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Cited by 22Social Media and PoliticsElectoral Systems and Political ParticipationPopulism, Right-Wing Movements

Who polarizes Twitter? Ideological polarization, partisan groups and strategic networked campaigning on Twitter during the 2017 and 2021 German Federal elections 'Bundestagswahlen'

Open access
Darius, Philipp·2022·Social Network Analysis and Mining
DOI 10.1007/s13278-022-00958-wPMC PMC9550594
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Abstract

Political campaign activities are increasingly digital. A crucial part of digital campaigning is communication efforts on social media platforms. As a forum for political discourse and political communication, parties and candidates on Twitter share public messages and aim to attract media attention and persuade voters. Party or prominent candidate hashtags are a central element of the campaign communication strategy since journalists and citizens search for these hashtags to follow the current debate concerning the hashed party or political candidate. Political elites and partisans use social media strategically, e.g., to link their messages to a broader debate, increase the visibility of messages, criticize other parties, or take over their hashtags (hashjacking). This study investigates the cases of the most recent 2017 and 2021 German federal elections called 'Bundestagswahlen'. The investigation (1) identifies communities of partisans in retweet networks in order to analyze the polarization of the most prominent hashtags of parties, 2) assesses the political behavior by partisan groups that amplify messages by political elites in these party networks, and 3) examines the polarization and strategic behavior of the identified partisan groups in the broader election hashtag debates using #BTW17 and #BTW21 as the prominent hashtags of the 2017 and 2021 elections. While in 2017, the far-right party 'Alternative für Deutschland' (AfD) and its partisans are in an isolated community, in 2021, they are part of the same community as the official party accounts of established conservative and liberal parties. This broader polarization may indicate changes in the political ideology of these actors. While the overall activity of political elites and partisans increased between 2017 and 2021, AfD politicians and partisans are more likely to use other party hashtags, which resulted in the polarization of the observed parts of the German political twitter sphere. While in 2017, the AfD polarized German Twitter, 2021 shows a broader division along the classical left–right divide.

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  • Las comunidades de derecha y ultraderecha, en torno a medios digitales y usuarios individuales, consiguen una polarización asimétrica a su favor.

    “Las comunidades de derecha y ultraderecha, en torno a medios digitales y usuarios individuales, consiguen una polarización asimétrica a su favor al acercarse, del mismo modo que ha sucedido en otros contextos electorales como el alemán (Darius, 2022).”

    From Polarización en Twitter/X: análisis del debate generado por los medios de comunicación durante las elecciones locales y autonómicas del 28-M 2023 en España (2026) · cites this paper as Darius, 2022

    The Discussion (Findings and Conclusions; page unavailable) reports that AfD and CDU partisans became closer in the 2021 Twitter network and that the electoral debate showed a broader left–right polarization. It does not establish that this polarization was asymmetric or advantageous to the right; the Conclusions instead place major news outlets in the broader community with left-leaning parties. (LLM, conf=0.84)

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Research works printed but not linked: 4

  1. Bernard H The development of social network analysis: a study in the sociology of science Social Netw 2004 27 377 84 10.1016/j.socnet.2005.06.004 · DOI
  2. Bruns A, Burgess J (2011) The use of twitter hashtags in the formation of ad hoc publics. In: Proceedings of the 6th european consortium for political research (ECPR) general conference 2011, edited by A. Bruns and P. De Wilde, pp. 1–9. United Kingdom: The European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR). https://eprints.qut.edu.au/46515/.
  3. Garimella K Weber I (2017) A long-term analysis of polarization on Twitter. ArXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/1703.02769 [Cs], March 17, 2017 · arXiv
  4. Hadgu AT, Garimella K, Weber I (2013) Political Hashtag Hijacking in the US. In: Proceedings of the 22nd international conference on world wide web, pp. 55–56

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Authors
Darius, P.
Affiliations
Hertie School (DE)
Corresponding author
Darius, Philipp
ORCID
Darius, Philipp
Venue
Social Network Analysis and Mining
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2022-10-11
Volume
12
Issue
1
Pages
151-151
ISSN
  • 1869-5450 (ISSN-L)
  • 1869-5469
DOI
10.1007/s13278-022-00958-w
PMC
PMC9550594
OpenAlex
W4304163609
Cited by
22
References
113
Citations by year
2026: 6 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 5
FWCI
6.09
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Social Network Analysis and Mining (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • OPUS 4 (Zuse Institute Berlin) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • Gemeinnützige Hertie-Stiftung (PhD Stipend)
  • Hertie School gGmbH
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Communication › Social Media and Politics
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Electoral Systems and Political Participation
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Populism, Right-Wing Movements
Keywords
ideological polarization, Twitter, political campaigns, hashtags, retweet networks, Alternative für Deutschland, 2017 German federal election, 2021 German federal election, left-right divide, political communication, social media campaigning

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