Yelling from the sidelines? How German parties employ populist and crisis-related messages on Facebook

Figures & data

Table 1. Frequency of posts containing elements of populist or crisis-related messages.

	Dimension	Single element	Frequency (in %)	N
Populism	Anti-elitism	Discrediting the elite	13.1	458
		Detaching the elite	7.3	254
	People-centrism	Elites vs. the people^a	5.6	198
		Homogeneity	5.1	180
		Praising the people	0.5	17
		Representing the people	5.7	198
	Sovereignty	Call for sovereignty	0.4	14
		Disempowering elites	4.8	168
Crises		Urgency	8.8	306
		Dramatization	11.0	385
		Societal consequences	15.2	532
		Identification of failure	17.6	616

^a Since our definition for this element pits the good people against the ill-meaning elites, welocate this category in both dimensions (see Table A1).

Figure 1. Shares of populist and crisis-related messages by party.

Note. The hatched parts represent the proportion of posts combining both populist and crisis-related messages.

Figure 2. Predicted probabilities for populist, crisis-related and populist + crisis-related messages by party.

Note. Based on logit models (Model I- Model III) in Table A3 in Appendix.

Table A1. Codebook categories for populist and crisis-related messages.

	Dimension	Description of single elements
Populism	Anti-elitism	Negative personality traits, mistakes and illegal or immoral behaviour of the elite are emphasized. Elites are portrayed as corrupt, incompetent, malicious, criminal, lazy, stupid or undemocratic. The elites are denied morality, charisma, credibility, intelligence or competence. The elite is held responsible for an undesirable or harmful situation. Blame must be presented as typical or symptomatic for the entire elite. (discrediting the elite)
		The elite is described as detached from the people, as alienated, arrogant, not belonging to the people, not close to the people, not knowing the people's needs, not speaking for the people, not caring for the people, not listening to the people or in another way distanced from the people. Elite is no longer part of the people, does not understand them and therefore no longer represents them. (detaching the elite)
		People and elites are presented as opponents (e.g. elites act against the interests of the people). (elites vs. people)
	People centrism	The people are described as homogeneous when their unity is emphasized, when a common conception of the world is projected, when common feelings are described (as fear or anger), or when common opinions and desires are emphasized. (homogeneity)
		Positive qualities are attributed to the people or the belief in the capacities and judgment of the people is expressed. The people are described as good, virtuous, moral, credible, intelligent, competent, considerate and benevolent etc. (praising the people)
		A speaker describes himself as a representative of the people. Knowledge/needs of the people, speaking for the people and/or caring for the people are emphasized. Closeness to the people can also be expressed directly. (representative of the people)
	Sovereignty	Power is assigned to the people. People themselves should decide on political issues. General institutional reforms giving the people more power is supported. The speaker advocates for the implementation of concrete measures, such as referendums, petitions, popular initiatives, citizens polls). (call for sovereignty)
		Elites should be disempowered regarding a specific issue or through general institutional reforms. (disempowering elites)
Crisis		A negative situation is described as urgent. Fast action is required. Acute non-action has negative consequences. (‘now’, ‘immediately’, ‘last chance’). Or a situation can be described as a turning point. This is a decision situation that offers the chance to solve or worsen a negative situation (‘if … then"-scenarios). Or a negative situation is explicitly described as irreversible. (urgency)
		A negative fact or its negative consequences are explicitly dramatized. This can be done by adjectives (‘catastrophic consequences’, ‘disastrous effects’, ‘devastating damages’), nouns (‘catastrophe’, ‘disaster’) or phrases (‘leads to conditions that mock any description’). Even the use of superlatives (‘the greatest threat’, ‘as uncertain as never before’) are coded as a representation of a particularly dramatic situation. (dramatization)
		Regarding an identified problem, explicitly negative consequences for (parts of) the society (‘security in the cities’, ‘the poor’, ‘the women’, ‘the hospital employees’, ‘our society’, ‘all people’, ‘Germany’, ‘the health system’) are mentioned. (societal consequences)
		A failure is identified. This is an action that is interpreted negatively in its consequences (e.g. ‘leaving the borders open for immigration in 2015’). A situation or a certain area of life has developed negatively because a certain failure has occurred before. Elites need not necessarily be blamed for the failure. (identification of failure)

Table A2. Shares of populist and crisis-related messages.

	All messages								Proportion on populism or crises messages
Party	P		C		P + C		Total		P	C	P + C
	Hits (%)	n	Hits (%)	n	Hits (%)	n	Hits (%)	n	Hits (%)	Hits (%)	Hits (%)
AfD	11.6	407	16.6	580	43.6	1527	71.9	2514	16.2	23.1	60.7
CDU	3.3	118	2.8	98	1.4	50	7.58	265	44.4	36.8	18.8
CSU	5.4	191	2.2	76	0.7	26	8.36	293	65.2	26	8.9
FDP	5.7	198	11.9	418	2.9	102	20.5	718	27.6	58.2	14.2
Greens	3.6	126	18.9	660	4.4	155	26.9	941	13.4	70.1	16.5
Left	8.5	299	25.4	890	18.7	656	52.7	1844	16.2	48.2	35.6
SPD	7.1	249	5.1	177	0.8	27	13	454	54.9	39	6.1

Note. P = Populism; C = Crises; P + C = Populism + Crises

Table A3. Results of logistic regression predicting populist and crisis-related messages.

