Digital Media and the Dynamics of Civil Society: Retooling Citizenship in New EU Democracies

Based on an extended empirical research project, this book advances the theoretical, normative and practical understanding of civil society under the conditions of digital mediatization and in relation to a set of particular historical and geopolitical circumstances.

Digital Media and the Dynamics of Civil Society adds to existing knowledge of the democratizing role of digital media in communication studies by carefully tracing the trajectory of the emergent communicative and representational practices of civil society in a pair of new European democracies - Estonia and Bulgaria - facing distinctive socio-cultural and political challenges. The book combines macro and micro perspectives to illuminate the activities of civic activist and civil society organizations in the new media environment taking into account the social and cultural developments characteristic of each country. Have digital media contributed to the constitution of a new public space fostering the vitality and democratic potency of civil society in countries where it has suffered historical obstacles?

These chapters address this question by traversing the whole range between personal, group and societal beliefs, lived experiences and actions unfolding in a concrete region at a time when civic activists around the world are grappling to understand and harness the powers of digital communication.