with Philipp Darius, Andreas Neumeier, and Jasmin Riedl
This paper examines how political parties mobilized audience support across major social media platforms during the 2024 European Parliament election. Drawing on data from 401 parties across all 27 EU member states and five platforms, the study shows that radical populist parties received disproportionately high engagement online, particularly on TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook. The findings further suggest that Euroscepticism, emotional appeals, and anti-elitist communication are strongly associated with higher audience support in digital campaigning.
with Joris Frese, Hilke Brockmann, Pedro Fierro Zamora, Andreas Dafnos, and Daniel Triana
This paper examines how political polarization unfolds among European political elites on social media during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Using more than 520,000 tweets posted by Members of the European Parliament and the European Commission, the study shows that elite communication is strongly structured by ideological echo chambers and increasingly driven by emotionally charged, conflict-oriented communication. Overall, the findings show that elite cyber-polarization unfolds through the interaction of network clustering and expressive competition for visibility, highlighting the active role of political elites in reproducing polarization on social media.
with Jasmin Riedl and Pauline Kielbassa
This paper examines how social media visibility increases political candidates’ exposure to digital violence. Using approximately 14 million German-language posts from the 2025 German federal election campaign on X/Twitter, the study shows that highly visible candidates are significantly more likely to become targets of toxic and hostile communication. The findings highlight how platformed attention structures vulnerability in digital campaigning and how visibility, while essential for political competition, can come at substantial democratic costs.
with Jasmin Riedl, Elisa Volpi, and Constantin Wurthmann
This project examines whether social media communication can help detect emerging party fragmentation before formal political splits occur. Using computational analysis, stance detection, and machine learning on X/Twitter data from Die Linke and BSW politicians between 2017 and 2025, the study traces how online communication patterns, ideological clustering, and shifting discursive alignments preceded the formation of BSW. The findings highlight the potential of digital communication data as an early warning system for intra-party conflict, defection, and political realignment.
with Dolores Modic and Karin Dobravc Škof
This project examines how narratives surrounding quantum technologies emerge, diffuse, and stabilize across political, economic, scientific, media, and public arenas under conditions of radical uncertainty. Using more than 210,000 posts from public and elite communication on X/Twitter between 2016 and 2025, the study analyzes which actors drive attention to specific quantum-related narratives and when other actors follow. The findings highlight how emerging technologies depend not only on scientific progress and investment, but also on communicative coordination across innovation systems and broader societal legitimacy.
Drews, W., Dobravc Škof, K., & Modic, D. (2026). Monitoring Innovation Dynamics: A Multilingual Social Media Dataset on Quantum Technologies. In Proceedings of the 10th International Scientific Conference on the Development of Industrial Engineering: Opportunities, Potentials, and Challenges for the Green Transition through the Use of Artificial Intelligence. Novo mesto: Faculty of Industrial Engineering Novo mesto. Retrieved via: https://www.fini-unm.si/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Zbornik-10.-mednarodne-znanstvene-konference.pdf
Riedl, J., Drews, W., Dafnos, A., & Neumeier, A. (2026). Temporal Stability and Cross-Topic Re-Emergence of Ideological Divides on X. Informtaion, Communication & Society, 1-20. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2026.2659287
Brockmann, H., Drews, W., Fierro, P., Frese, J., Triana, D. (2026). Political Elites and Polarization: Understanding Political Discourse in the European Parliament During Turbulent Times. In M.A. Keijzer, J. Lorenz, M. Bojanowski (Eds), Computational Social Science of Social Cohesion and Polarization. Cham: Springer. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-01373-6_6
