17:45 - 20:00
Thursday-Panel
Chair/s:
Carolina Plescia
Discussant/s:
Denise Laroze
Meeting Room N

Paul Bauer
Tweeting Politicians: A Comparative Study of Activity and Influence

Theres Matthieß, Stefan Müller
Parties promise a lot, but nothing relevant? How issue ownership and voters’ priorities influence prospective pre-electoral statements

Julia Maynard
Speaking Two Different Languages: the Electoral Constraints of MPs on Social Media

Clara Fauli Molas
Tweeting about the environment in a European campaign. Are candidates to the European Parliament responsive to citizens’ environmental concerns?
Tweeting Politicians: A Comparative Study of Activity and Influence
Paul Bauer
Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES)

Political elites increasingly use Twitter and other social media platforms to spread their views. Yet, it is hard to come by comparative and up-to-date statistics that would tell us how active and influential politicians, as well as parties, are on these platforms. The present study attempts to provide a descriptive, comparative, and up-to-date overview of Twitter activity/influence across politicians, parties, and parliaments in different countries. It analyzes around 15 million tweets by around 4500 active politicians. Thereby, the study relies on data generated by a framework that collects the corresponding Twitter data on a daily basis. This framework allows for up-to-date statistics and comparisons across different levels and time periods and develops methods that help in comparing the activity and influence of different politicians. The here found variation in terms of activity and influence across
politicians, parties, and parliaments calls for more explanation on different levels of aggregation.