,123 unique followers
(0.6%) have “senator,” “sen.,” “representative,” or “rep.” in their biographies. These figures are
rough and unverifiable, but they suggest that lawmakers and media professionals are engaging
with congressional committees on social media.
102
102
"Steven Polunsky Class Interview," Personal interview, 18 Mar. 2014.
59
CONCLUSION
Discussion of Results
Committees used Twitter as their primary social media platform, with Facebook as a secondary
platform. Twitter and Facebook allowed committees to rapidly deliver short, politically charged
messages to a wide audience. Committees overwhelmingly used Twitter and Facebook over
other social media platforms such as Instagram, Vine, Flickr, and Youtube, which are platforms
predominantly containing multimedia content. We inferred that committees mainly used
Facebook and Twitter because of their popularity, ease of use, and the effectiveness of text-based
messages. Twitter and Facebook have been integrating multimedia content into their platforms,
but our analysis demonstrated that committees chose text-based social media platforms as their
preferred tool. As multimedia-based social media platforms become more popular online,
committees could shift their strategy away from text-based platforms to multimedia-based
platforms to serve their political agenda.
For this project, we examined 15,254 Facebook posts and tweets produced by 86 social media
accounts operated by 45 congressional committees. Majority committees had higher rates of
social media adoption than minority committees, and House committees had much higher rates
of social media adoption than Senate committees. On Twitter, 184,612 unique accounts followed
committee Twitter accounts, with Democrats and Republicans having a roughly equal aggregate
number of followers. Our follower analysis showed that the majority of committee followers
were not influential social media users, and that journalists were overrepresented.
We found that 60% of posts and tweets across parties, chambers, and majority and minority
status did not relate to committee legislative and oversight functions. About 60% of posts and
tweets did not relate to committee legislative and oversight functions. Of the 12 content codes we
used to categorize tweets and Facebook posts, we coded 77% of the tweets and 76% of the posts
as Political Stance, Member Promotion, or Policy Information. Political Stance consisted of
subjective opinions about policy issues such as “Stop Obamacare.” Member Promotion explicitly
mentioned committee members, including chairs, such as “Senator Issa to appear on MSNBC
tomorrow at 2pm.” Policy Information consisted of “objective” information and statistics about
policy issues such as “Over 40 million Americans don’t have health insurance.”
Our analysis showed that 60% of the time, committees did not post on issues directly related to
committee business. Rather, committee tweets and posts most frequently advanced the agenda of
a political party. We concluded that committees used social media activity as a tool to influence
national political conversations beyond their respective jurisdictions. Furthermore, our analysis
of Twitter hashtag use and committee interaction with other social media users reinforced this
finding.
60
Political Stance was the most frequently used code. While parties across both chambers used
social media to promote political positions, our data showed that minority accounts from both
chambers did so more often, regardless of whether the minority account was Democratic or
Republican. The data analysis revealed that the party’s power position influenced the content of
social media posts, rather than the actual political party or specific chamber.
Our Twitter hashtag analysis displayed that a majority of tweets contained political positions,
and that these political positions frequently did not refer to policy areas under a committee’s
jurisdiction. Political hashtags included topics of national interest or topics that political parties
prioritized for their agendas, with committee accounts of the same party frequently using the
same hashtags. For example, almost no Democrats used #4jobs, while no Republicans used
#GOPshutdown. We concluded that this reflected coordination between committees and party
leadership to promote the party’s agenda.
Tweeting and posting frequency was considerably lower during the period when Congress was
not in session. We inferred that this was due to less impetus for political messaging via social
media, and the absence of hearings and legislative action when Congress was out of session.
While committees did not seem to target a specific constituency with their social media activity,
they may have sought to influence national discussions. Focusing events, such as the 2013
government shutdown, increased the likelihood that committees posted on issues outside of their
jurisdictions.
