Social Media and Democracy: Exploring the Influence of Populist Content on Political Trust and Democratic Satisfaction in Germany

How does exposure to populist party content on social media affect attitudes of political support? Populist radical right parties have gained significant influence on social media in many countries during the past decade. However, while the influence of social media use on attitudinal formation and polarization has been widely studied, research specifically investigating the impact of populist actors on social media remains limited. To address this, I study the case of Germany, where the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has garnered substantially more engagement and following than any other party on social media, exposing their content to a wide audience. Combining literature on the effects of social media use and populist radical right party electoral wins on political support, I argue that regular exposure to AfD content can lead to less satisfaction with democracy and political trust among both AfD-supporters and non-supporters. To test my pre-registered hypotheses, I employ original online survey data from Germany (N=2000, ages 16-69), asking respondents about their satisfaction with democracy and political trust, as well as whether and how often they perceive party-related content on their social media feeds. Preliminary results from multivariate regression analyses show that there is a significant negative effect of exposure to AfD content on satisfaction with democracy, while there is no significant effect on political trust. These findings contribute to understanding how social media use and exposure to populist content shape political attitudes.