One of Donald Trump¡¯s favourite words on Twitter is ¡°loser¡± (). Since the election, the president-elect has not altered his Twitter style, lashing out at various critics including the cast of the musical Hamilton, the comedy show Saturday Night Live and the ¡°failing¡± New York Times.

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts recently published a study of Mr Trump¡¯s use of negative campaigning on Twitter during the Republican primaries, finding that it raised questions about the role the social media network played in his rise and the platform¡¯s potential to ¡°democratise¡± politics.

Their research found, perhaps unsurprisingly, that of the 17 candidates in the primaries, Mr Trump ¡°sends and receives the most negative tweets and is more likely than his opponents to strike out against even those opponents who are polling poorly¡±.

¡°Better performers avoid ¡®punching downwards¡¯, though Trump flouts this norm with brutal remarks aimed at even low-polling candidates,¡± , ¡°Twitter taunts and tirades: negative campaigning in the age of Trump¡±, which was?published in the October edition of Political Science and Politics.

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Justin Gross, assistant professor of political science, who co-authored the paper with doctoral student Kaylee Johnson, said that Mr Trump had challenged the idea that negative campaigning is used by candidates only as a last resort.

Twitter, he noted, ¡°benefits¡± from people ¡°saying something outrageous¡±.

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Professor Gross added: ¡°There¡¯s millions of tweets. Just saying ¡®you were a bad Congressman¡¯ isn¡¯t going to really get the attention of people as much as ¡®loser¡¯ or ¡®idiot¡¯.¡±

In Mr Trump¡¯s hands, ¡°Twitter became news.¡±

¡°He knew that he would get attention and it would go beyond Twitter ¨C it would be reported on the news and in late-night comedy [shows],¡± said Professor Gross.

Those 140-character messages, which could be pulled up on screen by news programmes, served as ¡°a mini press release¡±, he added. The medium ¡°made it easier to spread whatever he was thinking very quickly¡±.

Professor Gross argued that it would be to ¡°underestimate¡± Mr Trump to say that he would not have been as successful without Twitter ¨C and that he would still have gained attention for outrageous comments made at rallies and in television appearances.

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But ¡°in some sense Twitter made it easier to digest these and push them through the bloodstream of the American public¡±, he added.

Academic study of the political use of Twitter has tended to focus on events such as the Arab Spring ¡°and how groups of activists use it to organise¡±, said Professor Gross.

He put the Trump Twitter paper in the context of ¡°an underlying theoretical discussion in political communication about the democratisation of media ¨C to what extent it¡¯s not happening, to what extent it might be happening and has potential¡±.

Those with fringe political views, or conspiracy theorists, would once have been ¡°relegated to standing on a street corner with a hand-printed newsletter and handing it out and screaming on a soapbox¡±, Professor Gross said, but now on Twitter ¡°there is some chance someone will pick up on it who has a louder voice¡±.

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Mr Trump ¡°was clearly listening¡± to those with similar views to his on Twitter and thus some fringe ideas ¡°found [their] way into the mainstream¡±, said Professor Gross.

john.morgan@tesglobal.com