Müller, A., Riedl, J., Drews, W., Steup, J., Neumeier, A. (2026). NRW22-Stance: Dataset for Continuous Multi-target Stance Detection Towards German Political Actors. In K. Arai et al. (Eds), Proceedings of the Future Technologies Conference (FTC) 2025, Volume 1. FTC 2025. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 1675. Cham: Springer. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-07986-2_36
Darius, P., Drews, W., Neumeier, A., & Riedl, J. (2025). Radical populist parties receive greater audience support on social media: A cross-platform analysis of digital campaigning for the 2024 European Parliament election [Preprint]. OSF Preprints. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/42vfx_v1
Drews, W., Riedl, J., & Steup, J. (2025). Topical Negative Campaigning Under Spatial Pressure: Party-Level Strategies for Attacks Across Multiple Issues. German Politics, 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644008.2025.2561584
Darius, P., Drews, W., Neumeier, A., & Riedl, J. (2024). The EUDigiParty data set: The digital campaigning presence of 401 political parties during the European Parliament election 2024 including websites and social media handles on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X/Twitter, and YouTube. Harvard Dataverse V1. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/U6UWPN,
Riedl, J., Drews, W., & Richter, F. (2024). Avoiding the Elephant in the Room: Echo Chambers and the (De-)Politicization of COVID-19 during the 2021 German Election on Twitter. Front. Polit. Sci. Sec. Politics of Technology 6. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2024.1509981
Christlmaier, R., Drews, W., Müller, A., Neumeier, A., Riedl, J., & Steup, J. (2023). Twitter/X Accounts of the Candidates in the 2023 German State Election of Bavaria. Data File Version 1.0.0. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7802/2608
Drews, W. (2022). E-Expression in a Comparative Perspective: Contextual Drivers and Constraints of Online Political Expression. Political Research Exchange 4(1). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2022.2083520
Drews, W., Müller, A., Neumeier, A., Riedl, J., & Steup, J. (2022). Twitter Accounts of the Candidates in the 2022 German State Election of North Rhine-Westphalia. Data File Version 1.0.0. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7802/2468
Müller, A., Riedl, J., & Drews, W. (2022). Real-Time Stance Detection and Issue Analysis of the 2021 German Federal Election Campaign on Twitter. In M. Janssen et al. (Eds), Electronic Government, EGOV 2022, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 13391 (pp. 125-146). Cham: Springer. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15086-9_9
Ceron, A., Curini, L., & Drews, W. (2022). Short-Term Issue Emphasis on Twitter During the 2017 German Election: A Comparison of the Economic Left-Right and Socio-Cultural Dimensions. German Politics 31(3), 420-439. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09644008.2020.1836161
Brockmann, H., Drews, W., & Torpey, J. (2021). A Class for Itself? On the World Views of the New Tech Elite. PLoS ONE 16(1): e0244071. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244071
Drews, W. (2020). Digital Politics Across Contexts, Social Media, Parties and Citizens: Technological Opportunities and Challenges in Modern Democracies. [Doctoral dissertation, European University Institute]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2870/188696
Riedl, J., Drews, W., Jager, A., & Kurze, K. (2016). Krisen- und Risikokommunikation bei Hochwasser- und Unwetterereignissen. ZA6440 Datenfile Version 1.0.0. Köln: GESIS Datenarchiv.
Jager, A., Riedl, J., Kurze, K., & Drews, W. (2016). Krisen- und Risikokommunikation im Baulichen Bevölkerungsschutz. Mehr als ein rationaler Diskurs. 2. aktualisierte Auflage. Neubiberg: Universität der Bundeswehr München.
Drews, W., Jager, A., & Kurze, K. (2016). Das Hochwasser in Deutschland 2013. Eine qualitative Analyse der Krisen- und Risikokommunikation. Neubiberg: Universität der Bundeswehr München.
Drews, W., Jager, A., & Münch, U. (2015). Paradigmenwechsel im Hochwasserschutz: Die europäische Hochwasserrisikomanagement-Richtlinie und ihre Umsetzung in der BRD. In Europäisches Zentrum für Föderalismus-Forschung Tübingen (Ed.), Jahrbuch des Föderalismus 2015 (458-472). Baden-Baden: Nomos.
Drews, W., Jager, A., & Münch, U. (2014). Land (und Föderalismus) unter? Chancen und Grenzen des Hochwasserschutzes im föderalen System der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. In Europäisches Zentrum für Föderalismus-Forschung Tübingen (Ed.), Jahrbuch des Föderalismus 2014 (159-173). Baden-Baden: Nomos.
Drews, W. (2013). A Functional Perspective on Post-Communist Civil Society: Contentious Activities and Internet Activism in Latvia. Abgerufen über: http://cbs.ut.ee/index.php/current/defended