Date of Award
Spring 3-23-2026
Document Type
Dissertation
Publication Status
Version of Record
Submission Date
April 2026
Department
Psychology
College Granting Degree
Charles E. Schmidt College of Science
Department Granting Degree
Psychology
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]
Geoffrey Wetherell
Abstract
Although emails and text messages are important means of connecting voters with political candidates, the content of political campaign emails and text messages is understudied. The purpose of these studies is to identify linguistic patterns in candidate emails and texts from the 2024 US presidential election (Study 1) and to determine which linguistic styles are most convincing to readers (Study 2). I examined the linguistic trends in campaign emails and text messages using Linguistic Inquiry Word Count, random forests, and Structural Topic Modeling. Democratic messages had higher LIWC dictionary scores for cognitive processes and word count, providing potential evidence for Democrats’ higher integrative complexity relative to Republicans. The language signatures provided insights into the unique linguistic styles of four political parties and were used to create the email stimuli in Study 2. Participants (N = 486) rated the message effectiveness of four email categories: in-party style/content match, out-party style/content match, in-party style/out-party content, and out-party style/in-party content. As expected, Democrats rated the in-party style/content match emails as most effective, and the out-party style/content match emails as the least effective. However, contrary to expectations, Republicans rated the out-party style/content match emails as the most effective. This finding may be explained by the absence of partisan cues in the email stimuli, which minimized in-party bias and allowed participants to consider their preferred policies instead of their preferred party. These results have implications for understanding voters’ general language preferences and their impacts on candidate perceptions.
Recommended Citation
Thompson, Jordan L., "BUT THEIR EMAILS! INVESTIGATING IDEOLOGICAL LANGUAGE SIGNATURES IN PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN EMAILS AND TEXT MESSAGES" (2026). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 281.
https://digitalcommons.fau.edu/etd_general/281