Twitter als Wahlkampfmedium

Abstract

The change of individual political communication is a crucial element in the debate about the mediatization of politics. More and more politicians as well as citizens make use of digital platforms to exchange their views on political issues and to inform themselves. This raises the question to what extent politicians offer options for digital interaction and thus encourage first-hand communication. This paper examines the use of the microblogging service Twitter by politicians during selected federal state election campaigns in Germany in 2011. The analysis focused on elements that facilitate participation and was conducted by using the “functional operator-model”. Data analysis shows that politicians use twitter in either a “personal-interactive” or “topic-informative” style. Regarding deliberative structures of twitter communication, however, there is still much to gain—both on the part of the politicians and of the citizens.