German Corona Protest Mobilizers on Telegram and Their Relations to the Far Right: A Network and Topic Analysis

Abstract

The Querdenken movement, the leading force behind German corona protests, is suspected of being a gateway to far-right attitudes due to radicalizing inward-oriented communication on Telegram. To investigate potential connections of this movement to the far right and alternative media—and to explore key topics of the Querdenken network over time—we analyzed 6,294,955 messages from 578 public Telegram channels via network analysis and structural topic modeling. This analysis revealed that Querdenken’s subcommunities preferably forward content from far-right and QAnon communities, while far-right and conspiracy theorist alternative media channels act as content distributors for the movement. Four main topics appeared in the Querdenken network with varying prevalence over time and across different communities: promotion, QAnon, right-wing populism, and COVID-19 conspiracy theories. Our results highlight potential directions for future research and practical implications, for example, that political decision makers should account for the increasing influence of the QAnon movement on Querdenken mobilizers’ Telegram activity.