According to a study on state election campaigns in Thuringia, Brandenburg and Saxony, the AfD’s strength is underestimated in its presence on social media. The study “Social Media Party AfD?” Is As a working paper of the Otto Brenner Foundation Published by the Science Foundation of the IG Metall Trade Union.
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Differences between Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg
The study looked at election campaigns in the AfD’s three states of Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg. According to the authors, the AfD acted differently in the digital sphere from country to country – most agilely in Brandenburg.
Candidates in Brandenburg invested the most in digital election campaigns, “starting with a presence on TikTok and investments in digital election advertising on Facebook and Instagram,” the authors write in the conclusion of their study.
In Thuringia, the AfD focused heavily on its top candidate, Björn Höcke. In Saxony, competition with the smaller party Free Saxony “has weakened the AfD’s position in the right-wing extremist movement sector.”
In general, the three election campaigns were characterized by high levels of mobilization both online and offline. A brief summary of the study says, “In fact, the regions could hardly be distinguished, as many on-site appearances took place digitally, while Internet trends were also reflected on posters and election speeches.”
Provocation Engine Youth Option
The AfD youth organization Jung Alternative played the role of provocateur. “Provocations with extremist, racist and anti-immigrant statements – also expressed through generative artificial intelligence – contributed to the party’s improved visibility, which was particularly used by the AfD in Brandenburg and Thuringia,” the study’s authors write. Was done.”
Furthermore, social media have always been taken into account in the marketing of political content in order to “achieve the greatest possible cross-media reach and provoke counter-reactions”. This contributed to the fact that the AfD’s digital performance was often underestimated by the public. “AfD state associations have certainly dominated the digital sphere in collaboration with right-wing media and agencies,” the authors write.
However, higher limits were achieved only in isolated cases. Only a few candidates might have been exposed to the peculiarities of a platform like TikTok. “The fact that the party is still so present is due more to the invisibility of other parties than to the AfD’s confident handling of TikTok.”
(mho)
