Design of X’s platform masks discontent with presidential social media posts instead of reflecting public opinion

ABSTRACT

This study calls into question the notion that X (previously known as Twitter) serves as an effective global “town square” for political debates. An analysis of replies to the posts of former U.S. presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump finds that, even when they posted remarkably similar messages, public reaction to Trump was far more negative than was reaction to Obama. However, this more negative overall sentiment was masked on the platform because there was no way to gauge aggregate reaction to the posts other than by reading each reply individually. In this sense, X serves the interests of unpopular politicians by relegating discontent in replies to their posts to relative obscurity. The study lays out a number of ways social networks could be better designed to shape political debate, including by using artificial intelligence tools to summarize the tone and nature of replies to politicians in order to reflect public reaction.

KEYWORDS:

• Social media
• X
• public sphere
• political communication
• presidential communication

Acknowledgments

Faith Schanck coded the posts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Data availability statement

The data from this research is available from the author upon reasonable request.

Notes

1. Brookings Institution, “‘Town Square’.”

2. Habermas, Structural Transformation, 31.

3. Ibid.

4. Habermas, Lennox, and Lennox, “Public Sphere,” 49.

5. Madison, “Report on the Virginia.”

6. Verčič, Grunig, and Grunig, “International Public Relations,” 39.

7. Kruse, Norris, and Flinchum, “Social Media as a Public Sphere?”

8. Mejova and Srinivasan, “Political Speech in Social Media Streams.”

9. Erzikova and McLean, “Drowning Out”; Erzikova and Simpson, “When the Gated Misbehave.”

10. Burson-Marsteller, “Twiplomacy Study.”

11. Reuters, “Factbox.”

12. Stolee and Caton, “Twitter, Trump, and the Base,” 159–60.

13. Wu, Attention Merchants, 344.

14. Ibid., 340.

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17. Wu, Attention Merchants, 343–5, 347.

18. Ibid., 346.

19. Stolee and Caton, “Twitter, Trump, and the Base,” 159–60.

20. Burson-Marsteller, “Twiplomacy Study.”

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26. Timberg and Dwoskin, “Trump’s Power.”

27. Brookings Institution, “Town Square.”

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30. Wojcik & Hughes, “Sizing Up.”

31. Kirzinger et al., “5 Charts.”

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35. Abramson, Merchants of Truth, 7.

36. Pariser, Filter Bubble, 2.

37. Messing and Westwood, “Selective Exposure.”