@Sex+Politics2015: Women and Men Politicians Tweet the British General Election 2015

Authors: Karen Ross, Tobias Bürger and Marloes M.G.M. Jansen, Newcastle University

Abstract: Our primary interest was to explore how politicians use Twitter during an election campaign and the extent to which gender and party affiliation makes a difference to their Twitter activity. We found that gender was important in some aspects but not others and that party was as important in influencing certain behaviours. Women were less frequent tweeters, more likely to send original tweets and include weblinks and slightly less likely to have their tweets favourited or retweeted than men. Men were more likely to include photos and use @messages and hashtags and much more likely to tweet negative or hostile content than women.

Keywords: Twitter, gender, UK General Election 2015

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