Presidential Communication in the “Tweetosphere”: A Functional and Network Analyses of President Trump’s Direct Messaging

Abstract

This study examined President Donald J. Trump’s “tweetosphere”. It was a multimethod functional analysis of Trump’s ego network (him and the people he follows, mentions, retweets, and replies to) of 741 tweets and retweets in his first year of office. The findings indicate that President Trump tends to tweet about, retweet, and mention (tag) himself, his government, conservative media, and family more than people of opposing political ideologies and the mainstream media. More than a third of his tweets and retweets were positive self-acclaims, especially about his character, his government, family, and conservative media.