This repository contains data sets and visualisations relating to the social media communication of the German "Querdenker" movement during the COVID-19 pandemic. The data were collected and analysed for the BA thesis in "Digital Society", submitted by Deborah Helmich at Maastricht University in 2022. The visualisations are based on distant reading with Voyant Tools.
Data tables in EXCEL format need to be downloaded before viewing. CSV files can be opened and viewed directly on GitHub.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, voices quickly rose in opposition to the measures taken to contain the virus. The Querdenker movement is a German heterogeneous group in which supporters from different social classes spread theories against the Covid-19 measures. Using over 20,000 posts gathered from Twitter, this study analyses how this group interacts on social media and disseminates its theories. The dataset is examined in the framework of a discourse analysis while using the programme Voyant Tools to create visualisations as a digital element from a distant reading approach and bringing the findings into context by conducting a text analysis for individual tweets. It is shown that a broad spectrum of the Querdenker movement is represented in the dataset with different narratives aiming to address a wide range of society. The strategies used to disseminate their theories include the use of unreliable sources, out-of-context citations and false claims while increasing their reach by using hashtags and replies to twitter channels with a great audience.