Afective Design: The Influence of Facebook Reactions on the Emotional Expression of the 114th US Congress

Jacob Erickson, Bei Yan

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

Political communication is critical for democracy, but polarized emotions in communication may make careful deliberation difficult. Much of modern political communication occurs on social media, which may exacerbate these challenges. This study examines how the design of social media features impact political communication. We examined how the introduction of Facebook Reactions infiuenced the posts of the 114th US Congress on the platform. We start by analyzing the emotional content of posts, finding that politicians generally increased their usage of negative emotions in their posts after the feature's launch. Further analysis showed that increased user engagement preceded the rise in negative emotions, suggesting that politicians were making adjustments based on user feedback. Our results show that the design features of social media can shape online political communication.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationCHI 2024 - Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Sytems
ISBN (Electronic)9798400703300
DOIs
StatePublished - 11 May 2024
Event2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Sytems, CHI 2024 - Hybrid, Honolulu, United States
Duration: 11 May 202416 May 2024

Publication series

NameConference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings

Conference

Conference2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Sytems, CHI 2024
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityHybrid, Honolulu
Period11/05/2416/05/24

Keywords

  • Feature Design
  • Natural Field Experiment
  • Social Media
  • Text Analysis

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