Noisy candidates and informative politicians: analyzing changes in tweet behavior using tweet quality assessment framework

Abstract

Politicians use Twitter as a strategic tool for campaigning and posting messages once elected. Our work focuses on the ways U.S. state governors’ use Twitter differently when they were campaigning vs. after they have taken office. Our data consists of tweets posted by wining gubernatorial candidates during and six months after the 2014 elections. Using regression analysis, we find that post-election tweet volume is related to factors such as pre-election tweet volume, incumbency status, and if they were a third party candidate. We also develop and utilize a novel Tweet Quality Assessment Framework (TQAF) to show that during elections politicians try to engage topically with their audience more than once elected, but tend to produce higher quality information once in office. Our work contributes to the understanding of politician’s use of Twitter. We also believe our TQAF will be useful for researchers wishing to compare differences in tweet behavior across time or groups.