Kamala Harris’ campaign strategy on social media seems to have hit the mark, according to new research from the Complexity Science Hub. As Democrats leaned into a positive narrative during their presidential campaign, the study suggests that focusing on positive messaging within a political party is more effective on social media than promoting hostility toward the opposition.

“We found that hateful content doesn’t spread as much as positive content,” the researchers note. “Our findings align with recent studies showing that negative, polarizing content isn’t shared and amplified as much as we might think.”

Positive tweets

The researchers analyzed Twitter activity during four consecutive election campaigns in Spain, from 2015 to 2019, focusing on how partisan interactions evolved, especially with the rise of the radical right-wing party, Vox.

According to the study, elections are a crucial time when political competition becomes visible and significantly influences individual polarization levels. During this period, parties and candidates strategically manage their social media presence.

The results revealed a clear trend: users affiliated with mainstream political parties were more likely to retweet content that reinforced their party affiliation. This created what the researchers called “epistemic bubbles,” where positive messages within the party were consistently shared, leading to higher retweet rates and stronger internal cohesion.

Lower engagement

On the other hand, the study found that attempts to spread hostility toward opposing parties—out-party hostility—led to lower engagement levels, even among supporters of more radical political parties. While such hostility does contribute to forming exclusionary echo chambers, these are less effective in terms of communication, as shown by fewer retweets.

“Our study suggests that emphasizing positive messaging within a party works better on social media for political communication,” the researchers explain. “This strategy not only builds a more cohesive and supportive online community but also reduces the negative impact of out-party hostility, which tends to drive away moderate users and lower overall engagement.”

These findings have important implications for political communication strategies, suggesting that parties and candidates could benefit more from focusing on positive, affirming messages rather than engaging in hostile rhetoric. This approach appears to be more effective in spreading messages on social media and could also help create a less toxic online environment and promote more constructive political dialogue.

In today’s social media landscape, terms like “epistemic bubbles” and “echo chambers” have gained traction. An epistemic bubble occurs when people are only exposed to information that aligns with their existing beliefs, often unintentionally excluding opposing views from their feed. An echo chamber, however, goes a step further by actively discrediting and alienating outside perspectives.

“While an epistemic bubble simply omits contrary views, an echo chamber brings its members to actively distrust outsiders,” the researchers conclude.