As scholars have noted, congressional committees historically have not sought to gain political
influence by engaging with the public.103 Our analysis indicated that committees increasingly
have recognized the importance of public interaction, but this interaction was almost completely
one-way. Committees rarely used social media for two-way communication, which only
comprised 5.5% of all tweets. This may be related to the fact that a majority of the committee
followers were not influential, as mentioned above, and therefore would not be able to advance
the party position in any significant way. However, 25% of all committee tweets contained
retweeted messages. Of these retweets, 30% originated from accounts that were not associated
with government sources. We inferred that committees were only somewhat attuned to public
perception of political issues within and outside of their own jurisdiction. The retweets were not
limited to accounts held by the members of the public but also included tweets from media
outlets, think tanks, and other interest groups. While to some extent they were aware of
perceptions outside the government as illustrated by the source of the retweets, overall those
tweets were a small percentage of all of the tweets in our timeframe. We concluded that
committees have not deviated entirely from their historical insularity. The source of retweets and
the lack of two way communication displayed that committees were not using social media for
committee business, but rather as a political tool to promote their political message.
103
Malecha & Reagan, The Public Congress, 13
61
Opportunities for Further Research
Visual and Media Content
Due to resource and methodological constraints, we did not follow links to online content
provided by committees. Yet for many posts, the linked content complements the text to produce
a single message. For example, a tweet urging followers to visit an “essential reading” link may
contain a Political Stance or Policy Information from third-party media or a government source.
The issue is exacerbated by recent changes to Facebook and Twitter. After we collected data in
October 2013, both Facebook and Twitter made linked pictures and videos more prominent in
posts. These, and other potential features, could change future congressional committee social
media use. How committees adapt their messaging to design changes could be a future research
topic.
Other Social Media Platforms
Our data is limited in that it focuses exclusively on the use of Facebook and Twitter, the most
commonly used social media platforms in 2013. Additional research on the use of other social
media could provide more information regarding how and why committees use social media.
Analysis of committees on platforms such as Instagram, Vine, Flickr, and committee blogs could
uncover different social media patterns. Research on the effects of technological change and
social media evolution also could provide additional insight into committee behavior.
Influence of Members on Committee Social Media Use
For this research, we assumed that if a committee chairman’s Facebook or Twitter account was
linked to the committee’s website as the official committee account, that chairman would act as a
mouthpiece for the entire committee. Additional research on the connection between the social
media use of a chairman and his or her committee could provide insight into who has the greatest
influence on a committee’s social media use.
It may be worth examining whether the social media activities of a chairman accurately predict
how social media will be used in that committee, or if the committee’s use is more of a collective
representation of all of the committee members’ independent social media use. For example, if a
committee’s chairman is highly active on his or her own social media pages, the committee also
could be more active as a consequence of that chairman’s influence. Also, other committee
members could have as much or more influence on the committee’s social media use as the
chairman. This could be particularly true if other members are involved in a subcommittee, and
therefore, have additional reasons for using social media. Further analysis may provide more
information on how and why committees use social media.
Analysis of Followers
Our analysis of committee followers relied on the followers’ biographies and retweets as proxies
for the followers’ backgrounds and views. In addition to biographies and retweets, Twitter
62
collects many other types of user information, which may be used to develop a better
understanding of followers. Further research could use this additional information to examine the
types of committee messages most likely to be retweeted and shared by influential committee
followers. A comprehensive analysis of committee follower data could more accurately examine
how constituents react to committee posts.
Similarly, Facebook allows analysts to filter down to individuals who “like” a given set of
political preferences. For instance, what percentage of Facebook users who have liked the Senate
Foreign Affairs Committee also like “Fox News,” “Barack Obama,” or another committee? Are
individuals who follow multiple political pages also more likely to share committee content or
engage with committees in the comments section? More data on share, like, and comment
activity is needed to examine these questions.
63
Glossary of terms
Facebook Terms
Facebook: “Founded in 2004, Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make
the world more open and connected. People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and
family, to discover what’s going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to
them.”104
Posts: We use this term to describe every kind of content that can be published on Facebook,
whether it is a status update, a shared link, a photo or video upload, or a life event. This is
because all of these are posted on the Timeline of a user or page, or posted to a group.105
Profile: The Facebook profile is the same as the Timeline.106
Page: “Facebook Pages look similar to personal Timelines, but they offer unique tools for
connecting people to topics that they care about, such as a business, brand, organization or
celebrity. Pages are managed by people who have personal Timelines. Pages are not separate
Facebook accounts and do not have separate login information from a person’s Timeline. You
can like a Page to see updates in News Feed.”107
Status Update: This is perhaps the most common way to post content on a Facebook Timeline;
users post Status Updates using a box available at the top of the News Feed or the Timeline.108
The content of the update can be a combination of text, photos, and links to other sites.
