The Routledge Companion to Social Media and Politics (Routledge Media and Cultural Studies Companions)

This updated and expanded second edition brings together cutting-edge research across six continents to provide a comprehensive, global, up-to-date review of political uses of social media. In its 32 chapters, this second edition of the Routledge Companion to Social Media and Politics covers the good, the bad, and the as yet uncertain of current developments in the uses of social media in political contexts, ten years on from the first book.It is organised in six sections: Concepts, Challenges, Policies, Problems, Platforms, and Possibilities, each featuring chapters by leading researchers in the field that address these themes from a wide variety of viewpoints.This edition arrives at a new critical point: generative AI and other emerging technologies may either accelerate the crises of disinformation, polarisation, and democratic decline, or open new spaces for civic innovation, regulation, and accountability.The politics of digital platforms remain unsettled, and this Companion provi