Advocacy Coalitions in the ‘Twittersphere:’ Tracking Variation in Activity in Unconventional Oil and Gas Subsystems

Civic engagement through online deliberation is becoming more common in Western democracies. Through observing trends in online behavior, we can examine how coalition members align discursive strategies. These strategies are particularly important to study in adversarial policy domains because when there is narrow space for compromise, conflicting interests compete over how policy issues are discussed. If a coalition can take advantage of opportunities to shape public discourse, they stand a better chance of having their interests translated into policy. This analysis poses the questions: How do coalition strategies manifest in an online discursive venue and how do strategies change after a major policy change? To explore these questions, I investigate which coalition members are participating in the online discursive venue, X. In this research, I analyze participation as it relates to unconventional oil and gas development in New York. I find a sizable number of policy actors active on X, representing a diverse set of interests and that participation dropped dramatically for both coalitions soon after a major policy change. These findings have implications for how advocacy coalitions and policy subsystems are conceptualized as well as the role online venues play in analyzing political discourse, especially around major policy change.