Jonathan Richter (MA Thesis)

The Department of Digital Humanities and Social Studies would like to invite you to the following talk in our DH Colloquium:

Jonathan Richter: »Parties in the 2024/25 Election Campaign on TikTok – Analysing Trends
in Political Content«

Abstract

In recent years, TikTok has become one of the most dynamic digital  platforms. User numbers show a clear increase: while only 2% of the  German population used TikTok in 2019, this share had risen to 19% by 2024. The platform is also gaining political importance, especially among young voters. In the 2021 federal election, almost 50% of  first-time voters stated that they preferred to consume political information through social media; across all age groups, this share has doubled since 2017 to around 10%. These developments illustrate how central digital platforms have become for election campaigning and political opinion-forming.

The aim of this thesis is to systematically analyze how German political parties communicate on TikTok during the 2025 federal election campaign. The focus lies on an aspect-based sentiment analysis of transcribed TikTok videos published by the most popular party and politician accounts of the parties represented in the Bundestag. Methodologically, the study first applies topic modeling to identify key themes and communication patterns. Building on this, the emotional tone of the videos is examined to uncover differences between parties, topics, and content formats.

Further information and other upcoming talks in the Colloquium can be found here.