While the gun debate has been one of America’s most politically contentious issues, Twitter has become, in recent years a popular venue for politicians to carry out the debate. The present thesis is aimed at better understanding of political speech on Twitter, as well as the ways in which political frames and sentiment on Twitter differ from those of news media coverage regarding gun policy in the state of Arkansas.
The study uses framing theory, which assumes that both news media and individuals use frames to construct perceptions and narratives about issues. Adopting an automated content analysis as a method, the study examined 354 gun-related tweets downloaded from the Twitter accounts of three Arkansas politicians (Charlie Collins, Denise Garner, and Greg Leding) and 40 news articles about gun policy involving these politicians from three local newspapers.
The results indicated that state politicians’ discourse on Twitter constituted of a variety of extremely polarized words and frames pertaining and appealing to the core values of their local constituents, while local newspapers’ frames were very fact-based and unbiased. The results also showed that political sentiment on Twitter was extremely negative, fearful, and agitated, while news media expressed a very neutral sentiment in their coverage of gun policy, suggesting a new venue for further investigation of current assumptions about the negative nature of news tone.
","abstract_html":"<p>While the gun debate has been one of America’s most politically contentious issues, Twitter has become, in recent years a popular venue for politicians to carry out the debate. The present thesis is aimed at better understanding of political speech on Twitter, as well as the ways in which political frames and sentiment on Twitter differ from those of news media coverage regarding gun policy in the state of Arkansas. </p> <p>The study uses framing theory, which assumes that both news media and individuals use frames to construct perceptions and narratives about issues. Adopting an automated content analysis as a method, the study examined 354 gun-related tweets downloaded from the Twitter accounts of three Arkansas politicians (Charlie Collins, Denise Garner, and Greg Leding) and 40 news articles about gun policy involving these politicians from three local newspapers. </p> <p>The results indicated that state politicians’ discourse on Twitter constituted of a variety of extremely polarized words and frames pertaining and appealing to the core values of their local constituents, while local newspapers’ frames were very fact-based and unbiased. The results also showed that political sentiment on Twitter was extremely negative, fearful, and agitated, while news media expressed a very neutral sentiment in their coverage of gun policy, suggesting a new venue for further investigation of current assumptions about the negative nature of news tone. </p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["M'Bareck, Mohamed Lemine"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Master of Arts in Journalism (MA)","degree_level":"Thesis","degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["McCaffrey, Raymond","Carpenter, Dale"],"advisors":["Wells, Rob"],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2019,"date_issued":"2019-05-01T07:00:00Z","date_published":"2019-05-01T07:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T00:59:01Z","subjects":["Content analysis","Gun policy","News coverage","Political speech","Sentiment analysis","Twitter","Arkansas","Journalism Studies","Mass Communication","Social Influence and Political Communication","Social Media"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/3157","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["McCaffrey, Raymond","Carpenter, Dale"]},{"key":"dc:contributor.advisor","label":"Advisor","values":["Wells, Rob"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["M'Bareck, Mohamed Lemine"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2019"]},{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2024-02-06T08:00:00Z"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Master of Arts in Journalism (MA)"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Content analysis","Gun policy","News coverage","Political speech","Sentiment analysis","Twitter","Arkansas","Journalism Studies","Mass Communication","Social Influence and Political Communication","Social Media"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/3157"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["While the gun debate has been one of America’s most politically contentious issues, Twitter has become, in recent years a popular venue for politicians to carry out the debate. The present thesis is aimed at better understanding of political speech on Twitter, as well as the ways in which political frames and sentiment on Twitter differ from those of news media coverage regarding gun policy in the state of Arkansas.
The study uses framing theory, which assumes that both news media and individuals use frames to construct perceptions and narratives about issues. Adopting an automated content analysis as a method, the study examined 354 gun-related tweets downloaded from the Twitter accounts of three Arkansas politicians (Charlie Collins, Denise Garner, and Greg Leding) and 40 news articles about gun policy involving these politicians from three local newspapers.
The results indicated that state politicians’ discourse on Twitter constituted of a variety of extremely polarized words and frames pertaining and appealing to the core values of their local constituents, while local newspapers’ frames were very fact-based and unbiased. The results also showed that political sentiment on Twitter was extremely negative, fearful, and agitated, while news media expressed a very neutral sentiment in their coverage of gun policy, suggesting a new venue for further investigation of current assumptions about the negative nature of news tone.
"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Political Speech on Twitter: A Sentiment Analysis of Tweets and News Coverage of Local Gun Policy"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["McCaffrey, Raymond","Carpenter, Dale"],"dc:contributor.advisor":["Wells, Rob"],"dc:creator":["M'Bareck, Mohamed Lemine"],"dc:date":["2019"],"dc:date.available":["2024-02-06T08:00:00Z"],"dc:description.abstract":["While the gun debate has been one of America’s most politically contentious issues, Twitter has become, in recent years a popular venue for politicians to carry out the debate. The present thesis is aimed at better understanding of political speech on Twitter, as well as the ways in which political frames and sentiment on Twitter differ from those of news media coverage regarding gun policy in the state of Arkansas.
The study uses framing theory, which assumes that both news media and individuals use frames to construct perceptions and narratives about issues. Adopting an automated content analysis as a method, the study examined 354 gun-related tweets downloaded from the Twitter accounts of three Arkansas politicians (Charlie Collins, Denise Garner, and Greg Leding) and 40 news articles about gun policy involving these politicians from three local newspapers.
The results indicated that state politicians’ discourse on Twitter constituted of a variety of extremely polarized words and frames pertaining and appealing to the core values of their local constituents, while local newspapers’ frames were very fact-based and unbiased. The results also showed that political sentiment on Twitter was extremely negative, fearful, and agitated, while news media expressed a very neutral sentiment in their coverage of gun policy, suggesting a new venue for further investigation of current assumptions about the negative nature of news tone.
"],"dc:identifier":["https://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/3157"],"dc:subject":["Content analysis","Gun policy","News coverage","Political speech","Sentiment analysis","Twitter","Arkansas","Journalism Studies","Mass Communication","Social Influence and Political Communication","Social Media"],"dc:title":["Political Speech on Twitter: A Sentiment Analysis of Tweets and News Coverage of Local Gun Policy"],"thesis:degree_level":["Thesis"],"thesis:degree_name":["Master of Arts in Journalism (MA)"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T00:59:01Z"}