Social Media and Politics Folgen

Tom Moylan, Communication Strategist at the Directorate-General for Communication at the European Commission, shares his personal reflections on EU digital communication. We discuss the value that social media can bring in communicating the European Union to citizens, as well as how EU institutions have evolved their communication strategy over time. Tom also shares his experiences as a speechwriter in EU trade policy, and how speech writing compares with social media communication. We also discuss current trends in EU institutional communication, and what lessons might be learned from coronavirus pandemic moving forward. Be sure to subscribe to Tom's newsletter: Speaking Moylanguage! 

Jeffrey Alexander, Professor of Sociology at Yale University, discusses his cultural sociology approach to political performance and cultural icons. We start out with the concept of fusion, and how political actors work to achieve it through the elements of political performance. Then, we turn to a discussion of objects, affordances, and the power of political icons. Here's some extra reading on the topics we cover in the episode: Cultural Pragmatics: Social Performance Between Ritual and Strategy (2004)The Performativity of Objects (2020)

Dr. Jean-Christophe Plantin, Associate Professor in Media and Communications at the London School of Economics, explains the concept of media infrastructures. We discuss Dr. Plantin's research on digital platforms, infrastructures, and how tech giants like Facebook and Google increasingly blend those two concepts. We also discuss the infrastructure of WeChat, and get into Dr. Plantin's ongoing work into the concept of programmable infrastructures - which explores how the hardware of the tech industry is becoming increasingly disagreggated and modular. Check out Dr. Plantin's recent talk at Sciences Po for more details on programmable infrastructures. And the articles we discuss in the episode: Digital Media Infrastructures: Pipes, Platforms, and Politics (2018)Infrastructure Studies Meet Platform Studies in the Age of Google and Facebook (2018)WeChat as Infrastructure: The Techno-Nationalist Shaping of Chinese Digital Platforms (2019)