Online Communities and Crowds in the Rise of the Five Star Movement - Softcover

Bailo, Francesco

Softcover

ISBN 10: 3030455106 ISBN 13: 9783030455101

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021

Synopsis

This book reflects on the political capacity of citizen users to impact politics, explaining the danger in assuming that mass online participation has unconditionally democratising effects. Focusing on the case of Italy's Five Star Movement, the book argues that Internet participation is naturally unequal and, without normative and strong design efforts, Internet platforms can generate noisy, undemocratic crowds instead of self-reflexive, norm-bounded communities. The depiction of a democratising Internet can be easily exploited by those who manage these platforms to sell crowds as deliberating publics. As the Internet, almost everywhere, turns into the primary medium for political engagement, it also becomes the symbol of what is wrong with politics. Internet users experience unprecedented, instantaneous and personalised access to information and communication and, by comparison, they feel a much stronger level of irrelevance in the existing political system.

About this title

About the Author

Francesco Bailo is Lecturer of Digital and Social Media at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia. His research focuses on the use of digital and social media in politics. He obtained his PhD in 2017 at the University of Sydney, Australia.

From the Back Cover

This book reflects on the political capacity of citizen users to impact politics, explaining the danger in assuming that mass online participation has unconditionally democratising effects. Focusing on the case of Italy's Five Star Movement, the book argues that Internet participation is naturally unequal and, without normative and strong design efforts, Internet platforms can generate noisy, undemocratic crowds instead of self-reflexive, norm-bounded communities. The depiction of a democratising Internet can be easily exploited by those who manage these platforms to sell crowds as deliberating publics. As the Internet, almost everywhere, turns into the primary medium for political engagement, it also becomes the symbol of what is wrong with politics. Internet users experience unprecedented, instantaneous and personalised access to information and communication and, by comparison, they feel a much stronger level of irrelevance in the existing political system.

Edition details

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3030455106
• ISBN 13: 9783030455101
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 264