Social Media and European Politics: Rethinking Power and Legitimacy in the Digital Era

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.

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.