The digitization of the state and the economy is one of the biggest political building sites in Germany. On Twitter, however, central digital topics such as broadband expansion and digital administration hardly play a role, as tweets from members of the Bundestag and their parliamentary groups and parties from the current legislative period show. Broadband expansion in particular has been losing ground in the recent past.
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Germany’s digital backlog can no longer be discussed away. The studies that prove this are increasing in number. In a current ranking, Germany only ranks third from last out of 20 countries (European Center for Digital Competitiveness, 2021). After all, the topic of digitization runs through the federal election programs, for example in the context of business, education, health and climate protection. The central prerequisites for a successful digital policy are digital administration and a comprehensive broadband infrastructure (see also Hess / Heumann, 2021). While the topic of digital administration takes up a lot of space in the election programs, there are few new ideas for broadband expansion (ibid.). However, political communication and election campaigns also take place primarily in the digital space, on social media channels such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok (Klimpel, 2021). The channels reach a broad audience overall, but have different user demographics. This analysis is intended to show the role that digital administration and broadband expansion play in digital communication between members of the Bundestag, parties and parliamentary groups on Twitter. For this purpose, the tweets of all 555 members of the Bundestag with a Twitter account (as of June 2021) between September 24, 2017 and August 31, 2021 were examined. The FDP is most strongly represented on Twitter: 95.0 percent of the members of the Bundestag have a Twitter account. In the case of the CDU / CSU, it is only 63.3 percent.
All tweets were analyzed in which the terms “broadband expansion” and “digital administration” (alternatively “digitization of administration” and “e-government”) were mentioned either by hashtag or in the text. Pure retweets were not taken into account.
341 tweets from 108 MPs were included in the investigation. In addition, 37 tweets from the parties represented in the Bundestag and 45 tweets from the Bundestag parliamentary groups from the period mentioned were included in the analysis using the terms mentioned.
It is noteworthy that only 15.2 percent of the members of the Bundestag tweeted about broadband expansion and digital administration in the current legislature. The ratio of tweets sent to the number of members of the Bundestag is highest for the FDP (1.39) and the Greens (1.24), followed by CDU / CSU (0.57), Die Linke (0.52), SPD (0.32) and finally the AfD (0.04).
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A total of 223 tweets contained the concept of broadband expansion, 200 tweets that of digital administration (see figure). Measured against other Twitter activity, these are extremely low values. The FDP has tweeted 21,079 times (as of September 10, 2021) from its official party account since May 2009, of which only 13 times related to the analyzed terms during the study period. Anke Domscheit-Berg (Die Linke) has tweeted 96,546 times since October 2009. During the study period, she tweeted only 16 times about broadband expansion and digital administration and was still one of the MPs who tweeted these terms most frequently. Although the topics are of a structural nature and centrally determine the way people live and work in Germany, they rarely take place among members of the Bundestag on Twitter.
Broadband expansion was the main topic in 2018 (101 tweets, mainly from the CDU / CSU and the Greens), but then lost a lot of its relevance and brought it to only 26 tweets in the first eight months of 2021. The CDU / CSU in particular tweeted a lot about broadband expansion during the legislative period, which is also related to the fact that it provided the responsible Federal Ministry (the responsible Federal Minister Andreas Scheuer, who has tweeted 3,354 times since June 2009 – as of 9/10/2021 – tweeted, however not a single time). The digital administration developed from just four tweets at the beginning of the legislature in 2017 to 68 tweets in 2021. While the FDP tweeted about digital administration in all years and always achieved at least the second highest value among the parties, the CDU / CSU has especially in the past two years. In 2018, the Greens spoke out relatively often about digital administration, but much less in the following years. Apart from the AfD, which has remained practically positionless on both issues, Die Linke and the SPD bring up the rear in terms of the number of tweets.
For a more differentiated picture of the success of the tweets, they are weighted with their retweets (forwards) and likes in order to get an impression of the reach. It is assumed that retweets are much more important for reach than likes, so these are weighted in a ratio of 3: 1 to the likes. While broadband expansion in particular met with a response on Twitter at the beginning of the 2018 legislature (especially Die Grünen / Die Linke), digital administration increasingly became a topic towards the end of the legislature in 2021, which found its reach in retweets and likes (Figure). In particular, tweets from the Greens were noticed on both topics in 2021. The CDU / CSU performed worse overall in the weighted tweets than in the unweighted. The FDP is more and more popular in digital administration than in broadband expansion. The left, on the other hand, has more reach in its positions on broadband expansion than on digital administration. The SPD shows a very low reach, especially in digital administration. The AfD does not play a role.
One component of digital administration is the introduction of a digital ministry, which is prominently represented in the public debate. In the election manifestos it is only mentioned by its supporters, the FDP and CDU / CSU. The topic is also played on one-sidedly on Twitter. 185 tweets were sent by members of the Bundestag, parties and parliamentary groups to the digital ministry in the current legislative period, 130 the FDP alone, 20 the Greens and 14 the CDU / CSU. In the election year 2021, there were only 25 tweets about the digital ministry (2020: 61). The fact that the digital ministry is not relevant for all parties and that this has recently fallen is consistent with the expert assessments that a digital ministry does not contribute to a successful digital policy (Heumann, 2021; Hüther / Röhl, 2021).
Overall, the analysis of the tweets suggests that broadband expansion has been neglected for so long that it is even playing a declining role in smooth, inexpensive political communication and discussion in the digital space. As the analysis of the ranges in particular shows, signs of fatigue have already occurred even though there is hardly enough broadband and far too few fiber optic connections (cf. BMVI, 2021).
One reason for hope is that digital administration, although hesitant, is being discussed more and more. The new federal government would do well to use this momentum to quickly move from promises to implementation.
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