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Can TikTok Drive Support for Populist Radical Right Parties? Causal Evidence From Germany

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  • Heyna, Philipp

Abstract

Can TikTok drive support for populist radical right parties? In light of apparent trends among younger cohorts in Germany toward radical right populism both in terms of party preferences and political ideology, this question has frequently been raised in the political debate. TikTok users are relatively young, and the populist radical right AfD’s stark dominance on the platform suggests that it is a driving force behind these trends. I seek to answer this question by employing coarsened exact matching and instrumental variable analysis on data from a GLES online survey. My results suggest that TikTok use raises support for the AfD and its candidates, but does not increase issue agreement for attitudes towards immigration and evaluations of government performance. This suggests that TikTok indeed promotes support for the AfD among younger cohorts, but implies that it can only account in part for these trends, as it does not seem to cause corresponding shifts in political ideology.

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  • Heyna, Philipp, 2024. "Can TikTok Drive Support for Populist Radical Right Parties? Causal Evidence From Germany," OSF Preprints yju9n, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:yju9n
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/yju9n
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