MOPS: Mapping the Social Media Presence and Digital Visibility of German MPs

Abstract Parliamentary communication increasingly takes place in a digital multiplatform environment. Yet we know little about the basic digital infrastructure of the digital presence of members of parliament (MPs) beyond specific platforms or the use during electoral campaigns. This research note introduces MOPS, a new dataset covering the social media presence of German Bundestag MPs across two parliamentary terms and 22 social media platforms. The dataset also includes key sociodemographic, regional, and political characteristics of the 999 unique MPs and 1,400 records of MPs serving in a specific legislative term across the 20th and 21st Bundestag. The note embeds the dataset in the literature on the political use of social media and MPs’ social media presence and within the existing dataset environment. I describe the MOPS dataset, discuss its measurement logic, and present first descriptive analyses of platform presence, platform diversity, and follower reach across legislative terms and within and across parties. The findings show that while social media presence is widespread among MPs, digital visibility remains highly uneven and platform specific.