"Internet, you old influencer"

Digital media as opinion-makers – a brief analysis and invitation to debate

50 minutes – that's how long YouTuber Rezo's video "The Destruction of the CDU" lasted. Over 15 million views can be counted for the self-proclaimed destructive piece. And a considerable proportion of those viewers will have watched the video to the end. A miracle in an age where the answer "I watched the trailer" counts as yes to the question "Have you seen the film XY?" 

Politics responds with threatened censorship and embarrassing mirror tactics. "Rezo, you old destroyer", is how the never-published response video by young politician Philipp Amthor allegedly began, according to his own account. Had Amthor dyed his hair blue, it would have been no less striking. 

In general, the people's party responds to the digital attack with helplessness and bewilderment, takes far too long with its response, which finally culminates in a statement by CDU leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer.

Although she initially criticises her own party's reaction speed and admits mistakes, she accuses the YouTuber of digital "opinion-making before the election". It is true that the video is well-timed before the European election and generates more attention and reach than any image video of the parties standing for election combined. And no newspaper article or piece from journalistic hands can keep up, at least with the young target audience. But that's how media works, not just digital media: the greater the personal and temporal relevance, the greater the interest.
The CDU leader compares Rezo's call and the 70 other YouTubers who had joined the call by the time of her response with the analogue union of 70 newspaper editorial offices, well aware of the fact that the self-understanding of German journalists has established impartiality as common sense. In doing so, she sells the image of newspapers as a "credible" medium against digital platforms, completely ignoring the fact that the "profession" of journalist is not tied to his medium and its relevance for opinion-formation is not tied to reach. 

Quite apart from the fact that freedom of opinion and press enshrined in Article 5 of the Basic Law grants those fictional 70 newspaper reactions this right: to express themselves together negatively about a party when it happens independently of state regulation or overarching control.

However, Kramp-Karrenbauer draws from this comparison the legitimation to dismiss Rezo's video as "opinion-making" and therefore seriously considers consequences:

 "What are rules from the analogue sphere and which rules also apply to the digital sphere? (…) a very fundamental question that we will discuss, not just in the CDU, but in the entire media policy and democratic theory discussion of the coming time. And that is why we will also approach this discussion very offensively."

Those who can read between the lines hear a great deal of desire and drive for regulation here. And with that come legislative changes. But what does Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer have in mind when she speaks of regulation? 

Even though the European election is now almost a month in the past and media attention has long since turned to the next CDU woman, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, albeit for the wrong and selfish reasons, has raised a point of greatest relevance to today's society and will be:

The field of opinion-formation has long since ceased to be limited to (state-regulated) school education and the press as the fourth estate and recognised control unit of democracy.
Digital media and the Internet in particular create a space in which everyone becomes a potential opinion-maker. Whether friends, actors or companies, everything blurs into a potential source of influential thought, amplified by the social power of the psychological effectiveness of likes and the feeling of being seen. Transcending country and societal boundaries.

Now the Internet has long since ceased to be the lawless space it once understood itself to be and must willy-nilly conform to societal and capitalist norms: 

Once through politics itself, as the recent debate on Article 13 of the EU copyright reform shows, and once through the large Internet companies that decide what we see on the Internet: 

It is no accident that there is the macabre saying: If you want to hide a corpse, do it best on page two of the Google search. 

The same applies especially to social media: play by their rules and you will be seen or not.

Rezo himself is to be cited as an example: It is no accident that his video is called "The Destruction of the CDU" and not "Suggestions for Improvement for a Restructuring of the Politics of the Christian Democratic Union". 

Now at this point the question of possible regulation by politics can be raised: How can politics intervene here to regulate such mechanisms that favour certain information and steer in a one-sided manner?

The answer sounds as simple as it is banal: operate on an equal footing, learn yourself how to deal with digital media by consulting experts who know how the Internet and its technologies work. And then by all means regulation can take place where regulation must take place, to let the Internet be a place in which democracy and freedom of opinion find their very own form, in which truly everyone can have their say and be heard.

Viktoria Horn