Twitter Adoption in Congress

Chi, Feng and Yang, Nathan (2010): Twitter Adoption in Congress.

Abstract

We study the early adoption of Twitter in the 111th House of Representatives. Our main objective is to determine whether successes of past adopters have the tendency to speed up Twitter adoption, where past success is defined as the average followers per Tweet (i.e. "Twitter clout") among all prior adopters. The data suggests that accelerated adoption can be associated with favorable past outcomes: increasing the average number of followers per Tweet among past adopters by a standard deviation (of 8 followers per Tweet) accelerates the adoption time by about 112 days. This acceleration effect is weaker for those who already have adopted Facebook and those who have access to information about a large number of past adopters. We later find a strong relationship between an adopter's realized followers per Tweet, and the success of adopters preceding him/her. Thus, there may exist benefits associated with adopting Twitter based on past successes of others.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Diffusion of technology, network effects, political marketing, social learning, social media.
• Subjects: M - Business Administration and Business Economics ; Marketing ; Accounting ; Personnel Economics > M3 - Marketing and Advertising; D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty > D83 - Search ; Learning ; Information and Knowledge ; Communication ; Belief ; Unawareness; D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty > D85 - Network Formation and Analysis: Theory

References

Andersen, T. (2009). E-Government as an anti-corruption strategy. Information Economics and Policy 21.

Bandiera, O. and Rasul, I. (2006). Social Networks and Technology Adoption in Northern Mozambique. The Economic Journal 116.

Bikhchandani, Hirshleifer, and Welch (1992). A Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom and Cultural Change as Informational Cascades. Journal of Political Economy 100.

Boynton, G.R. (2010). Politics and opinion leadership on Twitter. APSA 2010 presentation.

Buera, Monge-Naranjo, and Primiceri (2010). Learning the Wealth of Nations. Econometrica forthcoming.

Caplin, A. and Leahy, J. (1998). Miracle on Sixth Avenue: Information Externalities and Search. The Economic Journal 108.

Chamley, C. and Gale, D. (1994). Information Revelation and Strategic Delay in a Model of Investment. Econometrica 62.

Chi, F. and Yang, N. (2010). Twitter in Congress: Outreach vs Transparency. Working paper.

Cohen, L. and Malloy, C. (2010). Friends in High Places: Peer Effects and Politics. Working paper.

Conley, T. and Udry, C. (2010). Learning about a New Technology: Pineapple in Ghana. American Economic Review 100.

Federica, R. (2002). An introductory overview of innovation studies. Working paper.

Felten, E (2009). Government online: Outreach vs. transparency. Retrieved on June 1, 2010 from http://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/felten/government-online-outreach-vs-transparency.

Gibson et al (2003). Election Campaigning on the WWW in the USA and UK: A Comparative Analysis. Party Politics 9.

Golbeck, Grimes, and Rogers (2010). Twitter Use by the U.S. Congress. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 61.

Goolsbee, A. and Klenow, P. (2002). Evidence on Learning and Network Externalities in the Diffusion of Home Computers. Journal of Law and Economics 45.

Gordon, B. and Hartmann, W. (2010). Structural Equilibrium Analysis of Political Advertising. Working paper.

Hofstetter, Shriver, and Nair. (2010). Social Ties and User Generated Content: Evidence from an Online Social Network. NET Institute working paper.

Forbes, S. (2009). When Educators are the Learners: Social Learning and the Choice of Comprehensive School Reform Providers. Working paper.

Karshenas, M. and Stoneman, P. (1993). Rank, Stock, Order, and Epidemic Effects in the Diffusion of New Process Technologies: An Empirical Model. RAND Journal of Economics 24.

Kohler, Behrman, and Watkins (2007). Social Networks and HIV/AIDS Risk Perceptions. Demography 44.

Lassen, D. and Brown, A. (2010). Twitter: The Electoral Connection? Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association.

Manski, C. (1993). Identification of Endogenous Social Effects: The Reflection Problem. The Review of Economic Studies 60.

Manski, C. (2000). Economic Analysis of Social Interactions. Journal of Economic Perspectives 14.

Moretti, E. (2010). Social Learning and Peer Effects in Consumption: Evidence from Movie Sales. Review of Economic Studies forthcoming.

Sacerdote, B. (2001). Peer effects with Random Assignment: Results for Dartmouth Roomates. Quarterly Journal of Economics 116.

Smith, A. and Rainie, L (2008). The internet and the 2008 election. PEW Internet and American Life Project.

Waldinger, F. (2009). Peer Effects in Science - Evidence from the Dismissal of Scientists in Nazi Germany. Working paper.

Williams, C. and Gulati, G. (2010). Communicating with Constituents in 140 Characters or Less: Twitter and the Diffusion of Technology Innovation in the United States Congress. Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association.

Williams, C. and Gulati, G. (2009). Social Networks in Political Campaigns: Facebook and Congressional Elections 2006, 2008. Working paper.

Young, P. (2009). Innovation Diffusion in Heterogeneous Populations: Contagion, Social Influence, and Social Learning. American Economic Review 99.

Zhang, X. and Zhu, F. (2010). Group Size and Incentive to Contribute: A Natural Experiment at Chinese Wikipedia. American Economic Review forthcoming.

Zhao, J. (2007). Incomplete Information and Strategic Learning in Technology Adoption and Diffusion. Working paper.