Presidential and Gubernatorial Tweets Involving Military Servicemembers and Veterans

Bibliographic Data

ID22158286
AuthorsNicholas Eckhart (University of Alabama, corresponding author), Nicholas R Eckhart (0000-0001-5689-9631), Kirsten Laha‐walsh (0000-0001-9871-7728, University of Alabama), Scott Parrott (0000-0001-6801-5207, University of Alabama), David L Albright (0000-0002-5901-9393, University of Alabama)
Year2021
Volume7
Issue1
Pages36-45
Publication date2021-03-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Veterans Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2470-4768 • E-ISSN: 2470-4768
PublisherVirginia Tech Libraries (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.21061/jvs.v7i1.223
OpenAlexW3133832034
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited17

The military consistently ranks as one of the most highly favorable occupations in the United States (US). However, fewer and fewer people have contact with military veterans than in the past, a trend that is expected to continue. Since military veterans carry such high levels of favorability but continue to lose contact with society, a content analysis of 1,976 tweets from former president Donald Trump and US governors was conducted to understand how military veterans were represented in the political arena on Twitter. Tweets were pulled between January 20, 2017 and November 26, 2019. Results indicated nearly all tweets about military veterans were positive and that Republicans tweeted twice as often about veterans as Democrats did. The topics of the tweets were mostly heroism (50.8%) followed by legislative or political agendas (45.5%). Republicans also provided more quotes from veterans than Democrats did, but Republicans did not use that contact to reduce stigma surrounding mental health

Political science · Politics · Presidential system · Veterans Affairs · Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection · Law · Media Studies and Communication · Medicine · Psychology · Public Administration · Social Media and Politics