In the months leading up to and following the contentious 2020 election, one-third of tweets by American adults were about politics or political issues, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center. But what about the content and nature of these posts, such as when they were most prevalent on the site, or the terms that most distinguished political from non-political tweets?
Here are five facts about political content on Twitter, based on the Center’s analysis of almost 1 million English-language tweets from US adults posted between May 1, 2020 and May 31, 2021.
The Pew Research Center conducted this study to gain insight into Twitter users’ political engagement, attitudes, and behaviors on Twitter. For this analysis, we surveyed 2,548 US adult Twitter users in May 2021 about their experiences on the site, as well as how they engage with politics outside of Twitter. All respondents to this survey are members of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP) – an online survey panel recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses – and indicated that they use Twitter.
Researchers from the Center also examined the current Twitter profiles of a subset of survey participants who agreed to share their handles for research purposes. First, the researchers collected all publicly visible tweets posted between May 2020 and May 2021 by these users. The researchers then used a machine learning classifier to identify which of those tweets mentioned politics or political concepts.
To identify keywords and phrases that were distinct to political tweets, the researchers first used cross-reference information to determine which terms were more likely to appear in a political tweet but not in a non-political tweet, then calculated the percentage of political tweets referring to each particular term or phrase. as well as their common variations.
Here is the methodology used for this analysis.
Most political tweets by American adults are retweets. American adults on Twitter often tweet about politics using someone else’s words: 62% of the tweets the Center’s analysis identified as political were retweets, with no additional text from the user who shared them. This was significantly higher than the percentage of retweets on non-political tweets posted by US adults (38%).
Political tweets that users chose to retweet also tended to be quite popular, receiving more engagement across the platform than retweets of non-political content. The typical (average) political tweet retweeted by Americans received a total of 4,312 likes—almost three times more than the average nonpolitical retweet (1,490 likes).
In the wake of major events, politics make up a larger portion of what American adults tweet than normal. At certain times during the study period, political content made up a larger than usual share of posts from the Center’s representative sample of Twitter users, and some of the most notable increases coincided with major political and social events. For example, the proportion of political tweets was particularly high in the weeks following the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers in May 2020, as well as during the period between the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 and the Inauguration of President Joe Biden. later that month.
The daily volume of political tweets by US adults fluctuates much more than the daily volume of non-political tweets. On a typical day, the Center’s representative sample of 942 adult Twitter users collectively posted roughly twice as many non-political tweets (1,206) as political tweets (565). But the sheer volume of political tweets varied widely from day to day. For example, on the busiest days for political tweets, Americans posted over 14 times more of these tweets than on the slowest days for political tweets. In contrast, there was less than a threefold difference in tweet volume for non-political tweets between the most and least active days for this type of content.
During the year studied, references to Donald Trump were more uniquely associated with political content on Twitter than any other term. Political content on Twitter affects a wide range of issues, individuals and government institutions. But some terms are much more prevalent in political tweets than in non-political ones. These “distinguishing terms” are words or phrases that are much more likely to appear in a tweet about politics than in a non-political tweet. In the Center’s year-long study period, no term or figure was more prominent in political tweets than Trump.
Mentions of the former president — including changes to his name and Twitter handle — appeared in 28% of political tweets by US adults during this time. Other specific political terms in these tweets included references to the presidency, the 2020 election, Congress, and the Republican and Democratic parties.
Political tweets from Republicans and Democrats are more likely to mention the opposite party than their own. One in ten political tweets posted by Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents during the study period mentioned the Republican Party, while 7% of political tweets posted by Republicans and Republicans mentioned the Democratic Party. By comparison, both Democrats and Republicans mentioned their parties in about 4% of their political tweets.
Note: Here is the methodology used for this analysis.
Samuel Bestwater is a computational social scientist focusing on data science at the Pew Research Center.
I am Shahu is a computational social scientist focusing on data science at the Pew Research Center.
