Top

Published in:

2023 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

6. Social Media, Security and Democracy in the Digital Age

Author : Joseph Downing

Published in: Critical Security Studies in the Digital Age

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.

search-config

AI-assisted search

Off

Abstract

This chapter questions the relationship of critical security studies and security through the prism of democracy. It does this by examining two examples from the French presidential election of 2017 that demonstrate the complicated relationship between social media, democracy and security and the unexpected ways that these are constructed online. Both of these examples are also hashtag campaigns and thus bring the dimension of hashtags that enable users to index their posts and connect them to broader debates on social media. The first example #MacronLeaks seeks to push analysis of this classic “hack and leak” operation further than examining the contents of the leak but by examining the broader construction of the leak on social media. The coverage on Twitter is dominated by anti-Macron sentiment that delves into anti-semitic conspiracy theories, connecting Macron to terrorism and the “Islamisation” of France and refuting Russian involvement in the leak. This demonstrates that the critical discursive turn in the security studies enables us to go furthering in examining how the social media environment can construct democracies, and indeed direct threats to them, in connection with other key themes in contemporary security and politics, like conspiracy theories and terrorism.

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 102.000 Bücher
über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Automobil + Motoren
Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 67.000 Bücher
über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

previous chapter Social Media and Vernacular Security in the Digital Age

next chapter Social Media, Security and Identity in the Digital Age

Available only for authorised users

AJC. (2022) Rothschild | #TranslateHate | AJC. Available from: https://www.ajc.org/translatehate/Rothschild (Accessed 15 August 2022).

Albertson, B., & Guiler, K. (2020). Conspiracy theories, election rigging, and support for democratic norms. Research & Politics, 7(3), 2053168020959859.

Allcott, H., & Gentzkow, M. (2017). Social media and fake news in the 2016 Election. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 31(2), 211–236.

Allington, D., & Joshi, T. (2020). “What others dare not say”: An antisemitic conspiracy fantasy and its youtube audience. Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism, 3(1), 35–54.

Allmer, T. (2015). Critical theory and social media: Between emancipation and commodification. Routledge. Available from: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781315750491/critical-theory-social-media-thomas-allmer (Accessed 27 June 2022).

Anderson, B. (Ed.). (2006). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. Verso.

Aradau, C. (2004). Security and the democratic scene: Desecuritization and emancipation. Journal of International Relations and Development, 7(4), 26.CrossRef

Arp, R., & Guilfoy, K. (2017). Google-books-ID: p4A0DwAAQBAJ. The Americans and philosophy: Reds in the bed. Open Court Publishing.

Auger, G. A. (2013). Fostering democracy through social media: Evaluating diametrically opposed nonprofit advocacy organizations’ use of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Public Relations Review, 39(4), 369–376.

Bail, C. A. et al. (2018). Exposure to opposing views on social media can increase political polarization. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(37), 9216–9221.

Baker, C. E. (2001) Google-books-ID: bCYvXzjh2uoC. Media, markets, and democracy. Cambridge University Press.

Barberá, P. (2020). Social media, echo chambers, and political polarization. In Social media and democracy: The state of the field and prospects for reform (pp. 34–55). Cambridge University Press.

Barrett, P. et al. (2021). How tech platforms fuel U.S. political polarization and what government can do about it. Brookings. Available from: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2021/09/27/how-tech-platforms-fuel-u-s-political-polarization-and-what-government-can-do-about-it/ (Accessed 2 January 2022).

Bavel, J. J. V. et al. (2021). How social media shapes polarization. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 25(11), 913–916.

Bernard, A. (2019). Google-Books-ID: P5anDwAAQBAJ. John Wiley & Sons.

Bertsou, E. (2019). Rethinking political distrust. European Political Science Review, 11(2), 213–230.

Bigo, D., & McCluskey, E. (2018). What is a PARIS approach to (In)securitization? Political anthropological research for international sociology. In The Oxford handbook of international security. p. Available from: https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198777854.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780198777854-e-9 (Accessed 12 March 2021).

