Managing Democracy in the Digital Age: Internet Regulation, Social Media Use, and Online Civic Engagement

Description

In light of the increased utilization of information technologies, such as social media and the ‘Internet of Things,’ this book investigates how this digital transformation process creates new challenges and opportunities for political participation, political election campaigns and political regulation of the Internet. Within the context of Western democracies and China, the contributors analyze these challenges and opportunities from three perspectives: the regulatory state, the political use of social media, and through the lens of the public sphere. The first part of the book discusses key challenges for Internet regulation, such as data protection and censorship, while the second addresses the use of social media in political communication and political elections. In turn, the third and last part highlights various opportunities offered by digital media for online civic engagement and protest in the public sphere. Drawing on different academic fields, including political science, communication science, and journalism studies, the contributors raise a number of innovative research questions and provide fascinating theoretical and empirical insights into the topic of digital transformation. Front Matter ....Pages i-xi Digital Transformation: New Opportunities and Challenges for Democracy? (Julia Schwanholz, Todd Graham)....Pages 1-7 Front Matter ....Pages 9-9 Internet Censorship in Liberal Democracies: Learning from Autocracies? (Andreas Busch, Patrick Theiner, Yana Breindl)....Pages 11-28 The Emergence and Analysis of European Data Protection Regulation (Murat Karaboga)....Pages 29-52 Internet Policy and German Copyright Regulation. A Subsystem Perspective to Assess Changes in Interest Group Dynamics and Policy-Making (Stefan Lindow)....Pages 53-74 Front Matter ....Pages 75-75 Parliaments 2.0? Digital Media Use by National Parliaments in the EU (Patrick Theiner, Julia Schwanholz, Andreas Busch)....Pages 77-95 Much Ado About Nothing? The Use of Social Media in the New Digital Agenda Committee of the German Bundestag (Julia Schwanholz, Brenda Moon, Axel Bruns, Felix Münch)....Pages 97-118 Social Media Logic and Its Impact on Political Communication During Election Times (Pieter Verdegem, Evelien D’heer)....Pages 119-135 The Personal in the Political on Twitter: Towards a Typology of Politicians’ Personalized Tweeting Behaviours (Todd Graham, Daniel Jackson, Marcel Broersma)....Pages 137-157 Social Media Sourcing Practices: How Dutch Newspapers Use Tweets in Political News Coverage (Bert Jan Brands, Todd Graham, Marcel Broersma)....Pages 159-178 Front Matter ....Pages 179-179 New Rituals for Public Connection: Audiences’ Everyday Experiences of Digital Journalism, Civic Engagement, and Social Life (Joëlle Swart, Chris Peters, Marcel Broersma)....Pages 181-199 Social Media as Civic Space for Media Criticism and Journalism Hate (Göran Svensson)....Pages 201-221 Lurkers and the Fantasy of Persuasion in an Online Cultural Public Sphere (Jakob Svensson)....Pages 223-241 Environmental Talk in the Chinese Green Public Sphere: A Comparative Analysis of Daily Green-Speak Across Three Chinese Online Forums (Yu Sun, Todd Graham, Marcel Broersma)....Pages 243-263 Afterword: Clinton, Trump, and Artificial Intelligence (Einar Thorsen)....Pages 265-270