2013 International Conference on Social Media and Society

Are Twitter accounts of the U.S. Senate used as points of collegial connection, constituent cultivation or coalition construction? Who is connecting with whom? To address these questions, this paper considers three types of social network data for senators collected between January and February of 2013: communication between official Twitter accounts of senators, overlap in mentions of non-Senate accounts, and overlap in mentions by non-Senate accounts. QAP analysis reveals the extent to which Senate social media relations resemble two forms of Senate political action: shared bill cosponsorship and similarity in voting. The impact of homophily, party, region and social media style on the strength of connection and similarity of action shows consistency in some aspects but varies significantly in others. Members of the Senate connect differently in different contexts; to know one form of connection is not to understand them all.