International Journal of Communication
Publishes a Special Section on
Platform Politics in Europe

This Special Section on Platform Politics in Europe: Bridging Gaps Between Digital Activism and Digital Democracy  brings together six original papers plus an editorial introduction on the emerging research area of platform politics.

On one hand, from a sociopolitical perspective, platform politics points to the increasing use in the political arena of online participation platforms to organize a variety of activities, including mass protests, political campaigns, party primaries, crowdsourced lawmaking experiments, referendums, participatory budgeting processes, and so on. On the other hand, from a media studies perspective, platform politics suggests that the affordances of participation platforms have a politics of their own, which precedes their sociopolitical uses.

Guest-edited by Marco Deseriis and Davide Vittori, this Special Section combines these two perspectives by focusing on a range of case studies which show how European citizens utilize social media platforms and digital democracy platforms to challenge or engage in dialogue with elected representatives, state officials, and party elites. In this sense, platform politics fulfills a second important bridging function, which is to bring together two strands of scholarship that historically belong in separate niches: the scholarship on digital democracy and the scholarship on digital activism. Through a range of contributions from European scholars in the fields of media studies, sociology, political science and communication studies, this collection of work advances our understanding of the impact of social media platforms and digital democracy platforms on four distinct but strictly related sociopolitical processes: political representation, deliberation, social learning, and grassroots activism.

We invite you to read this new Special Section of seven articles in the International Journal of Communication  that published October 30, 2019. Please Ctrl+Click  on the titles below for direct hyperlinking. We look forward to your feedback!

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Platform Politics in Europe: Bridging Gaps between Digital Activism and Digital Democracy at the Close of the Long 2010s — Introduction
Marco Deseriis, Davide Vittori

Self-Appointed Representatives on Facebook: The Case of the Belgian Citizen
Platform for Refugee Support
Louise Knops, Eline Severs

Cuing Collective Outcomes on Twitter: A Qualitative Reading of Movement Social Learning
Dan Mercea, Helton Levy

A Tale of Three Platforms: Collaboration, Contestation, and Degrees of Audibility
in a Bulgarian e-Municipality
Maria Petrova Bakardjieva

A Model for the Analysis of Online Citizen Deliberation: Barcelona Case Study
Rosa Borge Bravo, Joan Balcells, Albert Padró-Solanet

The Impact of Online Participation Platforms on the Internal Democracy of Two Southern European Parties, Podemos and the Five Star Movement
Marco Deseriis, Davide Vittori

E-Democracy and Digital Activism: From Divergent Paths Toward A New Frame
Emiliana De Blasio, Michele Sorice

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Larry Gross
Editor

Arlene Luck
Managing Editor

Marco Deseriis, Davide Vittori
Guest Editors