The Effect of Social Media on Elections: Evidence from The United States

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Fujiwara, Thomas; Muller, Karsten; Schwarz, Carlo
• 署名单位: Princeton University; National Bureau of Economic Research; National University of Singapore; Bocconi University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1542-4766
• DOI: 10.1093/jeea/jvad058
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 1495-1539
• 关键词: post-regularization inference; political polarization; news consumption; voting-behavior; persuasion; selection; internet; twitter; online; BIAS

摘要

We study how social media affects election outcomes in the United States. We use variation in the number of Twitter users across counties induced by early adopters at the 2007 South by Southwest festival, a key event in Twitter's rise to popularity. We show that this variation is unrelated to observable county characteristics and electoral outcomes before the launch of Twitter. Our results indicate that Twitter lowered the Republican vote share in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, but had limited effects on Congressional elections and previous presidential elections. Evidence from survey data, primary elections, and text analysis of millions of tweets suggests that Twitter's relatively liberal content may have persuaded voters with moderate views to vote against Donald Trump.