Gossip on the Hill: Bonding, Bitching, and Politicians’ Home Style on Twitter

Abstract

This study explores the ways in which members of Congress cultivate their representational style via Twitter that helps to affect their political celebrity. Scholars have explored how elected officials craft representational styles to connect with their constituents. Social media has become a key medium through which representatives communicate with voters and enables them to court a constituency beyond their district’s geographic boundaries. This study seeks to extend the literature by examining how members of Congress use social media to craft an image and enhance their celebrity brand, and then assess this image in relation to representational style. Representatives like Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Rand Paul, for example, use social media to critique the opposing party and highlight policies, but do so in a manner that centers themselves in the narrative, either personally or professionally, thus enhancing their celebrity. This is an exploratory study that advances a framework to assess representational style through social media. The methodology includes an assessment of individual Twitter posts by the six most-followed members of Congress over a one-month span from February to March 2022 and categories them according to a particular type—work-talk, scandal, bitching, and chatting. This examination will further our understanding of what it means to be an effective representative in the age of celebrity politics and a gossip politic.