14 Dec 2017
Annelise Russell, a graduate student at the Universty of Texas at Austin, published an article in American Politics Research on the behavior of Senators on Twitter. The abstract:
The U.S. Senate is a party-polarized institution where divisive politicalrhetoric stems from the partisan divide. Senators regularly chastise politicalopponents, but not all senators are equally critical. Research finds that eliteparty polarization is asymmetrical with greater divergence by Republicans,so I expect Republican senators to mimic that trend with higher levels ofpartisan rhetoric. To assess the variance in partisan rhetoric, I cataloguesenators’ Twitter activity during the first 6 months of the 113th and 114thCongresses, and find that Republicans are more likely to name-call theirDemocratic opponents and to make expressions of intraparty loyalty,particularly when they are the minority party.
The article is available here.