Political Turbulence

This chapter argues that social media drives change by allowing new “tiny acts” of political participation in support of a social or political cause, such as sharing, liking, viewing, or following. While most of these “microdonations” of time and effort rapidly decay, they occasionally and unpredictably scale up to massive support for a political or social movement campaigning for policy change. Drawing on their computational social science research, the authors see that such mobilizations bring turbulence to contemporary politics. The findings reveal social media platforms as important actors in contemporary politics, shaping political behavior and the practice of politics, challenging political institutions and requiring new political science concepts and research methods.