This study introduces a novel method to measure federal legislators' religiosity by analyzing their use of religious rhetoric on official congressional websites between 2006 and 2012.
Data & Methods: Using Internet Archive captures (.gov domain), the authors developed a scalable, time-variant metric tracking religious language over time.
Key Findings Validity: The approach demonstrates reliability for measuring changes in legislators' public religiosity expressions during this period.
Methodological Contribution: Leveraging archived internet data offers cost-effective insights into political communication that surpass traditional expensive measures.
Wider Impact: This work models how big data archives can revolutionize political science research by enabling longitudinal analysis of legislative communications.
