A Bad Workman Blames His Tweets: The Consequences of Citizens' Uncivil Twitter Use When Interacting With Party Candidates

Journal of Communication
,
vi, 1007 - 1031 S.
,
2016,

Theocharis, Yannis, Pablo Barberá, Zoltán Fazekas, Sebastian Adrian Popa, Olivier Parnet
ISSN: 0021-9916 (print); 1460-2466 (online)
DOI: 
10.1111/jcom.12259
Abstract

Existing studies focusing on politicians' adoption of Twitter have found that they use it primarily as a broadcasting tool. We argue that citizens' impolite and/or uncivil behavior is one possible explanation for such decisions. Social media conversations are rife with harassment and politicians are a prime target. This alters the incentive structure of engaging in dialogue on social media. We use Spanish, Greek, German, and U.K. candidates' tweets sent during the run-up to the recent European Parliament elections, and rely on automated text analysis and machine learning methods to measure their level of civility. Our contribution is an actor-oriented theory of political dialogue that incorporates Twitter's specific affordances, clarifying how and why Twitter's democratic promise may be limited.

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