1. Mercea, Dan, and Brian Loader. 2012. Social Media and Democracy: Innovations in Participatory Politics. London: Routledge, 2012. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost(accessed February 5, 2018).

I took notes on the thirty-two-page preview of the ebook Social Media and Democracy: Innovations in Participatory Politics. After last week’s Lipson reading, I made a conscious effort to clearly distinguish the author’s language from my own. It is very easy to copy phrases when taking notes on literature, but I worked hard to think for myself about everything that I was noting. I also made a greater effort to be more concise with regard to my note taking, and I think I did a good job of avoiding copying unnecessary information. One thing that I found was that this style of note-taking took much longer than I had expected. Although time-consuming, Lipson’s advice forced me to think critically about what I was reading, which is definitely something that will benefit my research process. My note taking process is similar to Lipson’s in that we both emphasize focusing on the main points and paying close attention to detail. Although I do not have access to the entire book, this exercise showed me that it will be a useful resource when writing my thesis. (The format changed when I copied it into this post)

• Preface
  • Various authors perspectives on digital democracy
    • Optimistic- some say that it is improving participatory democracy
    • Pessimistic- disengagement of young citizens, lack of formal (voting) participation
  • 1
    • Initial Hope: new technologiesà improve open and equal deliberation between citizens and politicians
      • Fresh wave happening today, “second generation of internet democracy”
        • Existence of twitter, facebook, youtube, etc.–> more platforms than ever before
        • Moving away from traditional/restricted forms of rational deliberation
      • Citizens are at the heart of democratic innovation
        • Lifestyle and identity politics
      • Social Media Democracy
        • Mass media vs social media
        • Lack of need for professional journalist
        • Most active political users= social movement activists, politicians, party workers and those committed to political causes
        • What determines democratic activity?
          • More fluid definition now
            • Changing perceptions of citizens who are less politically inclined
            • Multitasking
          • Social media= disruptive for traditional practices and institutions
        • Social movements put democratic institutions at center of debate through networked communication
          • Social movements= social media in politics
        • Latest generation of communications technologies has inherent democratic capacities
        • Citizens challenge the monopoly control of media production
        • Vaccari
          • Media organizations promote own political agenda
            • Fake news
            • More important is the fact that mediaàpolitical participation
          • Charles Leadbeater
            • Idea of “mass collaboration” associated w the openness of social media
          • Anstead O’Loughlin and Ampofo
            • UK Twitter debates
            • Viewertariat: “growing constituency of citizen-users who actively engage in an often critical conversation about political content and its expert interpretation furnished to them by the media”
              • Interesting term, may be useful to reference in terms of the U.S. during 2016 presidential election
            • Tamara A. Small
              • Hashtags further divisions between parties, create unnecessary animosity
            • Internet= area for political participation for those who are otherwise unengaged
• Chapter 2
  • Government control= complex and dispersed
  • Social pressure
  • Political issues are related to popular social movements
  • Growing individualization
  • Personalized politics
• • Acknowledge negative campaigning and the encouragement of populist rhetoric and extremismà fosters celebrity politics
  • Democracy is in constant state of transformation
    • The emphasis on Social Media is a social movement-, social movements actively shape the structural conditions in which they operate
    • So if this is the case, then the increasing use of social media in the political sphere is constantly redefining democracy
  • Digital communication