From Attention to Dialogue: Does Audience Engagement Reinforce Constructive Cross-Party Communication?
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arXiv
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| Autori principali: | , |
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| Natura: | Preprint |
| Pubblicazione: |
2026
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| _version_ | 1866915878264635392 |
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| author | Biswas, Ahana Lin, Yu-Ru |
| author_facet | Biswas, Ahana Lin, Yu-Ru |
| contents | While existing works have emphasized how elites shape mass opinion, we ask whether the reverse also holds: do audience reactions on social media actively shape elite behavior? We examine this question through the lens of cross-partisan interactions (CPIs), which can either foster deliberation or deepen polarization. Using a dataset of over 1.1 million cross-party retweets, replies, and mentions between U.S. state legislators and their audiences on Twitter/X (2020-2021), we first establish baseline patterns of engagement: Democrats gain modest engagement in replies and mentions, while Republicans often face penalties in direct cross-party interactions. Building on this, we show that audience engagement produces a feedback loop that conditions future elite behavior. Following highly visible CPIs, legislators are not only more likely to engage again in cross-talk, but also shift their rhetorical strategies. Engagement consistently promotes causal reasoning, subjective language, and positive-emotion framing in subsequent CPIs. These findings suggest a positive association between audience engagement and constructive cross-party discourse among elites, challenging overly simplified interpretations in the literature that emphasize social media as a primary driver of rising or falling polarization. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_20549 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | From Attention to Dialogue: Does Audience Engagement Reinforce Constructive Cross-Party Communication? Biswas, Ahana Lin, Yu-Ru Social and Information Networks While existing works have emphasized how elites shape mass opinion, we ask whether the reverse also holds: do audience reactions on social media actively shape elite behavior? We examine this question through the lens of cross-partisan interactions (CPIs), which can either foster deliberation or deepen polarization. Using a dataset of over 1.1 million cross-party retweets, replies, and mentions between U.S. state legislators and their audiences on Twitter/X (2020-2021), we first establish baseline patterns of engagement: Democrats gain modest engagement in replies and mentions, while Republicans often face penalties in direct cross-party interactions. Building on this, we show that audience engagement produces a feedback loop that conditions future elite behavior. Following highly visible CPIs, legislators are not only more likely to engage again in cross-talk, but also shift their rhetorical strategies. Engagement consistently promotes causal reasoning, subjective language, and positive-emotion framing in subsequent CPIs. These findings suggest a positive association between audience engagement and constructive cross-party discourse among elites, challenging overly simplified interpretations in the literature that emphasize social media as a primary driver of rising or falling polarization. |
| title | From Attention to Dialogue: Does Audience Engagement Reinforce Constructive Cross-Party Communication? |
| topic | Social and Information Networks |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.20549 |