Voice and Value: How Elected Officials Evaluate Online and Offline Constituent Feedback

Abstract Social media has made it easier than ever for citizens to voice their opinion to their elected representatives. However, officials may infer that constituents who write to them via low-effort online mediums care less about the issues than those who communicate in person. To test how policymakers evaluate messages from constituents, we fielded a national survey of local US policymakers to examine responsiveness to different types of messages. Our findings indicate that online communication presents a double-edged sword: while it lowers the effort needed for constituents to communicate, officials discount information conveyed through social media. We examine this trade-off using an embedded conjoint experiment. Our results suggest that a social media message would have to be sent by more than 47 constituents for it to exceed the value of a single face-to-face meeting. These findings illustrate that, all else equal, in-person meetings likely remain the most persuasive form of grassroots communication. However, using social media can be an effective choice to the extent that it facilitates a large increase in overall levels of constituent engagement.