Social Media and Politics: Twitter Use in the Second Congressional District of Virginia

With social media recently evolving as a platform for social, informational, and political exchanges, it comes as no surprise that in the last few years several politicians have integrated Twitter into their campaigns. The goal of this study was to gain insight into how Republican Congressman Scott Rigell and Democratic candidate Paul Hirschbiel—candidates in the 2nd Congressional District of Virginia—cultivated Twitter to attract voters in the 2012 election. A content analysis of the characteristics and tactical strategies of these Twitter posts revealed that the two congressional candidates primarily used Twitter to post information and tweet about their current activity. It was also found that Rigell posted more direct communication tweets— internal and external—than Hirschbiel, while Hirschbiel used personal messages to attract followers. The tactical strategies employed by Rigell and Hirschbiel were determined to be calculated methods by which the candidates hoped to motivate citizens, activate voters and differentiate themselves from their competitor. I. Social Media and Politics: With social media recently evolving as a platform for social, informational, and political exchange, it has become an influential tool used to effectively target numerous sectors in American society. It comes as no surprise that politicians are using these channels of mass communication and marketing to influence attitudes about themselves, set agendas, and even shape outcomes of campaigns (Gale Opposing Viewpoints, 2010). The recently evolved “micro-blogging” social media site, Twitter, is the ideal vehicle for this kind of selfpromotion, giving politicians the ability to inform mass numbers of people about their political activities almost instantaneously (Aharony, 2010). Twitter’s short posts, called “tweets,” enable users to share updates with friends, colleagues, and in a politician’s case, potential voters, giving users the ability to influence, inform, and engage each other in topics across the board. In the last few years, several politicians have integrated Twitter into their campaigns; 577 politicians have opened Twitter accounts, three quarters of them in 2009 (Anonymous, 2010). With its recent popularity, Twitter’s relationship to politics has been the subject of numerous research studies (Aharony 2012; “International: Sweet to Tweet,” 2010; Budak, 2012; Smith & Brenner, 2012). Politicians are using social media as a new tool to increase interaction and exchange with the public. By using a social media device like Twitter, politicians can easily connect to their voters and vice versa (International: Sweet to Tweet, 2010). As social media emerges more and more as a means of daily chatter, conversations, sharing of information, and political debate, politicians are no longer only responsible for their outgoing tweets, but also for the responses and dialogue they create with potential voters (International: Sweet to Tweet, 2010). *