Hostname: page-component-599cfd5f84-9drbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-07T05:43:24.549Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Twitter Taunts and Tirades: Negative Campaigning in the Age of Trump

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 October 2016

Justin H. Gross  and
Kaylee T. Johnson
Justin H. Gross
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Kaylee T. Johnson
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

What drives candidates to “go negative” and against which opponents? Using a unique dataset consisting of all inter-candidate tweets by the 17 Republican presidential candidates in the 2016 primaries, we assess predictors of negative affect online. Twitter is a free platform, and candidates therefore face no resource limitations when using it; this makes Twitter a wellspring of information about campaign messaging, given a level playing-field. Moreover, Twitter’s 140-character limit acts as a liberating constraint, leading candidates to issue sound bites ready for potential distribution not only online, but also through conventional media, as tweets become news. We find tweet negativity and overall rate of tweeting increases as the campaign season progresses. Unsurprisingly, the front-runner and eventual nominee, Donald Trump, sends and receives the most negative tweets and is more likely than his opponents to strike out against even those opponents who are polling poorly. However, candidates overwhelmingly “punch upwards” against those ahead of them in the polls, and this pattern goes beyond attacks against those near the top. Sixty of 136 dyads are characterized by lopsided negativity in one direction and only one of these 60 involves a clearly higher status candidate on the offensive.

Type
Articles
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 49 , Special Issue 4: Elections in Focus , October 2016 , pp. 748 - 754
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

American Press Institute. “A New Understanding: What Makes People Trust and Rely on News.” April 17, 2016. https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/reports/survey-research/trust-news/ (July 8, 2016).Google Scholar
Ansolabehere, Stephen, Iyengar, Shanto, Simon, Adam, and Valentino, Nicholas. 1994. “Does Attack Advertising Demobilize the Electorate?” American Political Science Review 88 (4): 901–909.Google Scholar
Conway, Bethany A., Kenski, Kate, and Wang, Di. 2013. “Twitter Use by Presidential Primary Candidates During the 2012 Campaign.” American Behavioral Scientist 57 (11): 1596–1610.Google Scholar
Csardi, Gabor and Nepusz, Tamas. 2006. “The Igraph software package for Complex Network Research.” Interjournal (Complex Systems): 1695. http://igraph.org.Google Scholar
Damore, David F. 2002. “Candidate Strategy and the Decision to Go Negative.” Political Research Quarterly 55 (3): 669–685.Google Scholar
Djupe, Paul A. and Peterson, David A. M.. 2002. “The Impact of Negative Campaigning: Evidence from the 1998 Senatorial Primaries.” Political Research Quarterly 55 (4): 845–860.Google Scholar
Druckman, James N., Kifer, Martin J., and Parkin, Michael. 2010. “Timeless Strategy Meets New Medium: Going Negative on Congressional Campaign Web Sites, 2002-2006.” Political Communication 27: 88–103.Google Scholar
Flowers, Julianne F., Haynes, Audrey A., and Crespin, Michael H.. 2003. “The Media, the Campaign, and the Message.” American Journal of Political Science 47 (2): 259–273.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graham, Todd, Broersma, Marcel, Hazelhoff, Karin, and van’t Haar, Guido. 2013. “Between Broadcasting Political Messages and Interacting with Voters: The Use of Twitter During the 2010 UK General Election Campaign.” Information, Communication, and Society 16 (5): 692–716.Google Scholar
Hale, Jon F., Fox, Jeffrey C., and Farmer, Rick. 1996. “Negative Advertisements in U.S. Senate Campaigns: The Influence of Campaign Context.” Social Science Quarterly 77 (2): 329–343.Google Scholar
Haynes, Audrey and Rhine, Staci L.. 1998. “Attack Politics in Presidential Nomination Campaigns: An Examination of the Frequency and Determinants of Intermediated Negative Messages Against Opponents.” Political Research Quarterly 51 (3): 691–721.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haynes, Audrey A., Flowers, Julianne F., and Gurian, Paul-Henri. 2002. “Getting the Message Out: Candidate Communication Strategy During the Invisible Primary.” Political Research Quarterly 55 (3): 633–652.Google Scholar
Kahn, Kim Fridkin and Kenney, Patrick J.. 1999. “Do Negative Campaigns Mobilize or Suppress Turnout? Clarifying the Relationship between Negativity and Participation.” The American Political Science Review 93 (4): 877–889.Google Scholar
Kaid, Lynda Lee. 1997. “Effects of the Television Spots on Images of Dole and Clinton.” American Behavioral Scientist 40: 877–890.Google Scholar
Lau, Richard R. and Pomper, Gerald M.. 2001. “Negative Campaigning by US Senate Candidates.” Party Politics 7 (1): 69–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lau, Richard R. and Rovner, Ivy Brown. 2009. “Negative Campaigning.” Annual Review of Political Science 12: 285–306.Google Scholar
Lau, Richard, Siegelman, Lee, and Rovner, Ivy Brown. 2007. “The Effects of Negative Political Campaigns: A Meta-Analytic Assessment.” The American Political Science Review 69 (4): 851–875.Google Scholar
Lee, Jasmine C. and Quealy, Kevin. 2016. “The 239 People, Places, and Things Donald Trump Has Insulted on Twitter: A Complete List.” June 30, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/01/28/upshot/donald-trump-twitter-insults.html?_r=0 (July 12, 2016).Google Scholar
Peterson, David A. M. and Djupe, Paul A.. 2005. “When Primary Campaigns Go Negative: The Determinants of Campaign Negativity.” Political Research Quarterly 58 (1): 45–54.Google Scholar
R Core Team. 2013. R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. http://www.R-project.org Google Scholar
Skaperdas, Stergios and Grofman, Bernard. 1995. “Modeling Negative Campaigning.” The American Political Science Review 89 (1): 49–61.Google Scholar
Surlin, Stuart H. and Gordon, Thomas F.. 1977. “How Values Affect Attitudes toward Direct Reference Political Advertising.” Journalism Quarterly 54: 89–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thielmann, John and Wilhite, Allen. 1998. “Campaign Tactics and the Decision to Attack.” Journal of Politics 60: 1050–1062.Google Scholar
Vergeer, Maurice and Hermans, Liesbeth. 2013. “Campaigning on Twitter: Microblogging and Online Social Networking as Campaign Tools in the 2010 General Elections in the Netherlands.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 18: 399–419.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Gross and Johnson supplementary material

Appendix

Download Gross and Johnson supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 545 KB

A correction has been issued for this article:

Errata