What makes a target: politicians and abuse on social media [Note: The chapter “What makes a target: politicians and abuse on social media” from the edited collection “Anti Social Media?” was reprinted in the British Journalism Review under the title “And they thought papers were rude.”]

Abstract

Politicians are known to be targets for some of the worst abuse on social media, including rape and death threats. But exactly how bad is it? Who gets it worst? And where is this onslaught of negativity taking us? This article is based on the analysis of all tweets sent as single @messages to British MPs between December 2016 and the general election in June 2017. This dataset of roughly 80,000 tweets was categorised using sentiment analysis software into hostile, disagree and other. The results show little difference in levels of hostility by gender, race or political party. The major drivers of long-term hostility were high profile jobs and criticising Corbyn. Incautious public appearances or tweets resulted in major spikes. Scottish politics also proved more aggressive. The effect of publicity due to high profile jobs on hostility may partly explain the relatively flat relationship between hostility and gender/race, as front bench jobs are more likely to be filled by white men