Lawmaker tweets self-promotional

Lawmakers largely use their Twitter pages to self-promote, rather than interact with constituents, according to a new study.

A University of Maryland study found that 80 percent of tweets are links to articles or press releases, or descriptions about what members of Congress are working on any given day.

"Members of Congress were not sharing much new information on Twitter, and there were few posts that improve transparency," said Jennifer Golbeck, an assistant professor at Maryland's College of Information Studies, who was part of a team conducting the study.

The study analyzed over 5,000 tweets from 69 members of the House and Senate dispatched since February.

Of the tweets that weren't related to self-promotion, seven percent were related to constituent communication, five percent focused on official business, four percent were personal messages, three percent requested some sort of action, and one percent were personal communication.

Cross-posted to the Twitter Room.