Using Social Media to Respond to Negative Polls: Politicians’ Issue Responsiveness on Facebook

Social media has changed the link between politicians and voters. An unsettled question is how politicians use social media in the political agenda-setting competition. Do they respond to issue priorities of the public, or do they try to lead voter priorities as covered in the mass media? We argue that politicians’ behavior depends on their reelection prospects. If politicians receive information that their electoral prospects have worsened, they act as agenda takers, paying more attention to the issues that voters are perceived to care about. We test our argument based on 27,421 Facebook posts by 146 Danish national Members of Parliament, monthly public polls of citizens’ voting intentions, and mass media issue agendas in one nonelection year. We find that bad polls substantially increase politicians’ focus on top media issues, indicating that social media provides losing politicians with a flexible and low-cost platform for on-going short-term political responsiveness.