Like: This is a means for a Facebook user to express approval or enjoyment of content published
on another user or page’s Timeline, by clicking on the “like” link at the bottom of the content
(status photo, story, etc.)109
News Feed: This is “an ongoing list of updates on a person’s homepage that shows you what is
new with the friends and Pages you follow.”110
Comment: Most content posted on Facebook shows a box where other users can leave a
comment in the form of text that also can include photos or links. Some websites outside of
Facebook can include a section for Facebook comments.
104
“Facebook Missing,” Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/facebook/info.
"How to post and share," Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/help/333140160100643/.
106 “Glossary of terms,” Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/help/glossary.
107 “Pages basics,” Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/help/www/281592001947683?rdrhc.
108 "How to post and share," Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/help/333140160100643/.
109 “Like,” Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/help/www/452446998120360?rdrhc.
110 “Glossary,” Facebook,https://www.facebook.com/help/glossary.
105
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Timeline: “Your Timeline, which we sometimes refer to as your profile, is your collection of the
photos, stories and experiences that tell your story.”111
Twitter Terms
Twitter: “An information network made up of 140-character messages from all over the
world.”112
Tweet (verb): “The act of posting a message...on Twitter.”113
Tweet (noun): “A message posted via Twitter containing 140 characters or fewer.”114
Direct Message: “Also called a DM and most recently called simply a "message," these Tweets
are private between the sender and recipient.”115
Follow: “[T]o subscribe to [someone’s] Tweets or updates on [Twitter].”116
Retweet (verb): “The act of forwarding another user’s Tweet to all of your followers.”117
Retweet (noun): “A Tweet by another user, forwarded to you by someone you follow. Often
used to spread news or share valuable findings on Twitter.”118
Hashtag: “The # symbol is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet.”119
Trend: “A subject algorithmically determined to be one of the most popular on Twitter at the
moment.”120
Promoted Tweets: “Tweets that selected businesses have paid to promote at the top of search
results on Twitter.”121
Social Authority: A 1 to 100 point scale based on retweet rates that measures a user’s influential
content on Twitter.122
111
Ibid.
“The Twitter Glossary,” Twitter, https://support.twitter.com/articles/166337-the-twitter-glossary.
113 Ibid.
114 Ibid.
115 Ibid.
116 Ibid.
117 Ibid.
118 Ibid.
119 Ibid.
120 Ibid.
121 Ibid.
122 “Introducing Social Authority,” Followerwonk, http://followerwonk.com/social-authority.
112
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Other Terms
Social Media: “Forms of electronic communication (as Web sites for social networking and
microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas,
personal messages, and other content (as videos).”123
YouTube: “Founded in February 2005, YouTube allows billions of people to discover, watch
and share originally-created videos. YouTube provides a forum for people to connect, inform,
and inspire others across the globe and acts as a distribution platform for original content
creators and advertisers large and small.”124
Flickr: “Flickr is…[a] way to store, sort, search and share your photos online. Flickr...offers a
way for you and your friends and family to tell stories about [photos].”125
Vine: “Vine is a mobile service that lets you create and share short looping videos. Videos you
post to Vine will appear on your Vine profile and the timelines of your Vine followers. Posts can
also be shared to Twitter or Facebook.”126
Google Plus: This is a social networking tool that “adds to all of Google's other services,
including Gmail, YouTube, and Blogger. Google+ brings popular social media features like
comments, photo- and music-sharing, video chat, etc. to your social circles.”127
Pinterest: “Pinterest is a tool for collection and organizing” ideas and projects to blog followers.
The purpose of the blog is to share and discover different ideas.128
Viral: “Quickly and widely spread or popularized especially by person-to-person electronic
communication.”129
Instagram: This is a social media tool where a person shares to followers through a “series of
pictures.”130 “Currently, you can share your photos on a photo-by-photo basis on Flickr,
Facebook, and Twitter.”131
LinkedIn: “Founded in 2003, LinkedIn connects the world's professionals to make them more
productive and successful...LinkedIn is the world's largest professional network on the
Internet.”132
123
“Definition: Social Media,” Merriam- Webster Online Dictionary, http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/social%20media.
