Social Media, Politics and

the state
Protest, Revolutions, Riots, Crime and Policing in the age of
Facebook, Twitter and Youtube

-Daniel Trottier
-Christian Fuchs
 Daniel Trottier
Associate Professor at the Department of Media and
Communication of Erasmus University Rotterdam.

PhD in Sociology at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada.

MA in Sociology at Concordia University, Canada.
BA in Psychology and Sociology at McGill University, Canada.

His current research considers the use of digital media for the
purposes of scrutiny, denunciation and shaming.

Social Media as Surveillance in 2012.

Identity Problems in the Facebook Era, 2013.

Social Media, Politics and the State (co-edited with Christian

Fuchs) in 2014.
 Christian Fuchs (1976)
Professor of Social Media and Professor of Media,
Communication & Society at the University of Westminster,
London.

Was Professor of Media Systems and Media Organisation at

Paderborn University in Germany

Editor of the open access journal

tripleC: Communications, Capitalism & Critique.

Co-founder of the ICTs and Society-network which is a worldwide

interdisciplinary network of researchers who study how society and
digital media interact

In his 2014 book Social Media: A Critical Introduction, Fuchs expressed

criticism towards media scholar Henry Jenkins and his 2007 book
Convergence Culture, in which Jenkins explores participation in
culture, for having excluded factors such as power and equality in his
analysis and stated that Jenkins is a "cultural reductionist"
 What is social media?

Cognition - Durkheim (social facts) Facebook, Twitter or Youtube (SNS)

1- Construct a public or semi public

profile within a bounded system
Communication - Weber (social action)
2- Articulate a list of users with whom
they share a connection

3- View and traverse their list of

Cooperation - Marx (collaborative work) connections and those made by others
within the system
 Social Network Sites - Community
integrate different media

information and communication technologies

generate profiles

display Information that describes the users and connections list

connections between users and their connections

communication between users

 What is modern society?

Different social roles and different spheres

Economic: Capitalistic way to organize (production, distribution,

consumption)

State: Guarantee the reproduction of the existing social order

Cultural: Intimacy (family, emotional, sexual relationships)

 society
Civil Society:
Associational networks that
articulate political interest
State Economy
and confront the state with
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demands arising from the
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lifeworlds of various groups

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Civil Sphere
sociocul

Power
tural

Culture

Movements

Cognition - Communication - cooperation

 society
Media:
Structures that enable and constrain
human information processes of
State Economy cognition, communication and
cooperation, which are practices that
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produce and reproduce informational

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structures
Civil Sphere
sociocul
tural

Three organizational forms

of media:
Culture Socioeconomic
Sociopolitical
Sociocultural

Cognition - Communication - cooperation

 society
Media

State Economy
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so
Civil Sphere profile profile
sociocul
tural

Culture
profile

Cognition - Communication - cooperation

State Media
Codependency
Power Corporate

Policy Power
State Media
Codependency
Power Corporate

Policy Power
society