Defining Democracy in a Digital Age

the long version

The Internet revolution is at the centre of the creation of the new economy of advanced capitalism, which is uprooting the social and economic base from which the stable democracies of the twentieth century emerged. These established democracies are under increasing strain to retain public support in this new economy, and are ever more critically appraised. One product of the new Digital Age is the social media, a site of mass private expressions of opinion on a global scale. Measuring support for or the decline of democracy in this new public sphere is crucial for democratic endurance. This book presents a methodology for measuring these sentiments on Twitter, and shows how this method can initiate a process to give structure and coherence to this mass of unique individual expressions. It considers how such results can contribute to the shaping of new imagined communities supportive of democracy in this turbulent Digital Age--