Re/constructing politics through social & online media: Discourses, ideologies, and mediated political practices

In recent years, the connection between online and in particular social media and politics has become one of the central ones in contemporary societies, and has been explored very widely in political research and media and communication studies. Against such growing body of research, this Special Issue foregrounds the role of language as a key carrier of political ideologies and practices on social and online media. It aims to advance the scholarly understanding of contemporary political and democratic dynamics by postulating the need for a broader, problem-driven look at how political practices and ideologies are articulated on social and online media. It illustrates the value of a cross-disciplinary take that allows overcoming both the classic (e.g. qualitative vs. quantitative) and the more recent (e.g. small vs. big data) divides in explorations of the language of online and politics.