Power Shift? Political Leadership and Social Media examines how
political leaders have adapted to the challenges of social media,
including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and memes, among other means of
persuasion. Established political leaders now use social media to grab
headlines, respond to opponents, fundraise, contact voters directly, and
organize their election campaigns. Leaders of protest movements have
used social media to organize and galvanize grassroots support and to
popularize new narratives: narratives that challenge and sometimes
overturn conventional thinking. Yet each social media platform provides
different affordances and different attributes, and each is used
differently by political leaders.
In this book, leading international experts provide an unprecedented
look at the role of social media in leadership today. Through a series
of case studies dealing with topics ranging from Emmanuel Macron and
Donald Trump's use of Twitter, to Justin Trudeau's use of selfies and
Instagram, to how feminist leaders mobilize against stereotypes and
injustices, the authors argue that many leaders have found additional
avenues to communicate with the public and use power. This raises the
question of whether this is causing a power shift in the relationship
between leaders and followers. Together the chapters in this book
suggest new rules of engagement that leaders ignore at their peril.
The lack of systematic theoretically informed and empirically supported
analyses makes Power Shift? Political Leadership and Social Media an
indispensable read for students and scholars wishing to gain new
understanding on what social media means for leadership.
