Online Public Opinion and Refugee Allocation. Assessment of the Impact of Refugee Facilities on Individual Expression of Political Views on Twitter

Abstract

How does the allocation of refugees in geographic proximity affect natives' engagement with the refugee topic? In this study I investigate this question, leveraging the recent increase in refugee numbers in Germany and the subsequent opening of large refugee facilities. Relying on a large random sample of German Twitter users and using their Twitter posts to measure engagement with the refugee topic, I investigate how individual users react to the opening of facilities in their geographic proximity. I find that users are more likely to talk about the topic shortly before the facility opens. I additionally present evidence that subjects speak more negatively about the topic before the opening as compared to after the opening of the facility. Besides these substantive contributions, this study offers a template on how to use social media data to study public attention and public opinion on localized events.