Browning, C. S., & Joenniemi P. (2017). Ontological security, self-articulation and the securitization of identity. Cooperation and Conflict, 52(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/00108367166531.

Bubandt, N. (2005). Vernacular security: The politics of feeling safe in global, national and local worlds. Security Dialogue, 36(3), 275–296.

Buzan, B. et al. (1997) Security: A new framework for analysis. UK ed. edition. Lynne Rienner Publishers.

Cohen-Almagor, R. (2018) US-Saudi Arabia relations: Business as usual? Available from: https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3300569 (Accessed 18 May 2022).

Conseil Constitutionnel. (2017). Dispositions pénales: partie législative en vigueur—Conseil constitutionnel présidentielle 2017. Available from: https://presidentielle2017.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/tout-savoir/en-resume/textes-de-reference/dispositions-code-electoral-rendues-applicables/dispositions-penales-partie-legislative-vigueur/index.html (Accessed 14 August 2022).

Cosentino, G. (2020). From Pizzagate to the great replacement: The globalization of conspiracy theories | SpringerLink. In Social media and the post-truth world order, p. [online]. Available from: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-43005-4_3?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app (Accessed 16 August 2022).

Croft, S., & Vaughan-Williams, N. (2017). Fit for purpose? Fitting ontological security studies ‘into’ the discipline of international relations: Towards a vernacular turn. Cooperation and Conflict, 52(1), 12–30.

Dencik, L., & Leistert, O. (2015). Google-books-ID: iOHaDwAAQBAJ. Critical perspectives on social media and protest: Between control and emancipation. Rowman & Littlefield.

van der Does, R. (2018). Political institutions, trust, and security. Available from: https://www.leidensecurityandglobalaffairs.nl/articles/political-institutions-trust-and-security (Accessed 17 August 2022).

Downing, J., & Ahmed, W. (2019). #MacronLeaks as a “warning shot” for European democracies: Challenges to election blackouts presented by social media and election meddling during the 2017 French presidential election | SpringerLink. French Politics, 17(3), 257–278.CrossRef

Dreyer, P., & Bauer, J. (2019). Does voter polarisation induce party extremism? The moderating role of abstention. West European Politics, 42(4), 824–847.

Giddens. (1984). The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration. University of California Press.

Gray, M., & Caul, M. (2000). Declining voter turnout in advanced industrial democracies. Comparative Political Studies, 33(9), 091–1122.

Guess, A. M., & Lyons, B. A. (2020). Misinformation, disinformation, and online propaganda. Socail media and democracy: The state of the field and prospects for reform (pp. 10–33). Cambridge University Press.CrossRef

Harkinson, J. (2017). Inside marine Le Pen’s ‘foreign legion’ of American alt-right trolls. Mother Jones. Available from: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/marine-le-pen-alt-right-american-trolls/ (Accessed 15 August 2022).

Hegre, H. (2000). Development and the liberal peace: What does it take to be a trading state?—Havard Hegre. Journal of Peace Research. Available from: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022343300037001001 (Accessed 16 August 2022).

Holland, J. (2011). ‘When you think of the Taliban, think of the Nazis’: Teaching Americans ‘9/11’ in NBC’s The West Wing: Millennium. Available from: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0305829811408680 (Accessed 3 December 2018).

Howell, A., & Richter-Montpetit, M. (2020). Is securitization theory racist? Civilizationism, methodological whiteness, and antiblack thought in the Copenhagen School. Security Dialogue. Available from: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010619862921 (Accessed 3 July 2020).

Jackman, R. (1987). Political institutions and voter turnout in industrial democracies. American Political Science Review, 81405–423.

Jackson, R., & Hall, G. (2016) Talking about terrorism: A study of vernacular discourse. Politics, 36(3), 292–307.

Kent, M. (2001) Managerial rhetoric as the metaphor for the World Wide Web. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 18(3), 359–375.