124 “About YouTube,” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/.
125 “General Flickr Questions,” Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/help/general/#1.
126 “FAQs About Vine,” Twitter, https://support.twitter.com/articles/20170317.
127 “Introduction,” Google+, https://support.google.com/plus/answer/2409856?hl=en.
128 Pinterest, “About Pinterest,” https://about.pinterest.com.
129 “Definition: Viral,” Merriam-Webster Online, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/viral.
130 “Instragram FAQ,” Instagram, http://instagram.com/about/faq/.
131 Ibid.
66
Data-related Terms
Scraping: This is the process our research team used to aggregate data from various committee
social media accounts.
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs): These are web tools provided by social media
platforms that allow users to aggregate data using computer programs.
Coding: This is the process our research team used to categorize committee social media content
according to legislative function and message content.
Word Cloud: This is a visual representation of the most frequent words within a text. The size
of the word in a word cloud is representative of the frequency for that word.
132
“Company Page,” Linkedin, https://www.linkedin.com/company/linkedin.
67
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Student Profiles
Danielle Bartz - Master of Public Affairs, expected 2015
Danielle holds a B.A. in Government and Spanish from the University of Texas at Austin and is
the Longhorns’ Graduate Assistant Rowing Coach.
Michael Austin Darden - Master of Public Affairs, expected 2015
Austin holds a B.S. in Political Science from Texas Christian University and currently works as a
Program Support Specialist for the Texas Education Agency.
Carinne Deeds - Master of Public Affairs, expected 2015
Carinne holds a B.S. in Communication Studies from The University of Texas at Austin. She is
currently a Graduate Research Assistant and the Bryna and Henry David Fellow at the Ray
Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources.
Tiffany Fisher - Master of Public Affairs Candidate
Tiffany is an LBJ Fellow and holds a B.A. in Government from The University of Texas at
Austin. She currently is the Director at Ipsos Research.
Zachary Greene - Master of Public Affairs & Master of Science in Energy & Earth Resources,
expected 2016
Zachary holds a B.A. in Economics and a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies: Communications,
Law, Economics and Government (CLEG) from The American University in Washington, D.C.
He currently works as a communications intern for Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell.
Nicholas G. Hadjigeorge - Master of Public Affairs, expected 2015
Nicholas holds a B.A. in Government and Philosophy from The University of Texas at Austin
and is an editor at the LBJ Journal of Public Affairs.
Lamia Imam - Master of Public Affairs, expected 2015
Lamia holds a B.A.(Hons) in Political Science and a LL.B (Law) from the University of
Canterbury in Christchurch and is a Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand.
She previously worked at the New Zealand Parliament and the Ministry of Justice in Wellington.
72
Kristin Sepulveda - Master of Public Affairs, expected 2015
Kristin holds a B.A. in Political Science and a B.A. International Relations from St. Mary’s
University and currently works as a college counselor, specializing in low-income access to
higher education.
Ruy Manrique - Master of Public Affairs & Graduate Portfolio in Statistics, expected 2015
Ruy holds a B.S. (Mención Especial Honors) in Industrial Engineering from Instituto
Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico (ITAM). He previously worked for the Mexican Federal
Electoral Court and for the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness, a Mexico City based thinktank.
Reyne Telles - Master of Public Affairs, expected 2016
Renye holds a B.S. in Communication from Eastern New Mexico University. He is the
Communication Director for Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell. Reyne has worked as a television
news reporter for a CBS affiliate and as a Press Secretary with the New Mexico State Senate.
Noah Wright - Master of Public Affairs, expected 2015
Noah holds a single honors B.A. in Drama and Theater Studies from the University of Dublin,
Trinity College and served as an Americorps VISTA.
Brian O'Donnell - Master of Public Affairs, expected 2015
Brian holds a BA in Literary and Cultural Studies and Government from the College of William
& Mary. He is currently a Graduate Research Fellow for Innovations for Peace and
Development.
Maya Perez- Master of Public Affairs, expected 2015
Maya holds a BA in Political Science and Latin American Studies from Wellesley College.
John Egan - Master of Public Affairs, expected 2015
John holds a B.A. in Political Science from The University of Texas at San Antonio
73