Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7722-9872

Semester

Spring

Date of Graduation

2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

PhD

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Sociology and Anthropology

Committee Chair

Katie Corcoran

Committee Co-Chair

Rachel Stein

Committee Member

Chris Scheitle

Committee Member

Bradley Price

Committee Member

Andrew Whitehead

Abstract

In 2016, the Amish PAC was formed with the intent of mobilizing a group of low propensity voters who they believed could help secure political victory in critical swing states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania. These efforts continued through the 2020 election as the PAC continued to court voters within a closed religious community in an attempt to encourage political activity amongst those who ideologically remain apolitical. Specifically, this mobilization effort targeted those within the Amish and Mennonite communities, discussed throughout this dissertation as the ‘Plain Community’. This dissertation analyzes the mobilization attempt by measuring changes in the way the Plain Community engages in national politics through written discourse. I hypothesized that the mobilization attempts will cause a change in the frequency of political discourse that occurs within the Plain Community newspaper, The Budget. Published weekly, The Budget is a correspondence newspaper that is comprised primarily of entries from scribes scattered throughout the United States. To test this hypothesis, I use a mixed methods approach that incorporates topic modeling through Natural Language Processing, z-tests for proportions, and content analysis to assess the differences in political discourse across time. In total, I analyzed over 112,000 entries from 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020. The findings from this dissertation indicate that the mobilization efforts from outside groups impact the frequency of political discussions within the closed religious community. However, mobilization seems to occur across all entries, and not simply those within states most heavily targeted by the Amish PAC. I uncovered more nuance within the data by conducting a content analysis of entries identified as political. More specifically, the content analysis uncovered differences in how the community discussed political figures based on gender and race, integrated misinformation into their written correspondence and discussed their personal responsibility for the nation’s wellbeing. These findings are contextualized within the broader theoretical landscape of religion and politics in the United States.

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