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Who Is the Volk? PEGIDA and the Contested Memory of 1989 on Social Media
Umeå University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Sociology. (DIGSUM)ORCID iD: 0000-0002-9572-5922
2020 (English)In: Social Movements, Cultural Memory and Digital Media: Mobilising Mediated Remembrance / [ed] Samuel Merrill, Emily Keightley, Priska Daphi, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020, 1, p. 59-84Chapter in book (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

This chapter examines how the German right-wing populist movement PEGIDA appropriated the memory of the East German democratic opposition of 1989 and claimed to represent the German people through the use of the slogan Wir sind das Volk—We are the People. PEGIDA used this slogan alongside other mnemonic appropriations in an initial bid to create a ‘reputational shield’ that could deflect from its far-right, xenophobic and Islamophobic elements. Although this tactic proved relatively successful on Facebook, through an empirical analysis of over 1000 tweets, this chapter shows that PEGIDA’s use of the slogan was quickly met with resistance not only in the streets but also on Twitter, where social media users expressed anti-PEGIDA views and challenged the movement’s claims to represent the Volk.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Palgrave Macmillan, 2020, 1. p. 59-84
National Category
Media and Communications Human Geography Sociology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-168702DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-32827-6_3ISI: 000839317900003Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85144066335ISBN: 978-3-030-32826-9 (print)ISBN: 978-3-030-32827-6 (electronic)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:umu-168702DiVA, id: diva2:1412373
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MemoriUMAvailable from: 2020-03-05 Created: 2020-03-05 Last updated: 2026-02-24Bibliographically approved

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Merrill, Samuel

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