Skip to main navigation Skip to search Skip to main content

Polarized, together: Comparing partisan support for Trump’s tweets using survey and platform-based measures

  • Kenneth Joseph
  • , Briony Swire-Thompson
  • , Hannah Masuga
  • , Matthew A. Baum
  • , David Lazer
  • Northeastern University
  • Harvard University

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

Using both survey- and platform-based measures of support, we study how polarization manifests for 4,313 of President Donald Trump’s tweets since he was inaugurated in 2017. We find high levels of polarization in response to Trump’s tweets. However, after controlling for mean differences, we surprisingly find a high degree of agreement across partisan lines across both survey and platform-based measures. This suggests that Republicans and Democrats, while disagreeing on an absolute level, tend to agree on the relative quality of Trump’s tweets. We assess potential reasons for this, for example, by studying how support changes in response to tweets containing positive versus negative language. We also explore how Democrats and Republicans respond to tweets containing insults of individuals with particular socio-demographics, finding that Republican support decreases when Republicans, relative to Democrats, are insulted, and Democrats respond negatively to insults of women and members of the media.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 13th International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, ICWSM 2019
PublisherAssociation for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence
Pages290-301
Number of pages12
ISBN (Print)9781577358060
StatePublished - 2019
Event13th International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, ICWSM 2019 - Munich, Germany
Duration: Jun 11 2019Jun 14 2019

Publication series

NameProceedings of the 13th International Conference on Web and Social Media, ICWSM 2019
Volume13

Conference

Conference13th International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, ICWSM 2019
Country/TerritoryGermany
CityMunich
Period06/11/1906/14/19

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Polarized, together: Comparing partisan support for Trump’s tweets using survey and platform-based measures'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this