Tweeting the Mandate? Local Newspaper Sharing and the Mandate Divide in MPs’ Social Media Use

This study examines how different types of electoral mandates in the German MMP system affect the way MPs engage in geographic representation on Twitter (X). Building on research on the mandate divide thesis, I expect MPs elected directly in constituencies to address local concerns, while MPs elected through party lists are likely to focus more on national party issues. Local newspapers serve as a novel proxy to measure MPs’ local attachment and their ambition to engage in geographic representation. I argue that nominal MPs share local newspapers on Twitter more often than list MPs. The study analyzes 2,025,005 tweets by MPs of the German Bundestag during the 18th and 19th legislative terms (2013-2021). Contrary to the expectations, negative binomial regressions show that nominal MPs do not share more local newspaper tweets than list MPs. Instead, the location of the district and the party affiliation of MPs are significant determinants. MPs from rural areas and those from the AfD and the Greens share local newspaper tweets most frequently. The findings challenge the mandate divide thesis and emphasise the importance of considering both traditional and social media for understanding MPs’ communication strategies for geographic representation.