Twitter discourse as a lens into politicians' interest in technology and development

Abstract

We present a large-scale study of social media discourse in India focusing on politicians' tweet frequency of topics related to information technology, poverty, and development. Examining the Twitter feed of 477 political elites, we observe that politicians as a whole more frequently discuss development comparing to technology and poverty. In addition, national-party politicians holding higher offices are significantly more likely to discuss all three topics comparing to regional-party officials and non-elected politicians even when accounting for their Twitter account characteristics. Finally, politicians from different states demonstrate different topic priorities, suggesting differences in local political circumstances contribute to political elites' Twitter topic prioritization.

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