Narrative and Emotion in Political Tweets: Analyzing Abortion Discourse in U.S. Politics

Exploring the interplay of emotion and narrative in U.S. politicians' abortion-related tweets, this study applies sentiment analysis within the Narrative Policy Framework, revealing how digital discourse shapes policy debates. While emotion and narrative are increasingly recognized as influential in policymaking, particularly in contentious areas such as abortion, there is a need to understand how these elements are utilized in the digital communications of politicians and their impact on policy discourse and decision-making. Existing studies have shown the power of narratives, including their emotional components, in influencing policy processes in various contexts (e.g., climate change (Peterson & Zanocco 2023), feminist foreign policy (Bergman Rosamond & Hedling 2022), and oil and gas drilling regulation (Pierce et al. 2022)). However, there is a gap in applying these insights to analyzing real-time, large-scale digital communications from politicians, particularly on polarizing issues like abortion. This research applies the Narrative Policy Framework in conjunction with sentiment analysis to a dataset of tweets by US politicians, providing a novel methodological approach. It explores how narratives, including their emotional tones and roles assigned to different actors, are constructed in these digital communications and the implications for policy discourse and decision-making on abortion. The research question is: How do US politicians construct narratives around abortion in their tweets, and what roles do emotions play in these narratives? The study analyzes tweets from US House and Senate politicians from 2022, using sentiment analysis techniques to quantify emotional tone. It considers politician characteristics and external events to contextualize findings. By integrating sentiment analysis with the Narrative Policy Framework, this research offers new methodological avenues for understanding the interplay of emotion, narrative, and digital communication in policy processes. It provides insights into how digital narratives can both reflect and shape public sentiment and policy debates, with practical implications for politicians, advocates, and policy-makers navigating contentious policy issues.