The story of social media: evolving news coverage of
social media in American politics, 2006–2021

The story of social media: evolving news coverage of
social media in American politics, 2006–2021

social media, politics, framing, social construction, automated content analysis.

This article examines how American news media have framed social media as political technologies over time. To do so, we analyzed 16 years
of political news stories focusing on social media, published by American newspapers (N 1⁄4 8,218) and broadcasters (N 1⁄4 6,064) (2006–2021).
Using automated content analysis, we found that coverage of social media in political news stories: (a) increasingly uses anxious, angry, and
moral language, (b) is consistently focused on national politicians (vs. non-elite actors), and (c) increasingly emphasizes normatively negative
uses (e.g., misinformation) and their remedies (i.e., regulation). In discussing these findings, we consider the ways that these prominent
normative representations of social media may shape (and limit) their role in political life.

Daniel S. Lane 1

*, Hannah Overbye-Thompson1

, Emilija Gagrcin2

https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmad039

Oxford University Press on behalf of International Communication Association.

11 September 2023

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