Online Political Communication at the Local Level. Examining the Facebook Activities of Political Parties in Germany.

The local political arena is highly important for political engagement, as political issues that are relevant to citizens' daily lives are discussed at this level. Yet, empirical research on political communication at the local level in Germany is rather scarce, particularly with regards to analysis of how social media interacts and affects it. We do not know how active local political actors in Germany are in this communication sphere, nor do we know anything about potential driving forces of their activities on social media. Using different data sources, it can be demonstrated that political parties in Germany are using Facebook in varying degrees depending on their ideology, the urbanisation level of their home region and their membership structure. The results reveal that local groups within the German right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD) have a large lead on Facebook – in terms of both published posts and user responses. This article demonstrates that Germany is facing similar challenges to many other liberal democracies in terms of a right-wing ecosystem on social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]