Agenda setting theory

Use of Twitter in political agenda-setting

Agenda setting theory has been particularly useful in the analysis of politicians' use of social media in the United States. A 2016 study of several thousand tweets from U.S. Governors used the first two levels of agenda-setting theory (issue level and framing) in order to better understand how politicians used Twitter as a platform. The research found that Democrats and Republicans used Twitter in nearly equal amounts to communicate their agendas, but Democrats were not as aligned in the agendas they prioritized. A later study found that newspapers and Twitter have a reciprocal relationship when it comes to predicting national policy issues during elections.