The Multilingual Twitter Discourse on Vaccination in Germany During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Hannah Schmid-Petri, Moritz Bürger, Stephan Schlögl, Mara Schwind, Jelena Mitrović and Ramona Kühn
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Hannah Schmid-Petri: Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Passau, Germany
Moritz Bürger: Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Passau, Germany
Stephan Schlögl: Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Passau, Germany
Mara Schwind: Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Passau, Germany
Jelena Mitrović: Faculty of Computer Science and Mathematics, University of Passau, Germany / Institute for Artificial Intelligence Research and Development of Serbia, Serbia
Ramona Kühn: Faculty of Computer Science and Mathematics, University of Passau, Germany

Media and Communication, 2023, vol. 11, issue 1, 293-305

Abstract: There is evidence that specific segments of the population were hit particularly hard by the Covid-19 pandemic (e.g., people with a migration background). In this context, the impact and role played by online platforms in facilitating the integration or fragmentation of public debates and social groups is a recurring topic of discussion. This is where our study ties in, we ask: How is the topic of vaccination discussed and evaluated in different language communities in Germany on Twitter during the Covid-19 pandemic? We collected all tweets in German, Russian, Turkish, and Polish (i.e., the largest migrant groups in Germany) in March 2021 that included the most important keywords related to Covid-19 vaccination. All users were automatically geocoded. The data was limited to tweets from Germany. Our results show that the multilingual debate on Covid-19 vaccination in Germany does not have many structural connections. However, in terms of actors, arguments, and positions towards Covid-19 vaccination, the discussion in the different language communities is similar. This indicates that there is a parallelism of the debates but no social-discursive integration.

Keywords: content analysis; Covid-19; multilingual communities; Twitter; vaccination debate (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:meanco:v11:y:2023:i:1:p:293-305

DOI: 10.17645/mac.v11i1.6058

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