Power Shift? Political Leadership and Social Media

Description

Power Shift? Political Leadership and Social Media examines how political leaders have adapted to the challenges of social media, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and memes, among other means of persuasion. Established political leaders now use social media to grab headlines, respond to opponents, fundraise, contact voters directly, and organize their election campaigns. Leaders of protest movements have used social media to organize and galvanize grassroots support and to popularize new narratives: narratives that challenge and sometimes overturn conventional thinking. Yet each social media platform provides different affordances and different attributes, and each is used differently by political leaders. In this book, leading international experts provide an unprecedented look at the role of social media in leadership today. Through a series of case studies dealing with topics ranging from Emmanuel Macron and Donald Trump's use of Twitter, to Justin Trudeau's use of selfies and Instagram, to how feminist leaders mobilize against stereotypes and injustices, the authors argue that many leaders have found additional avenues to communicate with the public and use power. This raises the question of whether this is causing a power shift in the relationship between leaders and followers. Together the chapters in this book suggest new rules of engagement that leaders ignore at their peril. The lack of systematic theoretically informed and empirically supported analyses makes Power Shift? Political Leadership and Social Media an indispensable read for students and scholars wishing to gain new understanding on what social media means for leadership. Cover Half Title Title Copyright Contents List of Figures List of Tables 1 Political Leaders and Social Media: An Introduction PART 1 Leaders and the New Instruments of Media Persuasion 2 The President Tweets the Press: President—Press Relations and the Politics of Media Degradation 3 Vulgar Eloquence in the Digital Age: A Case Study of Candidate Donald Trump's Use of Twitter 4 "Delete Your Account"? Hillary Rodham Clinton Across Social Media Platforms in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election 5 The Visually Viral Prime Minister: Justin Trudeau, Selfies, and Instagram 6 Tweeting the Agenda: Policy Making and Agenda Setting by U.S. Congressional Leaders in the Age of Social Media PART 2 Twitter, Leaders, and Populism 7 Populism and Social Media Popularity: How Populist Communication Benefits Political Leaders on Facebook and Twitter 8 A Marriage of Twitter and Populism in the French Presidential Campaign? The Twitter-Discourse of Challengers Macron and Le Pen 9 Political Communication Patterns and Sentiments Across Time on Twitter in the 2017 Election in the Netherlands PART 3 Social Media and Grassroots Politics 10 'Twitter was Like Magic!': Strategic Use of Social Media in Contemporary Feminist Activism 11 #Unsettling Canada 150, One Tweet at a Time: How Indigenous Leaders Use Twitter to Resist and Reframe Mainstream News in Canada 12 Fanning Flames of Discontent: A Case Study of Social Media, Populism, and Campaigning 13 Not a Leader! Theresa May's Leadership Through the Lens of Internet Memes 14 Twitter and Student Leadership in South Africa: The Case of #FeesMustFall Conclusion About the Contributors Index