Kent, M. L. (2013). Using social media dialogically: Public relations role in reviving democracy. Public Relations Review, 39, 337–345.CrossRef

Levitsky, S., & Way, L. A. (2002). The rise of competitive authoritarianism. Journal of Democracy., 13(2), 51–66.CrossRef

Lewis, B., & Marwick, A. E. (2017). Media manipulation and disinformation online. Available from: https://datasociety.net/library/media-manipulation-and-disinfo-online/ (Accessed 13 January 2022).

Lewis-Beck, M., & Lockerbie, B. (1989). Economics, votes and protests: Western European cases. Comparative Political Studies, 22155–177.

Madalina, C. (2015). Globalization and the conspiracy theory. Procedia Economics and Finance, 23677–681.

McCoy, J. et al. (2018). Polarization and the global crisis of democracy: Common patterns, dynamics, and pernicious consequences for democratic polities. American Behavioral Scientist, 62(1), 16–42.

McCoy, J., & Press, B. (2022). What happens when democracies become perniciously polarized? Available from: https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/01/18/what-happens-when-democracies-become-perniciously-polarized-pub-86190 (Accessed 20 May 2022).

Meehan, E. R. (1988). Technical capability versus corporate imperatives: Toward a political economy of cable television and information diversity. In V. Mosco & J. Wasco (Eds.), The political economy of information. p.

Norris, P. (2002). Democratic Phoenix: Reinventing political activism. Cambridge University Press.CrossRef

Nussbaum, E. (2017). How Jokes won the election. Available from: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/23/how-jokes-won-the-election (Accessed 26 December 2018).

Oliver, J. E., & Wood, T. J. (2014). Conspiracy theories and the paranoid style(s) of mass opinion. American Journal of Political Science, 58(4), 952–966.CrossRef

O’Mahony, T. P. (1974). The press and democracy. Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, 63(249), 47–58.

Pee, R., & Schmidli, W. M. (2018). The reagan administration, the cold war, and the transition to democracy promotion. Springer.

Perry, J. (2021). Trust in public institutions: Trends and implications for economic security | DISD. Available from: https://www.un.org/development/desa/dspd/2021/07/trust-public-institutions/ (Accessed 17 August 2022).

Persily, N., & Tucker, J. A. (2020). Introduction. In Social media and democracy, the state of the field and prospects for reform (pp. 1–9). Cambridge University Press.

Popper, K. (1962). Google-books-ID: _M_E5QczOBAC. The Open Society and Its Enemies.

Przeworski, A. (1999). Minimalist conception of democracy: A defense. Defining Democracy, 6.

Robinson, W. I. (2006). What to expect from US “democracy promotion” in Iraq. New Political Science, 26(3), 441–447.CrossRef

Rosema, M. (2007). Low turnout: Threat to democracy or blessing in disguise? Consequences of citizens’ varying tendencies to vote. Electoral Studies, 26(3), 612–623.

Rumelili, B. (2015). Identity and desecuritisation: The pitfalls of conflating ontological and physical security. Journal of International Relations and Development, 18, 52–74.

Schmitz, D. F. (2006). Google-books-ID: 1EV440YU6toC. The United States and right-wing dictatorships, 1965–1989. Cambridge University Press.

Schumpeter, J. A. (1942). Google-books-ID: QmSLAgAAQBAJ. Routledge.

Silverman, C. et al. (2018). Macedonia’s Pro-Trump fake news industry had American links, and is under investigation for possible Russia ties. Available from: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/american-conservatives-fake-news-macedonia-paris-wade-libert (Accessed 13 January 2022).

Solijonov, A. (2016). Voter turnout trends around the world | International IDEA. Available from: https://www.idea.int/publications/catalogue/voter-turnout-trends-around-world (Accessed 27 April 2020).

Sunstein, C. R. (2018). Republic.com 2.0. Princeton University Press.

Uscinski, J. E. (Ed.). (2018). Conspiracy theories and the people who believe them. Oxford University Press.

Vilmer, J.-B. J. (2019). The “macron leaks” operation, p. 58.

Title: Social Media, Security and Democracy in the Digital Age
Author: Joseph Downing
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Book: Critical Security Studies in the Digital Age
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-20733-4

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-031-20734-1

Copyright Year: 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20734-1_6