Trump's unexpected success in the 2016 election suggests that Twitter can be a forum for a new kind of politics. This media celebrity has shown how the presentation of self and politics can merge in digital media as easily as on television, which has dominated American politics for decades.

The Performance of Identity

dana boyd discusses her book on social media and identity, It's Complicated (2015).
Sherry Turkle discusses her more skeptical views of social media in a TED Talk.

Social Media and Weak Stories

The Social Network (2010): a strong Hollywood narrative about the most important digital platform for weak narratives.

Digital Identity and Identity Politics

Eli Pariser's 2011 TED Talk was an early description of the problem that digital media promote filter bubbles.

The Wall Street Journal's Red Feed Blue Feed shows these bubbles side by side: http://graphics.wsj.com/blue-feed-red-feed/. The site still works and remains illuminating as it contrasts issue framing.

Social Media and Collective Action

A flash mob protest at Target.

Anonymous

  • The infamous 4chan b board (if you need help finding it).
  • Wikileaks continues to publish confidential documents from government sources around the world.
The trailer for V for Vendetta (2005): the revolutionary speech.

Weak Narrative and American Politics

Arlie Russell Hochschild discusses Strangers in Their Own Land (2016).