Disintermediation in social networks: conceptualizing political actors' construction of publics on Twitter

While often treated as distinct, both politics and journalism share in their histories a need for a public that is not naturally assembled and needs instead to be "constructed". In earlier times the role of mediating politics to publics often fell to news media, which were also dependent on constructing a "public" for their own viability. It is hardly notable to say this has changed in a digital age, and in the way social media have allowed politicians and political movements to speak to their own publics bypassing news voices is a clear example of this. We show how both established politics a... Mehr ...