Does Politicians’ Negative Social Media Communication Backfire? A Case Study of Former US President Trump

Abstract

Does posting negative social media messages incur costs to politicians in a polarized society? While extant literature finds that politicians’ negative rhetoric on social media increases audience engagement, this seemingly positive feedback from social media users will, in fact, amplify the real cost. Leveraging a YouGov dataset and applying Natural Language Processing techniques, I find novel evidence that negative social media messages by the political elite do generate tangible costs to the political elite. Negative rhetoric, while increasing the spread of information, negatively impacts the audience’s evaluation of the content. This research also finds that the effect is mediated by policy topics. This research advances our understanding of the limitations of politicians’ negative messaging on social media and contributes to the debate about the effect of politicians’ negative social media communication, a growing political phenomenon in the United States and in democracies worldwide.