Social Media Narratives in the 2020 Democratic Elections Campaign

This study examines presidential candidates’ narratives on Twitter during the 2020 election. In this ongoing collaborative project, we explore the discourses used by Democratic candidates Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders to frame their Twitter strategies leading up to the 2020 election. We ask if they are either issue-driven or event-driven and what type of content is more likely to become viral. We found that both candidates had very different strategies. Bernie Sanders relied on a solidarity-based frame critical of the State and corporate institutions and designated them as the root of inequality while invited constituents to think of a "New America." Meanwhile, Joe Biden used a war metaphor and American exceptionalism language to indicate that American democracy was at risk and Trump was the cause. We infer that a narrative, which emphasizes the inherently virtuous character of people being in danger due to a single adversary (Trump), resonated more with constituents than a campaign that called voters to think of problems as complex and structural and invited people to take action to "dream" a new nation. Our article entitled “Democratic Candidates' Framing Strategy on Twitter During The 2020 U.S. Presidential Primary Elections: A War Against Evil vs. Building a New America” is currently under review in the Communication Studies journal.