Twitter Use by the U.S.

Congress
Jennifer Golbeck1 Justin Grimes2 Anthony Rogers3
{golbeck, jgrimes2,azgul}@umd.edu
September 9, 2009

With the buzz surrounding Twitter have come claims that this technology
will transform the way people share information, and that public figures should
start tweeting. Researchers at the University of Maryland, College Park studied
the way Twitter is being used by legislators, particularly by members of the
United States Congress. Their study reviewed the content of over 5000 tweets
of 69 members of Congress who are actively using Twitter.
According to the analysis, conducted in the Human-Computer Interaction
Lab and the Center for Information Policy and E-Government in the College of
Information Studies, it seems that much the usage might be characterized as self-
promoting, rather than informing the public or collaborating with staff and other
members of Congress.. Congresspeople use Twitter to communicate much of the
same type of information their offices would share in other media. They post
links to news articles, blog posts, and descriptions of upcoming activities, and
use the Twitter posts (tweets) like titles for mini press releases. Congresspeople
also use Twitter in the stereotypical way, posting about daily activities and
events like announcing that they are in a meeting, describing what they are
having for dinner, and relating their daily workout regimen. These two types
of posts are the vast majority - roughly 80% - of all Congressional Twitter
content.Only 7% of the tweets were related to citizen communication, 5% to
official business, 4% related to personal messages, 3% requesting action, 1%
to internal communication and less than 1% contain information related to
fundraising.
While the researchers found some very interesting back-and-forth debates
between members of Congress and some public, direct communication with cit-
izens, this was a minority of the content.
Twitter has the potential to be used to allow citizens to know what their
Congressperson is doing and how the legislative process is functioning at any
given moment. Moreover, researchers and Congressional watchdogs could ag-
gregate the posts and analyze them for patterns over time. However, this is
not the current state of Twitter use and, if Twitter is to become a vehicle
for government transparency, it will have to arise from a significant change in
Congresspeople’s behavior.

1 co-Director, Human-Computer Interaction Lab, Assistant Director, Center for Informa-

tion Policy and E-Government, University of Maryland, College Park
2 Ph.D. Student, Center for Information Policy and E-Government, College of Information

Studies University of Maryland, College Park

3 Undergraduate Research Assistant, University of Maryland, College Park