Graduation Year
2024
Document Type
Thesis
Degree
M.A.
Degree Name
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Degree Granting Department
Communication
Major Professor
Joshua Scacco, Ph.D.
Co-Major Professor
Jianing Li, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Patrice Buzzanell, Ph.D.
Keywords
communicative constitution of organization, political communication, senate, social network analysis, text analysis
Abstract
This thesis answers the call by Neal (2020) to provide the first study of positive and negative direct relations between senators, and by doing so, converges normative communicative praxis with the contemporary study of legislative networks under the auspices of communicatively constituted organizationality (CCO). The broad range of academic research on legislative networks, like the U.S. Senate, have long studied the political behaviors of senators via indirect social ties of mutual participation. The work presented here crosses that gap with a sentiment analysis of interpersonal statements of senators to/about a second—or possibly more—senator(s) during the 108th Congress (2003-2005) to construct adjacency matrices as a relational (positive/negative) connection between two legislators. In this format, the values produced from the sentiment analysis are expressed as social ties within the greater network of the Senate; a direct measure of positive and negative relationships based on how senators talk to/about one another. These relations were then compared to two other network representations of the Senate in the 108th Congress with traditionally measured social ties, mutual co-sponsorship and voting behaviors. Finally, these instances of talk were investigated for influential properties on senator co-sponsorship collaborations and voting patterns.
These results illustrate not only the viability of constructing legislative networks from social ties of direct positive or negative statement between senators while on the floor, but also introduces the influential role of senator-to-senator talk on co-sponsoring, or voting, behaviors as a force on both network structures and organizational identity.
Scholar Commons Citation
Popovic, Mitchell, "Examining Localized Communication, Political Action, and Polarization in the 108th Senate" (2024). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/10234
