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Measuring And Unpacking Affective Polarization On Twitter: The Role Of Party And Gender In The 2018 Senate Races, Kevin Mentzer, Kate Fallon, Janet Prichard, David Yates

Information Systems and Analytics Department Faculty Journal Articles

This study examines how the Twittersphere talked about candidates running for the U.S senate in the 2018 congressional elections. We classify Twitter users as Liberal or Conservative to better understand how the two groups use social media during a major national political election. Using tweet sentiment, we assess how the Twittersphere felt about in-group party versus out-group party candidates. When we further break these findings down based on the candidates’ gender, we find that male senatorial candidates were talked about more positively than female candidates. We also find that Conservatives talked more positively about female Republican candidates than they did …