Social Media and Alternative Political Communication

Abstract

Social media have had a significant impact on alternative political communication. They have provided new platforms where alternative political actors can diffuse information, voice radical views and influence public discourse on political issues. Online platforms also operate as coordinating and organizing mechanisms for protests and campaigns, shaping the forms and characteristics of current activism. This panel investigates the implications of social media for alternative political communication by looking at how activist social media practices can produce a more decentralized, horizontal, and network-based mode of political engagement, as well as new forms of leadership and organizing. Papers also examine the circulation and diffusion of symbols and images facilitated by the web and social media. Together these papers trace the multiplex relationship between activism and social media as it unfolds both on the symbolic and the organizing level.