Gaming the Political Arena: An Analysis of Political Messaging on Twitch in Germany

This exploratory study examines whether political content circulates on Twitch, a platform typically regarded as apolitical, and what this might mean for how young people, particularly young men, encounter political information. The authors argue that Twitch has become a strategic arena for parties, opinion leaders, and streamers who blend gaming with political debate, yet research on this intersection remains concentrated in the United States and Spain, leaving Germany and other European contexts underexplored. Drawing on incidental news exposure as a theoretical lens, the work positions Twitch as a potential channel through which political views are received peripherally rather than sought out deliberately.

The methodology centers on 22 of the most-followed German-speaking streamers with a clear gaming focus, 12 identifying as male and 10 as female, whose streams from January to March 2025 yielded 593 streams and associated chat logs. Using open-access API data, the researchers transcribe video with Whisper, extract topics through BERTopic, and apply network analysis of active chat users as an engagement metric. Engagement is then compared against overall viewer counts to assess how algorithmic curation may favor particular political topics.

The three guiding questions address which political topics appear in these streams, whether topics differ by streamer gender, and which subjects generate high audience engagement. The authors anticipate finding political content among creators who do not self-identify as political, along with gendered differences in content, political alignment, and sentiment. Planned later stages will examine populist messaging, disinformation, and real-time streamer-viewer interactions, with the broader aim of clarifying how gaming and political messaging combine to shape political opinion among young audiences.