Chris Liebold
Recent statements by the Lord Mayor of Tübingen, Boris Palmer, have been criticized throughout Germany. In an interview with the German Press Agency dpa, communications researcher Martin Löffelholz of the Ilmenau University of Technology analyzes the public discourse and Palmer's responsibility.
When someone like Boris Palmer publicly uses terms that have long been classified as racist, the short message service Twitter provides the forum in which critics gather at a rapid pace, Löffelholz said. Media pick up on this, report on it, and thus further intensify the criticism. Other opinions and a differentiated debate would often be left out. "But an experienced politician like Boris Palmer has to reckon with that. If he did not use borderline or even clearly racist terms, he would generate less attention, but he would also have fewer problems," says the expert.
Excerpts from the interview can be found at Zeit online, among others:
https://www.zeit.de/news/2023-05/03/experte-palmers-provokationen-schadeten-der-sache