From criticism to conspiracies: The populist discourse of COVID-19 sceptics in Germany’s Querdenken community on Telegram

Telegram is a central space for unifying far-right actors and ideology, activists and movements, alternative media, conspiracies, and Coronavirus scepticism. While much research has focused on network dynamics and topic modelling, there is a scarcity of large scale, in-depth content analyses. The present research examines this environment through a semi-automated content analysis of German COVID-19 protest movement Querdenken on Telegram, to determine discursive features of the politicisation of this public health crisis within Querdenken’s communities. The analysis of 1.4 million chat messages shows that key elements of right-wing populist discourse can be detected in several sub-communities. The people and the homeland are antagonised by the corrupt, oppressive elite. Within this environment, politicised anti-COVID-19 restrictions narratives combine with populist discourse, distributed from Querdenken channels via general information channels, connecting to activist, protest, news, lawyer, and doctor-themed chats. Within these channels, external links lead towards publications promoting far-right ideology and conspiracies.