Social Media and Politics in Central and Eastern Europe

The volume by Pawel Surowiec and Vaclav Stetka fills an important gap in the growing body of literature on the role of digital media in political life. In this literature, the experience of Central and Eastern Europe is largely missing. The contributions of this book provide fascinating insights into how political parties and social movements use social media in a world of institutional instability and the return of authoritarianism. The book highlights the importance of context for the understanding of online politics and is a must-read for everybody who seeks to explore the politics of social media outside the Western world. It's the similarities, not the expected differences, with the established democracies of the West that will surprise the reader. - Katrin Voltmer, Professor of Communication and Democracy, University of Leeds This book is a very timely and telling investigation of a convoluted and potentially troubling relation between democracy and practices of social media use in political processes. Shedding light on what is still largely and regretfully uncharted territory of political social media use in post-transitional Central and Eastern Europe, the volume highlights both the mobilisation potential of social media in political processes as well as the danger of proclamation of their uniform effects. As nine case studies from the region clearly demonstrate, adoption of new digitalised communication environments into the sphere of politics is best understood as a struggle - not only with political opponents, but also with technological affordances - a struggle as diverse as the political actors using them, and the region where they come from. - Ilija Tomanic Trivundza, President of European Communication Research and Education Association ECREA The rise of social media has changed patterns of political communication, and new patterns of political communication have altered the nature of political systems. Among other things, leaders can directly communicate with voters, undermining thereby the mediating role of traditional political parties. However, while social media are often seen as a means of maintaining the status quo and favouring incumbent political actors, they also are a potential means of mobilisation in support of newcomers and hence may challenge established actors. This excellent volume of collected studies by various authors looks into the uses of social media by political actors in some of the former communist countries and attempts to identify differences as well as recurring patterns across the region. - Peter Bajomi-Lazar, Budapest Business School