Specialization:
American Politics
Political Communications
Education:
B.A. (Political Science), Chapman University
Masters in Public Policy, University of California, Irvine
BIO:
Daniel Cervantes is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, specializing in American politics and political communication. His research examines how changing communication environments shape the behavior of political elites and the practice of democratic representation, with a particular focus on Congress and the presidency. He uses large-scale quantitative analysis, social media data, network methods, and systematic content analysis to study how elected officials communicate, compete for public attention, and respond to changing institutional and political incentives.
His dissertation, "The Congressional Attention Economy: Visibility, Interaction, and Timing in Digital Communication", is currently in progress and examines how social media has transformed congressional communication. The project studies the unequal distribution of public attention among members of Congress, patterns of communication and interaction among legislators, and the political conditions that shape when members communicate with the public. His broader research extends these questions beyond Congress, including work on presidential representation and State of the Union rhetoric. Across these projects, his research connects political communication to longstanding questions about political institutions, elite behavior, and democratic representation. He anticipates completing his Ph.D. in June 2027