Posts by Will Bottinick

Analysis by Will Bottinick, Research Manager and Chris Boudreaux, SVP of Business Integration.

Congressmen and women follow more than 450,000 people on Twitter – but which publications, politicians, pundits and Beltway personalities does Congress watch the most? This post is the first in a series that will analyze the Twitter habits of Congress. Today, we focus on the media sources that appear to influence Congress via Twitter.

The top media sources Republicans and Democrats in Congress follow on their Twitter accounts mostly align – but the parties differ widely for a few sources, including several mainstream news outlets.

Similarities Between Republicans and Democrats

1. Both parties follow C-SPAN more than any other news source.
2. 21% of Republicans and 28% of Democrats follow NPR accounts. That seems consistent with the 2011 finding by a team from Duke University this year which concluded that NPR is near the middle of the U.S. political spectrum, after examining the political ideology of 2010 primary candidates.