The Interplay between Right-Wing Alternative Media, Mainstream Media, and Republican Political Elites in the United States

Sep 3, 2026

Upload by Patrick

Study analyzes how congressional Republicans’ Twitter activity circulates news-related URLs across ideological media categories, using a dataset of 285,447 (re-)tweeted URLs collected from politicians’ full timelines via Twitter’s Academic API. URLs were expanded with urlExpander to recover full paths despite link shortening; when expansion failed, redirected domain names were retained. Domain-level analysis links 36,019 (re-)tweeted URLs to 34 media outlets spanning left-right ideological positions. Pew Research Center survey ratings guide categorization, including alternative right and established right.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryPresentations

FormatPDF

Pages54

Reading Time19 min

AccessFree to download

Dataset construction and URL expansion

Media-outlet domain association

Ideological categorization and outlet spectrum

URL counts by ideological category

FAQs

How were Twitter URLs in the dataset collected?

The study queried Twitter’s Academic API for congressional Republicans’ full timelines and extracted all URLs contained in them.

What methods were used when shortened or inactive URLs were encountered?

Every URL was processed with urlExpander to expand shortened links; if a URL was inactive, full paths were unavailable, but redirect behavior often allowed recovery of the target domain name.

How were media outlets assigned to ideological categories?

Outlets were categorized using a Pew Research Center survey that maps national news outlets onto a left-right spectrum based on audience ideological profiles.

Sep 3, 2026

Upload by Patrick