Paper short abstract:

Recently Germany has witnessed the emergence of new configurations of political actors brought together based on hearsay, half-knowledge or even lies. My aim is to understand how and why these phenomena can be successful in mobilizing people and why counterstrategies of falsifying seem to fail.

Paper long abstract:

The arrival of thousands of migrants in autumn 2015 marks a decisive turning point for the right wing backlash that Germany witnessed in the last years. Ever since one can witness a discoursive explosion of refugee-related topics, many of them are highly emotionalized. This forms the background for a growing phenomenon of racist rumors about refugees and migrants. Whether it is the story of shoplifting migrants causing small businesses to go bankrupt, alleged acts of physical violence or even accusations of refugees poaching animals in petting zoos: stories like these may be found in disjunct places, but many share strong similarities in their narrative patterns. Often enough these narrations are being transitioned into politically relevant events and it is surprising to observe how strategies of falsification seem to have almost no impact on the proponents of certain rumors. As many of these narrations are being distributed online, a widespread explanation sees their success mainly rooted in social media's algorithms, filterbubbles or echo chambers. An overemphasis of these technological aspects bears the risk of falling to short social and cultural dimensions are neglected. In this paper I will demonstrate how a narratological analysis of the patters of these rumors will contribute to a deeper understanding of how and why subjects believe even in the most dubious of tales.