Tweeted, deleted: theoretical, methodological, and ethical considerations for examining politicians' deleted tweets

In an election, political candidates often slip up and want a do-over. On Twitter, they get this chance. Candidates can delete tweets and hope no one notices. But organizations such as Politwoops notice. Politwoops archives politicians' deletions in the hopes of bringing more transparency and accountability to political discourse. This article discusses the theoretical value, methodological challenges, and ethical considerations of examining deleted tweets and using the Politwoops archive. Specifically, this article (a) discusses how analysis of deleted tweets can expand and deepen research on impression management and online self-presentations in elections, (b) proposes the use of an intertextual content analysis. a hybrid approach that incorporates elements of a qualitative content analysis and an intertextual interpretative analysis. when analyzing deletions, (c) investigates and exposes some of the limitations of the Politwoops archive, and (d) given the limitations of the Politwoops archive, discusses the potential ethical dilemmas of researchers creating their own datasets of deleted tweets. Overall, analyzing deletions can reveal what campaigns strategically present and hide from voters in order to create electable personas. To uncover the content of candidates' deleted tweets and how they may contribute to impression management, researchers