Social media campaigning and voter behavior–evidence for the German federal election 2021

Abeer Ibtisam Aziz and Ivo Bischoff

European Journal of Political Economy, 2025, vol. 88, issue C

Abstract: We analyze the relationship between party campaigning on social media and the voting intentions voiced by respondents in a large representative survey in the German federal election campaign in 2021. We argue that online campaigns spread through the online and offline networks of the initial recipients – thereby influencing substantial parts of the electorate. We exploit inter-temporal, inter-regional, and inter-party differences in the intensity of campaigning by parties and candidates on Facebook and Twitter. In addition, we control for the respondents' choice in the previous federal election and a number of other personal characteristics. Using a multinomial logit model with alternative-specific constants, we find the probability of a respondent's intention to vote for a party to increase in the state-specific campaigning activities on social media of this party the days before. While the literature suggests that especially populist right-wing parties will benefit from campaigning on social media, we find the marginal impact to be significantly higher for Christian democrats, Social Democrats, and Greens than for the right-wing “Alternative für Deutschland”.

Keywords: Online political campaigns; Voter behavior; Facebook; Twitter; Multinomial logit model with alternative-specific constant; Germany (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:poleco:v:88:y:2025:i:c:s017626802500045x

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2025.102685

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