Download or read book Civic Participation in Contentious Politics written by Dan Mercea and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-06-17 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book examines the highly dynamic communication ecology of recent contentious politics and its expanding digital footprint. First, it looks at the attainment of democratic citizenship through practice as street protests attract substantial numbers of followers who narrate their involvement or reflect on the claims and the implications of collective action on social media. Secondly, it considers the ramifications for contemporary democracy arising from the large-scale uptake of social media by variegated protest networks, which no longer pivot on the coordination capacity of bureaucratic movement organizations. The book ties these aspects together to propose that contentious politics can be a fertile ground for progressive civic participation.