On May 20, 2025, Marcel Erik Lemmer and Ioannis Theocharis will give a guest lecture at the Centre for Distancing from Extremism (FEX) – a project of the Democracy Centre Baden-Württemberg. FEX is hosted by the State Association for Mobile Youth Work / Streetwork Baden-Württemberg e. V. and focuses on the prevention of political and religious extremism.
The event is part of the expert lecture series within the framework of DEMOS – Democracy, Empathy, Participation, Openness and Solidarity, funded by the federal programme Demokratie leben! (Live Democracy!). Lemmer and Theocharis will present key findings from their research on the TikTok platform.
This lecture contributes to extremism prevention and the promotion of democratic values by highlighting how extremist actors use social media – but also what democratic counterstrategies are possible. The two researchers demonstrate how TikTok is becoming a space for a new form of youth-led public discourse, revealing novel dynamics and opportunities for political engagement.
Event Description:
TikTok is often suspected of giving disproportionate reach to extremist content and fostering political radicalization. But is that really the case? And how exactly does it work? Marcel Erik Lemmer and Ioannis Theocharis wanted to find out – and what they discovered was surprising. While much is said about filter bubbles and algorithmic radicalization, the reality also reveals a different picture. The platform not only provides space for extremes but also enables democratic discourse and an unexpected diversity of perspectives. Stitches, livestreams, and interactive formats create new contact points between political camps – connections that often don’t happen offline.
What does this mean for our democracy? And how can we, as a society, leverage platform logics to make democratic content more visible? The lecture offers insights into current research findings and explores how TikTok is shaping a new public sphere – with emerging forms of political debate, surprising dynamics, and pressing questions that deserve our attention.
About the Speakers:
Marcel Erik Lemmer is a research associate at Karlshochschule International University. He studies statehood, civil society, and extremist movements and is the founder of the Junge Demokratiestiftung (Young Democracy Foundation).
Ioannis Theocharis is also a research associate at Karlshochschule. His work focuses on ecological and political economy and the mental infrastructures that maintain systemic path dependencies.
