Converging on a nativist core? Comparing issues on the Facebook pages of the Pegida movement and the Alternative for Germany

摘要

Computational methods offer a new perspective on the evolving agendas of right-wing movements and parties online. This article showcases computational approaches to text analysis (specifically so-called topic models) to diachronically investigate nativist right-wing issues in social media by comparing comments posted on the Facebook page of the Pegida movement to those of the Alternative for Germany. After describing topic modelling as an increasingly popular method and drawing on the literature on right-wing nativism online, we investigate a set of shared issues relevant to the mobilization of commentators, including opposition to Islam, migration, the government and the media. We furthermore show contrastively how issue prevalence differs between the two groups, and how issue shares change over time, in some instances converging on a shared nativist core. We close with a series of suggestions on the utility of computation content analysis for the study of rapidly evolving political agendas.