Danke an das Team von @w-i-d.de (Wissenschaft im Dialog) für die Ausrichtung des Multistakeholder-Dialogs in Berlin! Sehr bereichernder Austausch und wichtiger Beitrag zum Verhältnis von #Wissenschaftskommunikation und #Polarisierung von gesellschaftlichen Debatten!
🛜 Bottom line: Single-platform studies risk drawing normatively loaded conclusions from a structurally partial picture. If we want to understand polarization, counterpublic- & coalition-building in fragmented media environments, multi-platform designs, despite challenges & shortcomings, are needed.
• Results complicate the “closed-off communities = always bad” storyline.
• Some (semi-)closed spaces can be functional & protective for organizing & coordinating protest, while similar “counterpublic” dynamics can also describe reactionary, defensive coalitions that mobilize against activists.
3️⃣➡️ This has normative implications for conceptualizations of #polarization, #counterpublics, and so-called “echo chambers” surrounding #climatechange and #activism debates—and shows why multi-platform research is overdue:
• Twitter/X and Mastodon are more about public evaluation, visibility, and contested interpretations of events:
- police actions versus police violence;
- climate policy demands versus denial/delay of the need for climate action;
- legitimacy versus supposed radicalism of protest tactics;
- ...
2️⃣👁️🗨️ Each platform plays a distinct role for protesters:
• Telegram matters even when the advocacy coalition is comparatively small: The platform functions as an essential semi-public infrastructure for intra-group support, organizing, and logistics.
• Twitter/X: two large polarized coalitions competing in public arena.
• Telegram: dominant “antagonist mainstream” alongside a smaller, isolated advocacy subnetwork; nevertheless central for protesters (see below)
• Mastodon: pro-activist environment; antagonists remain scattered & don't cluster
We show that “the protest debate” looks fundamentally different depending on where you look.
❗ Core insights:
1️⃣💥 Coalition structures differ sharply by platform (advocates vs. antagonists):
❓ How do different social media platforms shape the formation of advocate/antagonist coalitions within #climateprotest debates?
⏩ multi-platform network & content analysis (+ qual. validation) of 259,334 posts surrounding Lützerath protests, comparing #Twitter/ #X, #Telegram, and #Mastodon
New #OpenAccess paper in #EnvironmentalCommunication 🎉:
“Activists Preserving the (Multi-Platform) Environment: Advocacy Coalitions of #Lützerath Climate Protests”
(w/ @pzerrer.bsky.social, Hannah-Marie Büttner & @kudusch.de)
🔗 Link: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
🧵⬇️ Summary Thread:
🔎 Our #OpenAccess Communication Theory article, which adds further perspectives and develops a more thorough framework for measuring #Polarization in media content:
doi.org/10.1093/ct/q...
The Elgar Encyclopedia of Political Communication is out & we (w/ Michael Brüggemann) contributed an entry on
💥 "Discursive #Polarization" 🗯️
Many thanks to the editors @alessandronai.bsky.social, Max Grömping & @dominiquewirz.bsky.social!
🛜 #OpenAccess accepted preprint:
osf.io/preprints/os...
Proposed methods teaching material regarding network analysis: could there be a nicer way of teaching students what nodes and edges in a network are?
New mixed-methods study out in Media International Australia! We compare 🇦🇺 & 🇩🇪 news framing of climate movements — revealing media polarisation: right-leaning outlets often frame activists as threats, while centre/left ones portray them less negatively. 👉 doi.org/10.1177/1329...
🔗 Full #OpenAccess Article:
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
🌄 Limitations & Outlook (follow-up studies are in the making)
– Analysis focused on elites; the fringes of far-right TikTok may look quite different.
– Since EU elections, platform dynamics may have shifted, with other parties (e.g., Die Linke) catching up ahead of the 2025 federal election.
⏩ Overall, the AfD generates engagement through divisive frames yet sustains attention — while veiling its radical and extremist positions — by blending established far-right narratives with everyday concerns.
– Out-group and migration-related themes appeared less often but still generated strong engagement.
This may reflect ...
(a) a strategic shift toward themes that resonate with citizens, and/or
(b) entrenched exclusionary tropes of 'thick populism' that remain implicit in much of the discourse.
❗/💡 Discussion / Interpretation
– Beyond identity-based attacks, the AfD strategically foregrounded real-world concerns that resonate with potential voters ... while still intertwining them with anti-elite cues.
– Horizontal protectionism (e.g., migration critique, gender/wokeness) was least frequent (~30%).
– AfD dominance: higher overall engagement rate and far greater output (from accounts with ≥100k lifetime likes) than all other German parties combined.
📈 Results: What Was Posted & What Drives Engagement?
– Anti-elitism and out-group attacks generated higher per-video engagement.
– Yet most content leaned toward anti-elite messages or concern-focused themes (economy/inflation, security, rights/freedoms).
🧩 Populist Themes & Types (theory-grounded)
We identified 12 themes organized into 3 populist types:
1. Horizontal protectionism (identity/out-group: migrants, “wokeism”)
2. Vertical protectionism (anti-elitism/anti-institutionalism)
3. Concerns of the people (economy/inflation, security, freedoms)
🔍 Data & Methods
Timeframe: Mar–Jun 2024
– Content analysis: LLM-enhanced topic modeling (based on 'Concept Induction' by Lam et al., 2024) on 1,271 AfD video transcripts from 54 AfD accounts.
– Engagement comparison: Platform metrics from 109 politicians (5,590 videos in total)
❓ Research Interests
– How did AfD politicians use TikTok to communicate populist content during the run-up to the EU elections?
– How did these communication strategies relate to user engagement?
Excited to share our new #OpenAccess article in Information, Communication & Society:
“Beyond anti-elitism and out-group attacks: How concerns shape the AfD’s #populist representation on German #TikTok during the 2024 #EU #elections”
/w @julialenz.bsky.social, L. Rodeck & @drfell.bsky.social
(⬇️ 🧵)
3️⃣ This also calls for journalistic self-reflection: Is the broader media sphere amplifying narratives set by right-wing populist actors—even when attempting to deconstruct them?
2️⃣ Crucially, when covering LG, the media sphere converges on narratives used mainly by right-wing populist outlets for FFF, even when some outlets aim to critique/deconstruct those narratives.
❗ Main takeaways
1️⃣ The protest paradigm intensifies with disruptiveness: event-, criminality-, and extremism-focused coverage crowds out substantive questions of climate justice.
