Surviving or thriving political defeat on social media: a
temporal analysis of how electoral loss exacerbates the
gender gap in political expression

Surviving or thriving political defeat on social media: a
temporal analysis of how electoral loss exacerbates the
gender gap in political expression

gender gap, political expression, growth modeling, longitudinal analysis, social identity theory.

Extensive research reveals gender gaps in social media expression, particularly women’s reduced propensity for sharing political information
and opinions. We examine the impact of political defeat on the gender gap in political expression on social media by pairing Twitter data from

candidate supporters with a voter file. Our results indicate that Trump’s 2020 defeat reduced tweet volumes only among his female support-
ers, while his male supporters remained unaffected. This dampening effect was stronger for female Trump supporters who expressed their

gender identity in their Twitter bios than those who did not. Tweet content remained largely unchanged for both genders. These findings en-
hance our understanding of how social media and political defeat together contribute to the gender expression gap and its relationship with

offline political behaviors post-defeat. They also demonstrate the power of our methodological approach in revealing temporal and individual
differences.

Ross Dahlke 1,�, Yini Zhang

https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmad051

Oxford University Press on behalf of International Communication Association.

4 December 2023

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