2020 U.S. presidential election in swing states: Gender differences in Twitter conversations

TL;DR

This study analyzes over 300,000 tweets from the 2020 U.S. presidential election to explore gender differences in topic discussions, revealing significant disparities in how male and female users engage with various issues.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive analysis of gender-based differences in Twitter conversations during a major election, combining computational, human coding, and statistical methods.

Findings

Over 70% of topics show gender-based differences.

Identifies key issues like tax, climate change, and COVID-19.

Highlights the importance of considering gender in social media political analysis.

Abstract

Social media is commonly used by the public during election campaigns to express their opinions regarding different issues. Among various social media channels, Twitter provides an efficient platform for researchers and politicians to explore public opinion regarding a wide range of topics such as the economy and foreign policy. Current literature mainly focuses on analyzing the content of tweets without considering the gender of users. This research collects and analyzes a large number of tweets and uses computational, human coding, and statistical analyses to identify topics in more than 300,000 tweets posted during the 2020 U.S. presidential election and to compare female and male users regarding the average weight of the discussed topics. Our findings are based upon a wide range of topics, such as tax, climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Out of the topics, there exists a significant difference between female and male users for more than 70% of topics.