Tweets and the Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism

Tweets and the Streets analyses the culture of the new protest movements of the 21st century. From the Arab Spring to the 'indignados' protests in Spain and the Occupy movement, Paolo Gerbaudo examines the relationship between the rise of social media and the emergence of new forms of protest.

Gerbaudo argues that activists' use of Twitter and Facebook does not fit with the image of a 'cyberspace' detached from physical reality. Instead, social media is used as part of a project of re-appropriation of public space, which involves the assembling of different groups around 'occupied' places such as Cairo's Tahrir Square or New York's Zuccotti Park.

An exciting and invigorating journey through the new politics of dissent, Tweets and the Streets points both to the creative possibilities and to the risks of political evanescence which new media brings to the contemporary protest experience.

Author: Paolo Gerbaudo
Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)
Published: 10/11/2012
Pages: 208
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.57lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.20w x 0.60d
ISBN: 9780745332482

About the Author

Paolo Gerbaudo is Lecturer in Digital Culture and Society at King's College London, and a freelance journalist. He was the UK correspondent of the Italian daily newspaper il manifesto.

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