Social media are now widely used for political protests, campaigns, and communication in developed and developing nations, but available research has not yet paid sufficient attention to experiences beyond the US and UK. This collection tackles this imbalance head-on, compiling cutting-edge research across six continents to provide a comprehensive, global, up-to-date review of recent political uses of social media.

Drawing together empirical analyses of the use of social media by political movements and in national and regional elections and referenda, The Routledge Companion to Social Media and Politics presents studies ranging from Anonymous and the Arab Spring to the Greek Aganaktismenoi, and from South Korean presidential elections to the Scottish independence referendum. The book is framed by a selection of keystone theoretical contributions, evaluating and updating existing frameworks for the social media age.

Axel Bruns is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and Professor in the Digital Media Research Centre at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia.

Gunn Enli is Professor of Media Studies and Head of the Research Project "Social Media and Election Campaigns" (SAC) at the Department of Media and Communication, University of Oslo.

Eli Skogerbø is Professor in Media Studies and Co-Head of the Political Communication Research Group at the Department of Media and Communication, University of Oslo.

Anders Olof Larsson is Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Media and Communication at the University of Oslo.

Christian Christensen is Professor of Journalism at Stockholm University.

Introduction PART I: THEORIES OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND POLITICS, Politics in the Age of Hybrid Media: Power, Systems, and Media Logics, Network Media Logic: Some Conceptual Considerations, Where There Is Social Media There Is Politics, Is Habermas on Twitter? Social Media and the Public Sphere, Third Space, Social Media and Everyday Political Talk, Tipping the Balance of Power: Social Media and the Transformation of Political Journalism, Agenda-Setting Revisited: Social Media in Mainstream Journalist, "Trust Me, I Am Authentic!": Authenticity Illusions in Social Media Politics, How to Speak the Truth on Social Media: An Inquiry into Post-Dialectical Information Environments, PART II: POLITICAL MOVEMENTS, All Politics Is Local: Anonymous and the Steubenville/Maryville Rape Cases, Social Media Accounts of the Spanish Indignados, Every Crisis Is a Digital Opportunity: The Aganaktismenoi Movement's Use of Social Media and the Emergence of Networked Solidarity in Greece, Social Media Use during Political Crises: The Case of the Gezi Protests in Turkey, Structures of Feeling, Storytelling, and Social Media: The Case of Egypt, The Importance of 'Social' in Social Media: The Lessons from Iran, Digital Knives Are Still Knives: The Affordances of Social Media for a Repressed Opposition against an Entrenched Authoritarian Regime in Azerbaijan, Social Media and Social Movements: Weak Publics, the Online Space, Spatial Relations and Collective Action in Singapore; Social Media and Civil Society Actions in India, Cyberactivism in China: Empowerment, Control, and Beyond, Voicing Discontent in South Korea: Origins and Channels of Online Civic Movements, Nationalist and Anti-Fascist Movements in Social Media, PART III: POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS, From Emerging to Established? A Comparison of Twitter Use during Swedish Election Campaigns in 2010 and 2014, Social Media in the UK Election Campaigns 2008-14: Experimentation, Innovation and Convergence, Compulsory Voting, Encouraged Tweeting? Australian Elections and Social Media, Not Just a Face(book) in the Crowd: Candidates' Use of Facebook during the Danish 2011 Parliamentary Election Campaign, Social Media Incumbent Advantage: Barack Obama's and Mitt Romney's Tweets in the 2012 US Presidential Election Campaign, The 2012 French Presidential Campaign: First Steps into the Political Twittersphere, The Emergence of Social Media Politics in South Korea: The Case of the 2012 Presidential Election, Interactions between Different Language Communities on Twitter during the 2012 Presidential Election in Taiwan, Social Media Use in the German Election Campaign 2013, Comparing Facebook and Twitter during the 2013 General Election in Italy, Social Media and Election Campaigns in Sub-Saharan Africa: Insights from Cameroon, Social Media and Elections in Kenya, Electoral Politics on Social Media: The Israeli Case, Social Media and the Scottish Independence Referendum 2014: Events and the Generation of Enthusiasm for Yes, The Use of Twitter in the Danish EP Elections 2014, Twitter in Political Campaigns: The Brazilian 2014 Presidential Election