	Model I (populism)		Model II (crises)		Model III (populism + crises)		Model IV (populism)		Model V (crises)
(Intercept)	−0.22	(0.33)	−0.13	(0.36)	−0.57	(0.36)	−0.63	(0.34)	−0.55	(0.37)
Party (base: AfD)
CDU	−2.16***	(0.23)	−2.54***	(0.28)	−2.70***	(0.44)	−1.86***	(0.26)	−2.29***	(0.29)
CSU	−1.53***	(0.29)	−2.61***	(0.35)	−3.09***	(0.51)	−1.25***	(0.29)	−2.42***	(0.35)
SPD	−1.53***	(0.22)	−2.04***	(0.24)	−3.23***	(0.35)	−1.27***	(0.22)	−1.81***	(0.25)
Greens	−1.65***	(0.27)	−0.47*	(0.21)	−1.33***	(0.35)	−1.61***	(0.28)	−0.25	(0.21)
FDP	−1.40***	(0.24)	−0.89***	(0.21)	−1.83***	(0.36)	−1.27***	(0.24)	−0.69**	(0.22)
The Left	−0.76***	(0.15)	0.01	(0.15)	−0.51**	(0.17)	−0.81***	(0.16)	0.16	(0.16)
Party account (yes)	−0.17	(0.12)	−0.04	(0.11)	−0.15	(0.13)	−0.16	(0.12)	−0.03	(0.12)
Post type (base: status)
Photo	−0.29	(0.22)	−0.60**	(0.23)	−0.40	(0.24)	−0.21	(0.23)	−0.57*	(0.24)
Video	−0.10	(0.23)	−0.77**	(0.24)	−0.67*	(0.27)	−0.01	(0.24)	−0.77**	(0.26)
Link/other	−0.19	(0.24)	−0.30	(0.25)	−0.40	(0.29)	−0.15	(0.25)	−0.25	(0.27)
Wordcount	10.61***	(0.72)	9.46***	(1.02)	8.54***	(0.71)	9.30***	(0.72)	7.69***	(1.00)
Date (base: period II)
Period I	−0.16	(0.17)	0.07	(0.18)	−0.20	(0.20)	−0.19	(0.17)	0.07	(0.18)
Period III	−0.17	(0.17)	0.16	(0.19)	−0.16	(0.20)	−0.24	(0.18)	0.18	(0.17)
Period IV	0.28	(0.19)	0.35	(0.20)	−0.07	(0.24)	0.23	(0.20)	0.32	(0.21)
Period V	0.09	(0.18)	0.30	(0.20)	0.14	(0.22)	0.04	(0.18)	0.29	(0.20)
Period VI	0.33	(0.18)	0.21	(0.18)	0.28	(0.20)	0.30	(0.18)	0.17	(0.18)
Topics (base: economy)
Welfare state	−0.62*	(0.25)	0.03	(0.23)	−0.58*	(0.24)	−0.66*	(0.27)	0.16	(0.24)
Security	−0.82*	(0.33)	0.53	(0.30)	−0.40	(0.32)	−0.98**	(0.34)	0.691*	(0.30)
Foreign policy and EU	−0.76**	(0.26)	−0.19	(0.23)	−0.52	(0.27)	−0.76**	(0.26)	−0.06	(0.23)
Infrastructure	−0.57	(0.38)	0.09	(0.34)	−0.55	(0.32)	−0.57	(0.40)	0.21	(0.36)
Culture, education & society	−1.24***	(0.26)	−0.30	(0.24)	−0.93***	(0.26)	−1.24***	(0.26)	−0.11	(0.25)
Environment	−0.53	(0.37)	−0.22	(0.32)	−1.27**	(0.39)	−0.49	(0.39)	−0.12	(0.33)
Immigration	−0.97***	(0.26)	0.31	(0.24)	−0.40	(0.25)	−1.09***	(0.27)	0.48	(0.25)
No substantial topic/other	−1.34***	(0.22)	−1.96***	(0.21)	−1.87***	(0.26)	−1.12***	(0.23)	−1.83***	(0.22)
Populism (yes)									1.00***	(0.13)
Crises (yes)							0.94***	(0.14)
N	3500		3500		3500		3500		3500
McFaddens R²	0.35		0.43		0.46		0.36		0.44

Standard errors in brackets;*p  <  0.05;**p  <  0.01; and***p  <  0.001.

Data availability statement

Raw data were generated by accessing text data from Facebook using the statistical software R. Derived data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author Benjamin Schürmann on request.