num_pages: 208
description: Tweets and the Streets analyses the culture of the new protest movements of the 21st century. From the Arab Spring to the 'indignados' protests in Spain and the Occupy movement Paolo Gerbaudo examines the relationship between the rise of social media and the emergence of new forms of protest. Gerbaudo argues that activists' use of Twitter and Facebook does not fit with the image of a 'cyberspace' detached from physical reality. Instead social media is used as part of a project of re-appropriation of public space which involves the assembling of different groups around 'occupied' places such as Cairos Tahrir Square or New Yorks Zuccotti Park. An exciting and invigorating journey through the new politics of dissent Tweets and the Streets points both to the creative possibilities and to the risks of political evanescence which new media brings to the contemporary protest experience.
language: English
title: Tweets and the Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism
publisher: Pluto Press