Politicians, Celebrities and Social Media

Nathan Manning and Ruth Penfold-Mounce have had a journal article published in Journal of Youth Studies. The article has been written over the last 2 years and is finally out! 

Ruth Penfold-Mounce

Nathan Manning

See the abstract below:

With electoral politics no longer organised by social class, politicians increasingly seek to relate to a broad spectrum of citizens and part of their relatability is conjured through more casual, informal performances aimed at cultivating authenticity. The various platforms of social media promote forms of authentic communication by blurring the public/private divide, creating ‘spontaneous’ and instant access to ‘real life’. This article seeks to investigate the informalization thesis (Wouters, 2007) by applying it to data from young people aged 16-21 years in Australia, the UK and the USA asked about the way politicians and celebrities use social media. Findings reveal respondents’ desire for more authentic and accessible politicians, but this was in direct tension with traditional views and expectations of politicians needing to be professional, informed and worthy of respect. Informalization amongst politicians is evident and welcomed by young citizens but persistent traditional views means it also threatens their credibility.

The article draws on original data gathered by Brian D. Loader, Ariadne Vromen and Michael Xenos as part of The Civic Network Project (Grant 201300029) funded by the Spencer Foundation.

Politics and the British Working Class

Tim Jones, one of our recent MA in Social Research graduates has published a piece in Discover Society that was inspired by his dissertation research.

Tim Jones

Click on the link to read 'Do I really wanna waffle on with people who are waffling on?' Politics and the British Working Class 

Follow Tim on twitter: @T1MJ0N35

Surveillance Society in Information, Communication and Society Journal

Rosie Smith, a first year doctoral student has had a book review published in Information, Communication and Society. She reviewed Monahan's (2013) SuperVision: an introduction to the surveillance society.

When asked why she has bothered to write a book review she says:

'Writing book reviews has been a great introductory way to ease myself in to publishing academic work. I’ve found it a good opportunity to read books that are both related to my thesis, but which also perhaps draw on wider themes that my research doesn’t necessarily always allow for. But more than this, it encourages me to critically engage with a piece of literature in its entirety, rather than favouring a more selective reading because of the time constraints of a PhD. As a result I feel am on a learning curve whereby I am constantly evaluating my work and thinking about my writing in a critical way, to ensure it strikes the balance between being academic, accessible, and clear. Not only is it a way of getting the odd free book, writing book reviews, so far, has been a friendly and less-pressurised way of entering the academic world.' 

Follow the link to access the review: SuperVision Review

New Research Centre!

Nisha Kapoor, Brian Loader and Nathan Manning are Co-Directors of the new Centre for Political Youth Culture and Communication (CPAC). The Centre is dedicated to exploring the socio-cultural factors influencing the civic engagement of young people and its means of communicative expression. Young networking citizens in many parts of the world today play a crucial role in shaping the future prospects for democratic societies. The styles, nature and means of their political engagement is therefore of increasing importance to policy-makers and academics alike. The Centre’s research is focused upon the communicative, emotional, embodied, and aesthetical modes of youth citizenship. Researchers examine the social construction of young people’s political identities within the context of widening social inequality, climate change, reflexive individualism and a networked media ecology. Find out more about the Centre by following this link - http://www.york.ac.uk/sociology/research/groups/cpac/

You can also follow CPAC on Twitter - @PoliticalYouth2

Grant Success - Brian Loader and Sian Beynon-Jones

Congratulations to Sian Beynon-Jones who is CoIlaborator on a newly awarded AHRC network 'Regulating time: New perspectives on law, regulation and temporalities', starting in February.  

The project is led by Emily Grabham at Kent Law School.

  

Congratulations are also offered to Brian Loader who has been awarded a British Academy small research grant to run the following symposium, 'Streets to Screens: Mediating Conflict Through Digital Networks' on 7th November.

Speakers Commission on Digital Democracy

Brian Loader appeared as an expert witness for the Speakers Commission on Digital Democracy on Tuesday 15 July. Details at
http://www.parliament.uk/business/commons/the-speaker/speakers-commission-on-digital-democracy/ddc-news/engagement-meeting/

The Commissioners heard contributions on engagement and facilitating dialogue amongst citizens, before opening up the meeting to a final 30 minute public question and answer session with the audience and via Twitter using #DDCEngage

The Networked Young Citizen: Social Media, Political Participation and Civic Engagement

A new book has been published by Routledge which has been edited by Brian D. Loader, Ariadne Vromen, and Michael Xenos

The Networked Young Citizen: Social Media, Political Participation and Civic Engagement

The future engagement of young citizens from a wide range of socio-economic, ethnic and cultural backgrounds in democratic politics remains a crucial concern for academics, policy-makers, civics teachers and youth workers around the world. At a time when the negative relationship between socio-economic inequality and levels of political participation is compounded by high youth unemployment or precarious employment in many countries, it is not surprising that new social media communications may be seen as a means to re-engage young citizens. This edited collection explores the influence of social media, such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, upon the participatory culture of young citizens.

This collection, comprising contributions from a number of leading international scholars in this field, examines such themes as the possible effects of social media use upon patterns of political socialization; the potential of social media to ameliorate young people’s political inequality; the role of social media communications for enhancing the civic education curriculum; and evidence for social media manifesting new forms of political engagement and participation by young citizens. These issues are considered from a number of theoretical and methodological approaches but all attempt to move beyond simplistic notions of young people as an undifferentiated category of ‘the internet generation’.

Copies of the book are available from the Routledge web site at http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9781138019997/