Watching the digital grassroots grow: assessing party members’ social media campaigning during the 2021 German Bundestag election

ABSTRACT

Party member mobilization is part of a modern election campaign, just like social media are. This article enhances prior research on the strategic inclusion of grassroots campaigning from a top down perspective by adding insights from the individual perspective of the rank-and-file party members. Evidence is built from a party member panel survey conducted among four German parties: CDU, SPD, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen and Die Linke. Based on quantitative data analyses, first, the article scrutinizes the share of online campaigners among members and the importance of digital campaigning for the toolbox of electioneering. Social media are essential campaign tools even if only about half of campaigners actively participates in such activities. Still, only a small group of campaigners categorically rules out engaging via social platforms. Secondly, the article analyzes which groups of members are more likely to participate in social media campaigning, showing that higher age, being male and holding a university degree is associated with a lower probability to participate in such activities. Additionally, these newer forms of campaigning are rather used by highly engaged members who are familiar with party routines. Hence, social media campaigning requires skills and resources, despite its flexibility and accessibility.

KEYWORDS:

• Party membership
• campaigning
• social media
• participation
• election
• Germany

Acknowledgements

The author would like to express her appreciation to the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable insights and constructive comments. Furthermore, I owe a special thanks to Rachel Gibson and Isabelle Borucki for their thoughtful feedback and suggestions on earlier versions of the manuscript. Any remaining mistakes are my own.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the author upon reasonable request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics statement

Ethical review and approval were not required for the study on human participants in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. The participants provided their informed consent to participate in this study.

Notes

1 As Matuszewski and Szabó (this issue) point out, a relatively small number of hyperactive Twitter accounts is “able to dominate the social media discussion without making a huge effort to do so.” Even though the study was conducted during the 2019 European parliamentary election campaign in Poland, it demonstrates the value of having an active and broad digital support base in a broader context.

2 In contrast, Bennett and Manheim (2006) argue that channel fragmentation and microtargeting through social networking sites, in combination with the environmental trends of individualization and dealignment, diminish the influence of opinion leaders and result in a one-step flow of communication. Although this is not to be denied, it should be emphasized that horizontal network effects are still in place (Hilbert et al. 2017).

3 All parties represented in the German Bundestag were approached to participate in the survey, the named parties complied with this request.

4 CDU and CSU consider themselves as sister parties, together forming a faction in the German Bundestag. The CSU only operates in Bavaria, the CDU in the remaining 15 German federal states. The CSU did not participate in the survey.

5 “When the seats are distributed among the parties’ Land lists, such parties shall also be taken into consideration as have not obtained at least five per cent of the valid second votes cast in the electoral area (restrictive clause) but have won a seat in at least three constituencies” (Der Bundeswahlleiter 2016).

6 Numbers in the text are rounded to the nearest integer.

7 Question: “What kind of contribution did you make to the Bundestag election campaign?”

8 Question: “Have you personally been involved in campaigning on social media?”

9 Question: “How likely are you to participate in your party's social media campaign (e. g. on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter)?”

10 Due to small case numbers, non-binary gender identities cannot be included in the analyses.

11 For separated plots per party see Appendix II.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Digital Society research program funded by the Ministerium für Kultur und Wissenschaft des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen under the grant number 005-1709-0003.

Notes on contributors

Stine Ziegler

Stine Ziegler, M.A., is a research associate, PhD candidate, and member of the junior research group “Digital Party Research” (DIPART) at the University of Duisburg-Essen. She researches the participatory dimension of political parties in the digital age.