Social Media and European Politics, 1st ed. 2017 Rethinking Power and Legitimacy in the Digital Era Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology Series

This volume investigates the role of social media in European politics in changing the focus, frames and actors of public discourse around the EU decision-making process. Throughout the collection, the contributors test the hypothesis that the internet and social media are promoting a structural transformation of European public spheres which goes well beyond previously known processes of mediatisation  of EU politics. This transformation addresses more fundamental challenges in terms of changing power relations, through processes of active citizen empowerment and exertion of digitally networked counter-power by civil society, news media, and political actors, as well as rising contestation of representative legitimacy of the EU institutions. Social Media and European Politics offers a comprehensive approach to the analysis of political agency and social media in European Union politics, by bringing together scholarly works from the fields of public sphere theory, digital media, political networks, journalism studies, euroscepticism, political activism and social movements, political parties and election campaigning, public opinion and audience studies.

1. Do we need to rethink EU politics in the social media era? An introduction to the volume; Mauro Barisione and Asimina Michailidou.- 2. Social Media, Personalisation of News Reporting, and Media Systems’ Polarisation in Europe; Pablo Barberá, Cristian Vaccari and Augusto Valeriani.- 3. Engaging with European Politics through Twitter and Facebook: Participation beyond the National?; Michael Bossetta, Anamaria Dutceac Segesten and Hans-Jörg Trenz.- 4. A digital movement of opinion? Contesting austerity through social media; Mauro Barisione and Andrea Ceron.- 5. Building Contention Word-by-Word: Social Media Usage in the European Stop ACTA Movement; Dan Mercea.- 6. Campaigning for gender equality through social media: the European Women’s Lobby; Helena Seibicke.- 7. A framework for evaluating European social media publics: The case of the European Parliament’s Facebook page; Ancuța-Gabriela Tarța.- 8. Extreme Right, the Internet and European Politics in CEE countries:  the casesof Slovakia and the Czech Republic; Manuela Caiani and Alena Kluknavská.- 9. Social media as propaganda tools: the Greek conservative party and national elections; Yiannis Mylonas.- 10. Mediated Frustration and Self-legitimation; Terje Rasmussen.- 11. Twitter, public engagement and the Eurocrisis: More than an echo chamber?; Asimina Michailidou.- 12. Debating Responsibility on the Eurozone Crisis in Traditional Media Newspaper Reporting in Greece and Germany under a Social Media Lens; Jochen Roose, Moritz Sommer, Franziska Scholl, Maria Kousis, Kostas Kanellopoulos and Angelos Loukakis.

Mauro Barisione is Associate Professor in the Department of Social and Political Sciences at Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy. He is head of POMLAB (Public Opinion and Media Lab) and vice president of ITANES (Italian National Election Studies). His research focuses on public opinion and voting, political participation and social media, leadership and political communication.

Asimina Michailidou is Researcher in Political Communication at the ARENA Centre for European Studies in the University of Oslo, Norway. Her research specialises in political and crisis communication within digital public sphere formats, as well as in digital communication strategies of EU institutions.