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Michael Kistner

@mkistner.bsky.social

260 followers 195 following 7 posts

Assistant professor at Texas A&M studying representation, legislatures, and money in politics. More at www.michaelrkistner.com.

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Michael Kistner @mkistner.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

We think much of this messaging is targeted at non-constituents. We and others (Maggie MacDonald) have work on this. In the meantime, we will be releasing some of our data (the Scaled and Classified Congressional Communication dataset) soon.

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Michael Kistner @mkistner.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

While these attacks get more clicks and likes, it's misleading. Surveys and experiments show voters actually dislike these messages. If members mistake social media engagement with voter support, they are mistaken. We call this the "Social Media Mirage".

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Michael Kistner @mkistner.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

3) Though causes are likely multiple, we highlight one explanation: partisan rhetoric and negative attacks receive higher engagement on social media. Massively so, for negative attacks. In the attention economy, partisan conflict sells.

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Michael Kistner @mkistner.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

2) Negative partisan attacks (attacking members of the other party and their policies) have increased during this time period too. There is a jump following Trump's entry in US politics, though the change has continued through the post-Trump era.

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Michael Kistner @mkistner.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

1) Rhetorical polarization has increased. Dems and Reps talk more differently today than they did a decade ago. There's some indication it's driven by Rs, though depending on specification Ds contribute too. Rhetoric has polarized faster than roll call voting during this period.

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Michael Kistner @mkistner.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

How has Congressional rhetoric evolved in the social media age? To answer that, we collected over 7 million Facebook & Twitter posts from 2009 on, scaled them by text partisanship (far-left to far-right), and classified them by purpose. Three findings are worth emphasizing:

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Michael Kistner @mkistner.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Happy to say — as of today — my book is officially out. Thanks to the many many people who helped make this happen. Get it at your retailer of choice (or hit me up for a discount code)!

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Reposted by Michael Kistner

Houston Political Science @houstonpolsci.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

Congratulations to Michael Kistner (@mkistner.bsky.social) on the forthcoming publication of his new article “Ambition and Conflict in State Legislatures” in the Journal of Politics (@thejop.bsky.social). Read the article here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

journals.uchicago.edu

Ambition and Conflict in State Legislatures | The Journal of Politics: Vol 0, No ja

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