Social Media and Everyday Politics

From selfies and memes to hashtags and parodies, social media are used for mundane and personal expressions of political commentary, engagement, and participation. The coverage of politics reflects the social mediation of everyday life, where individual experiences and thoughts are documented and shared online.

In Social Media and Everyday Politics, Tim Highfield examines political talk as everyday occurrences on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, Tumblr, Instagram, and more. He considers the personal and the political, the serious and the silly, and the everyday within the extraordinary, as politics arises from seemingly banal and irreverent topics. The analysis features international examples and evolving practices, from French blogs to Vines from Australia, via the Arab Spring, Occupy, #jesuischarlie, Eurovision, #blacklivesmatter, Everyday Sexism, and #illridewithyou.

This timely book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars in media and communications, internet studies, and political science, as well as general readers keen to understand our contemporary media and political contexts

Tim Highfield is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Sessional Academic at Queensland University of Technology Tim Highfield is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Sessional Academic at Queensland University of Technology

• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• List of Figures
• Introduction: Everyday Politics and Social Media
• Chapter One: Personal/Political
• Chapter Two: Political Rituals of Social Media
• Chapter Three: Media Politics
• Chapter Four: Breaking News, Scandals, and Crises
• Chapter Five: Collective and Connective Action
• Chapter Six: Partisan Politics and Politicians on Social Media
• Chapter Seven: The Everyday of Elections
• Conclusion: The Changing Face of Everyday Social Media and Everyday Politics
• Notes
• References