Tweeting Scared: Digital Asymmetry and Constrained Congressional Capacity

Abstract Tweeting Scared: Digital Asymmetry and Constrained Congressional Capacity It’s no secret that Congress is an 18th Century institution using 20th Century technology to solve 21st Century problems, and an evolving digital media climate is shaping the way information is shared within the institution. Congress was not an institution designed with digital in mind, so carving out space for lawmakers and their offices to become individual media operations means a protracted effort by political leaders and their staff to push the ball forward. This project aims to explore the rise of digital communications in Congress, the current culture of communications, and the implications of a digital-first lawmaking institution. The central framework for this multi-year project is that social media hastened the race for information and induced a crisis of communications that constrains institutional capacity by reinforcing party leaders’ outsized communication capacity. With this grant, I will continue build what is quickly becoming the most comprehensive oral history on congressional communication and digital transition, building on more than 190 interviews with congressional staff and communication professionals to explain how today’s communication culture evolved into both a threat to congressional capacity yet a powerful tool for party leaders.