The digitally accountable public representation database: online communication by U.S. officials

We introduce the Digitally Accountable Public Representation (DAPR) Database, an innovative archive that systematically tracks and analyzes the online communication of federal, state, and local elected officials in the U.S. Focusing on X/Twitter and Facebook, the current database includes 28,834 public officials, their demographic information, and 5,769,904 X/Twitter posts along with 450,972 Facebook posts, dating from January 2020 to December 2024. The database integrates three interconnected datasets: metadata on elected officials, weekly aggregated X data, and weekly aggregated Facebook data. These weekly aggregated datasets provide detailed insights into platform activity, capturing officials’ posting volumes, engagement metrics, and content trends. Our framework ensures ongoing database expansion by incorporating new officials and platforms, maintaining its relevance and research utility for analyzing officials’ digital communication.