Why do politicians care about the things they care about? Clearly, it must be because they have a deep and personal understanding of complex topics. Right? Or is it more likely that they’re hopping media-driven bandwagons?
Well, a study out of the University of Antwerp surveyed political elites in three major countries and found that they were more likely to pay attention to issues covered by the media. A more modern study by a team out of New York University looked at tweets from legislators and found that American politicians were more likely to be responsive to issues that their “party supporters” were being vocal about on Twitter. Considering you could Google the name of any prominent politician along with “tweets” and find endless current examples of this behavior the New York University study is surprisingly timeless for a study that focuses on tweets.
Now that isn’t to say that the University of Antwerp’s research isn’t worth a look. You might think that only some politicians would be swayed by media coverage of issues, but these surveys found a biasing impact across all politicians. It says a lot about the power of the media that information put out directs our leaders’ attention.
However, I’m still skeptical of the inherent bias politicians may have against emails in general while completing this survey. The Antwerp study compared issues politicians were made aware of by media coverage to issues brought up in a personal email. I don’t know about you, but I am skeptical of any responses a politician gives when they know they’re being studied. Maybe these politicians didn’t want to appear too reliant on emails. After all, our inbox is a place most of us wear our skeptical hats.
New York University collected their information from the wild. May be weird to think of Twitter as “the wild”, but the politicians didn’t know their tweets would be collected and studied by a literal team of researchers. This plays to why I lean more towards the NYU study. The politicians weren’t performing for the researchers. Now, they may have been performing for their base. But the tendency of politicians to play to their supporters is also verified by NYU’s study! I don’t trust what a politician says, but I trust their tweets are honest plays to their base.
Where do you fall here? Does NYU explain why so many of our last president’s tweets were about himself? If his supporters believed the world was out to get him, NYU’s study seems to support that might be why Donald Trump played the same note on Twitter for so many years. Point is, regardless of which study I found more trustworthy, both suggest that our leaders might actually be followers.